I’ll never forget my first shag carpet experience: it was 1968, and I as I did every morning then, I walked over to my friend Mike Fitzsimmons house before walking to Loyola High School. His brother opened the door, and told me Mike would be down soon (he was chronically late). As always, I walked into the foyer and turned left into the living room to wait for him, when I was confronted with a sea of brand new ankle-deep thick, gold shag carpeting. I was blown away, having not yet experience what was the hot new thing that year and what would soon take America’s living rooms by storm.
I was afraid to step on in it in my Bass Weejuns, as it seemed sacrilegious to sully this fluffy substance with whatever my shoes had contacted on the sidewalk. Wow. I wanted to get down and roll in it; naked, preferrably. I remember putting my hands into it, to experience its deep, soft, fluffy pile. I experienced a mixture of awe and revulsion, as it was obviously something new and expensive (at the time) but it seemed so utterly impractical. But it came to dominate the flooring industry for some years, until it was suddenly gauche, and everyone had to rip up their shag carpeting. I ripped the last of it (lime green) out of our 1977 Dodge Chinook camper. It was almost 30 years old; yuck.
Here’s some more 1971 Lincolns reveling on carpeting, if not quite as deep pile shag as this
The late ’60s and early ’70s were the golden years for wall-to-wall carpeting; how many millions of square feet of beautiful hardwood floors were covered over in this time period? In a way, that was a good thing, because it meant that when a new generation of younger folks like us bought our first houses in the ’80s, the first thing we did was to tear out the carpeting and discover beautifully preserved hardwood floors! Thank you, even if tearing up carpeting wasn’t exactly fun. One never knew exactly what it would be; our house in Eugene had lovely white oak hiding under its late-sixties carpeting.
This Lincoln coupe is on just plain deep pile carpeting.
Landlords (other than me) actually seemed/seem to like wall-to-wall carpeting in their rentals, as they could charge for a deep cleaning every time the place turned over, and they didn’t have to deal with damaged wood floors from students and young adults. I couldn’t stand them, so I refinished the mostly fir floors in mine. But that’s softwood, which got gouged and damaged very easily. And after a few sandings, it was worn down to to tongue and groove, and couldn’t be sanded again.
I put in laminate flooring (“Pergo”) over it, but that was a mistake: it’s hard and loud and nasty, and any spill where liquid gets in between the edges makes the compressed-wood fiber backing swell and ruin the look. I hate it now.
But thanks to plank vinyl flooring, all my landlord flooring problems are solved. Cheap, quick to go down, waterproof, looks pretty decent, and essentially damage proof. The ultimate flooring solution.
Now where’s a shot of a new Lincoln on some luxury plank vinyl flooring?
Haha, I remember the era well. I remember the excitement when it came time to re-carpet our late 50s house in 1972 and we filled the place with glorious shags. And later, the rite of ripping up carpet in my own homes to find beautiful old hardwood under it.
The other Lincoln/carpet memory I have was in my father’s 1970 Mark III – it was the first car I had ever seen with something other than the short loop-pile carpeting that was in pretty much every car from the 50s or 60s. I remember Ford making a big deal about the “cut pile” carpeting in Lincolns, which soon moved down to less exclusive cars, and was virtually universal by the mid 70s.
Might all that shag carpeting be there to emphasize the Lincoln’s plush ride?
We bought our house in St. Joseph, MO, in 2001. The prior owner, a lady in her 90s, was going to assisted living. There was red shag in two the bedrooms and brown deep pile carpeting elsewhere although the kitchen had some sort of indoor/outdoor rubber backed nastiness. It all came up.
As you correctly observed, all that shag carpeting had beautiful hardwoods underneath. All we had to do was pull up the tack strips and sweep it.
Incidentally, I vividly remember the tag beneath the red shag. Produced by DuPont, it was called “Psychodelic – Red”. The house had been built in the late 1960s.
Photo credit: https://www.alpackerlincoln.net/2019-lincoln-mkc-black-label-west-palm-beach-fl.htm
Even better were carpeted toilet seat covers, and carpeted bathrooms in general. One can only imagine how many new species of superbug evolved in those.
A word about thick shag carpeting on bare skin: that shit itches!
Our current house, built in 1991, was a spec house, that is, a “demonstrator” of the builder’s prowess. It came with a fully carpeted master bath, including around the toilet and up the side of the whirlpool tub’s enclosure.
Needless to say, the part under the toilet didn’t last long — so gross!
Carpeted bathrooms were a trend I never understood. Here’s a bathroom carpet ad from the era of this Continental brochure:
The carpet on the floor I can kinda understand, but carpeting on the toilet tank?
I can only think of one advantage to a carpeted toilet tank: It somewhat prevents and/or catches the drips that occur if the tank “sweats.”
But while the ad goes on about how it’s machine washable, for the life of me I can’t figure out how you’d be able to fit that much carpeting into a typical washing machine.
