Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

I am looking to buy carpet floors mats for a 56 Caribbean convertible. Does anyone know where you can buy correct reproduction floor mats?

Thanks

I believe the only source of proper looking carpet is Neal Porter. I haven't read that he sells already finished work though so you might need to buy bulk carpet and have a local upholster make the mats. Dwight Heinmuller sells a complete 55-6 carpet set in proper colors made out of modern Karastan? material which fits and looks great but is not texture authentic. I don't believe anyone else offers carpet sets made out of anything other than modern nylon auto carpet.

A repro of one of the earlier Packard style original accessory rubber mats available in black only is offered by Kanter. AFAIK, no one else makes any Packard floor mats or has the second style and colors offered for the 55-6 rubber mat accessory.

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Howard, just a bit of trivia for you. The owner of Karastan Carpet is also the owner of a 1936 Super Eight convertible coupe with rear-mounted spare. Lives locally here in northern New Jersey.

My car has the original carpet. I was interested in what floor mats look like for 56 Caribbean? Does anyone have photos of what the multicolored floor mats looked like? I would especially love to see what the multicolored car mats look like since I have multi colored paint.

I have spoken to him. He is a great source of information. I would really like to see what the multicolored floor mats look like. Black rubber mats just don't look right for the Caribbean.

You might consider coco mats. They can be had in a wide variety of colors, are of high quality, and can be custom made. I find them attractive and period correct. Try cocomats.com. JWL

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"Car-Pets" were one of 3 different factory accessory floor mats offered in 1956. Car-Pets were color coordinated, but they were not multi-colored. Just one color. They came in brown, black, and gray from what I recall.There may have been other colors as well.

When my 1956 Caribbean convertible was stolen, I had a NOS set of Car-Pets in the original box in the car. They were in brown color. At one time I had several sets of these, but this was my last set and they disappeared forever.

Car-Pets were a Packard factory accessory and were like carpet on one side and textured vinyl on the other. They were held in place with special snaps that were screwed into the floor of your car. Thus they were removable for cleaning.

Today, nobody seems to recall this Packard accessory floor mat for 1956. There was also a rubber floor mat that had a color V8 circle and V symbol. I only ever had one set of these and they also disappeared. The third type of floor mat was the black rubber "Packard" ones that are fairly common today.

Not a very good illustration but here is what the 56 accessory brochure has to offer for the rubber mats. I didn't see a mention of the Car-Pets in anything I have.

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Yes, the illustration here shows the two rubber mats I described. The one on the right had a color insert that showed the circle & V symbol for V8 Packards. You will also note there is mention of "choice of colors" which I believe applied only to the V8 mats which I have seen in black, gray, blue.


However, Car-Pets were also a Packard accessory for 1956 and may have been added too late to make the publication. But they did say "Packard" on the boxes with a logo and were color-coordinated.

Eventually when I find time to go through my records in deep storage I may find more info on them.