Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Hi
have red 1953 Caribbean, want to install new top and interior, guidance on color please
Ken

Would you take pictures of your front and rear door panels and your kick panel too? I want to see what they look like.
Thanks

I think car was originally green, I think interior was replaced in 70s and is ready again, the color is brown and white the kick panels are brown

Attach file:

---

  (54.71 KB)

Thanks.

So the 53 Caribbean did not have metal trim bottoms on the door or kick panels?

Actually it looks like your color scheme is Matador Maroon. Same as mine. Paint scheme U, Trim code 76.

Exterior of the top should be white and interior black.

The top was not a canvas cloth but rather more of vinyl type of material. Others here can give you the exact name. Regardless, it is no longer produced. My local trim guy came up with a decent substitute.

Ahhh-ahh-ahhhhh! Interior of all 1953 Caribbean tops was off-white. These were all done this way at Mitchell-Bentley for Packard. Bows were white... inner side of the top fabric was white. Yes, I have factory photos and somewhere, material samples.

Black insides is a more recent phenomenon of the 1960s-on.

Original material was a woven fabric made of slightly silky threads, backed with butyl and then an inner face of a off-white fabric sandwiched together during manufacture of the material.

While people today will suggest this material was "canvas"... actually it was not. Close, but not the same. Closest stuff to use today can be canvas (IF you can find it in the right colors...Mercedes for a short time had a white canvas with light tan inner facing, but it was insanely expensive and insides were done in Dobby-wave pattern). Or vinyl in what is commonly known in the industry as "diamond pinpoint grain" (again, tough to find it with a light inside). Of course, it is most common to find both canvas and vinyl since the 1960s with a black inner face, but this was not the case when Caribbeans were new.

I know that the Haartz people have been working on assembling guides to vintage top fabrics. No idea what they have done in this area for Caribbean. I still have my huge binders of all convertible top fabrics courtesy many years ago of my friends at Robbins Auto Top Company in California. I began collecting top fabric samples in the 1960s. Today, I believe I may have samples of just about every convertible top fabric ever.

1953 Caribbean top boots were also off-white, but did not have colored piping as shown in the photo of the earlier posting.

Seats for a Matador Maroon Caribbean with be white leather bolsters and tops with maroon leather inserts. No brown.

I am attaching an overhead photo of the original prototype/pilot 1953 Caribbean in green (lower left of the image). Notice the colors and patterns on the seat and top boot. By the way, it is a digital illusion in this particular photo that seems to show pleats in the boot. There were none. They were only in the seat tops. Of course, the seats were genuine leather as opposed to today when language and understandings have become so perverted that vinyl is being called "leather" by some folks (when did this craziness begin?).

Attach file:

---

  (111.96 KB)