And have fun finding a contact lens that fell into shag carpeting.
I remember the shag carpeting in my ’76 Cordoba.
The most memorable shag carpet incident I can think of was a friend getting drunk at a high school graduation party. He vomited onto it and then landed in it and passed out. We pulled him up the next morning and the sound of his jeans peeling off of the carpet was like velcro.
Lots of deep-pile, but not quite shag carpeting in the house I lived in in the ’70s. I remember before the wall-to-wall (including one bathroom) carpet was installed. Not over “beautiful hardwood floors”, but rather the cheapest oak strip flooring that every builder-grade house had in the ’50s and ’60s. It looked (and felt) better covered with carpeting. Nice, well-finished, interesting species of wood in nice patterns I do like to keep exposed.
I had the place I’m in now wall-to-wall carpeted, but I wouldn’t use it for a rental again as it’s difficult to replace just a section of it, yet often necessary to. 2 ft x 2 ft carpet tiles with wavy edges so the lines between them aren’t obvious are great for rentals – why aren’t these more widely available? I’ve had mixed experience with laminate – one in a kitchen for the last 25 years that still looks new (though a not all that attractive marble look). One cheap wood-look floor from Home Depot’s house brand that’s 12 years old and also still looks new. But also 2′ x 4′ stone-look laminate tiles whose centers sagged into the underlayment, causing the edges to stick out and get badly chipped after 5 years. The manufacturer (Mannington) agreed to replace it under their long warranty for free had we chosen another laminate, but all they make now in laminate are rustic, weathered-looking woodgrains that would have clashed with the modern surroundings. So we paid a few hundred dollars to upgrade to the “luxury vinyl plank” floor in a nicer dark wood color called African Sunset which doesn’t match anything in the room but still looks good on its own. The same material is sold as “luxury vinyl tile” or LVT, same thing except for the shape and the patterns which are more likely to be marble-like, stone-like, or laminate patterns that don’t try to imitate anything natural. Something about the gloss on this new floor makes it not look quite like real wood though, made worse by the texture not matching the pattern printed on the tile. Unlike the aforementioned laminate woodgrain floor where if there’s a knot in the “wood”, the texture is knotted too, rather than straight texture lines going through the knot.
After the carpet boom of the ’70s ended, about half of America’s carpet manufacturers (like about 25 of them) went out of business, and several others got bought out by stronger companies. One of those, Shaw, carefully moved in to grab dealers and suppliers of failing or failed carpet mills, all the while vertically integrating to cut out middlemen and reduce costs. While nobody on Wall Street was watching, this little-known company’s market cap increased 50-fold from 1980 to 1992, by then a $2 billion company.
Best carpeting in a car I used to drive was the wonderfully thick, high-sheen cut pile in our 1977 Bonneville Brougham. It covered unusual areas like the front seat floor area side kick panels and the bottom of the front seatback, for the benefit of rear seat passengers pushing their feet under the front seat. The rest of the interior was upscale but quite restrained for something with “Brougham” in its name. That changed for 1978 when it got new seats with the full Cadillac Fleetwood Talisman treatment. But still no shag carpeting.
I had shag carpeting in my bedroom as a child. Not my choice, obviously; the house came with it. I remember the vacuum cleaner attachment with the rake that was specifically designed for shag. It never really worked right.
Being the precocious lad that I was, at the ripe old age of (about) 10, I pulled a corner of that nasty stuff and discovered a solid oak, old growth wood floor. The house was built in the late 1920s. I showed my parents, and they agreed to let me rip out the carpeting and tack strips. The floor was beautiful.
Carpet and dog pee are not a good combination over hardwood.
My DTS Platinum has Cadillac’s “premium” floor mats with: short loop carpeting, of slightly better quality than GM used to use everywhere. Why don’t they put it back on the door bottoms, so journalists will quit complaining about the hard plastic that everyone kicks and scratches on the way out?
Ralph L.
Exactly.
Shag carpeting is one of those bad ideas that people adopt because it is trendy, and then years later the love turns to hate as everyone finally realizes how misguided it is. There are many examples of this in our modern day world.
Shag is one of the many entries in Jane & Michael Stern’s excellent book “Encyclopedia of Bad Taste”. Apparently Elvis drowned in his own shag carpeting.
Ever seen this 1966 AMC commercial? (“The Red Carpet Ride”–I wonder if the cars really rode that well!)
Love this ad!
The brand new dorm I moved into at college in 1971 had orange shag carpeting in the rooms.
Here’s a photo from Halloween 1978 of the carpeting in our rental apartment in Louisville, Kentucky. Loud enough for you?
I wonder how many drips they left on the carpet after the photo shoot.
Speaking of leaving drips on the carpet, I have a cousin who when she was young went through boyfriends and husbands regularly. She had white shag installed in her bedroom. I’ll bet that was one crusty rug.
