I believe it was purely a cosmetic addition (optional on a lot of cars, std issue on some "packages"). I've heard horror stories of the damage vinyl roofs can do over 30+ years (damage to the roof unknown until the vinyl was removed).
You are way too young to remember, but there was a time in the 60's and 70's when vinyl tops were more the norm than non-vinyl tops. It was considered somewhat of a luxury item. My uncle bought a brand new '69 Camaro Super Sport with 396, four speed, rally wheels, and...white vinyl top. He still has and the vinyl top.
yep, my pop had a merc with a vinyl top , it was the cats a++ at the time. we used to love watchin the headliner suck down at 100 mph on the hills in wis. thats another story. but hawkos right,they were a luxury adornement.
Technically not correct. Vinyl tops were a wanted item. That was all the excuse that was needed to do bad body work. However, since the early vinyl tops were a thin layer of vinyl and glued right on the metal, flaws in the metal work could be seen in the contours of the vinyl. Now, the "padded" vinyl tops popular in the late '70s to early '90s could hide a lot of bad body work.
I had a '72 Hurst Olds with a vinyl roof so thick, I could use it for a mattress. The 'far out' factor was off the charts.
The purpose was to make the car look like old people owned it. It was also to make the car look gawdy, and to cause damage to the roof over time, as a result of trapping moisture beneath it...
We must have gotten pretty lucky with the Maverick we have. When I pulled the vinyl top off the 77' Maverick we bought last summer, there was pratically no rust at all underneath it. It had sat for 15 years outside in all kinds of weather, yet the only rust to speak of was around the drip rails where the vinyl had peeled up or cracked. I do beleive that the purpose of a vinyl top was for appearances. It was a pretty common option back then. Some people loved them, others hated them. It all depended on peoples taste when they either ordered the cars new or bought them off the lot. I'm not all that wild about them myself, but we elected to replace the one on our Maverick because the car has the LDO option which included the wide moldings with the white inserts. Another reason was because the car is red on red, red outside and red inside. The white top helps break up all that red color.
I'd say it would be a board without all of TL's insightful comments... but thats just my insightful comment....
You can see the glass as half-full, see the silver lining behind the clouds, see the Sun behind the darkness, see the good side of things, look for the positives, or you can look at it the way the T.L. does.
I like glasses that are all the way full. Vinyl tops suck. They are right up there with shag carpeting and all the other stupid stuff from the '70s. That's not "my way" of looking at things, it's reality...