Shag! Yuck!
It was never clean. Nasty crap.
My newlywed wife and I moved into a beautiful 1930 home that still had shag in the living room, bedrooms and baths. I tore them out and – lo and behold – beautiful dark wood floors! The landlords were so thrilled at the work I did, we ended up making that home our first home together. We loved it so much, but it was not in a great location and predated indoor plumbing. (Tiny water closet and shower).
Shag in cars – yes – it happened. In vans – de rigeur. GLAD IT IS GONE.
Ah, memories! Mine are mostly just a mirror to the rest of the comments above.
First, that brown Lincoln Cont 2 dr in the first picture looks like the exact car from a movie that I can’t recall the name to now. It was about some bad guys from Italy or somewhere and they came to the USA and were selling drugs.
Last thought? I really loved the very long and plush carpet on the floors, mats and bottom of the doors on the special edition Cadillac models like the D’Elegance and Biarritz. I was still quite young then, but I recall going into the Cadillac dealership and looking with amazement at the brand new 1979 Cadillac’s. I opened the door on the one (a D’Elegance) and ran my hand over the carpeting. Amazing!
Likely it was The French Connection: https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_2340-Lincoln-Continental-Mark-III-65A-1970.html
RRJ: Thank you!! That is exactly the movie! I just couldn’t think of it. I still have that movie on (VHS) tape. lol. Once in a while I pop one of my old “car” movies in the VCR and watch them, that is until my old VCR drops dead.
In his autobiography, The Friedkin Collection, director William Friedkin goes into some detail on the making of The French Connection. One particularly interesting fact that he covered was the difficulty which he had in getting Gene Hackman, who played Popeye Doyle (real life detective Eddie Egan’s character in the movie) to actually get in character. And why? It turns out that once Hackman was exposed to Egan’s extreme racism, he simply had no desire to be that man (even though it was only for the movie). “I think he’s a racist, I think he uses his power over people to intimidate them.” “He goes too far.” Well, Friedkin got Hackman to act the part by having Hackman take his anger out on Friedman himself, and it worked as Hackman got the Oscar for best actor leading role, and Friedkin got his for best director. I’ve always liked Hackman (who is a fantastic actor), but now I have a level of respect for him as never before.
Twenty years ago and before the ’70s had come back into vogue, I purchased a mustard yellow shag carpet area rug for my house in much the same color as the lead shot. My friends said I was nuts. Now one can pick up a shag carpet area rug at Target. My old one is now 20 years old, though, and it’s nasty. I have shaken it outside from time to time, but help you if you spill coffee or something on it.
In the case of these ads, I can’t help but think of what kind of auto fluids leaked onto the carpets below even during what I presume to be a photo shoot that didn’t take all that long. Wonder what happened to all those yards of new carpet.
We moved into a rental in 1975 where the previous tenants’ daughter had pink shag pile carpeting in her bedroom. My mother, who would use the room as her study, thought it would be good to keep it as it would be warm underfoot in DC winters. After she trod on hardened chewing gum knotted into the carpet for the umpteenth time the carpet was gone… and now nearly 50 years later my wife, an interior designer, has put a shag pile area rug in our study. The circle of life!
My 72 Maverick LDO had cut pile carpeting that was deeper than it looks in this ad, an exact duplicate of my car’s interior. You had to constantly vacuum and shampoo it just to get out the dirt and dust from the dry SoCal climate. I imagine this carpet was a real pain in wet and muddy weather in other areas of the country.
When I bought my house in 1993, it still had bright red shag from when the house was built in 1968. Replaced all the carpeting prior to moving in. Then replaced the carpeting one additional time. Then replaced it with ceramic tile all through the house 8 years ago.
Waiting for linoleum to make a comeback.
A sister bought a ’68-ish house in ’92 that was overrun with a rampant, bright orange shag pile. Whilst its lush extent barely outshone the matched wallpaper that was as furry as a balding Muppet, it was the winner, and an unspeakable thing. On mildly close examination of the florid flooring, it became apparent that there were some actual turds, along with a multitude of dependent lice and their relatives in nature, and to ensure mass-gagging was replaced by active help in renovation, the demand came for its immediate and professional removal before sibling assistance would continue.
It is perhaps needless to add that this house was in neglected order, and had possibly been a place of something quite unpleasant – one bedroom had a good lock on the OUTSIDE of the door. A shag prison for someone, it seems.
I’m irritated to this day to think she and hubby sold the by-then immaculate house just four years later, given the collective free input – such is the lot of a brother – but I swear the pong of the rubber underlay of the Seaweed City pile never entirely left.
The world moves on, and with it, the words of their times. And so it is that these days, I like a good shag, whether it involves carpet or not.
I KNEW there would be many comments about shag carpeting .
I hated it then as now, only a few didn’t grasp how easily it became filthy .
-Nate