Right Hand Drive 356

[Steve Heinrichs]

Hi.

Tough problem. Carpet info is not on the kardex. You would need to get codes from Reutter book. Personally, I'd go with whatever you like best.

Steve Heinrichs

[bbspdstr]

Ask your interior decorator....sorry, a joke.

Professionally, I get questions like his all the time and usually answer as Steve has about personal taste being important in ownership of such a car.

An Aquamarine blue car with blue upholstery would be stunning with tan (or 'oatmeal') carpet with blue binding, however a Dolphin gray C I recently restored had blue upholstery and blue carpet. I'd think blue/blue/blue may be too much blue.

-Bruce

[Murugesh Nidyananda]

Thanks for the input guys. Anyone makes carpets online?

[JTR70]

Murugesh, Sometimes the color of carpet the car was originally outfitted with was not documented at the factory. I got confirmation from Steve H. a while back that the carpet color in my coupe was indeed not noted. Fortunately the original beige carpet on the tunnel was still with it.
Autos International sells carpet kits...
Justin

[Murugesh Nidyananda]

Thanks Justin.

Will work on it. The interior looks pretty good but it's dated. And I want it to be as close to concours as I can. Will post pictures along the way.

[Carrera GT]

Ask your interior decorator....sorry, a joke.

Professionally, I get questions like his all the time and usually answer as Steve has about personal taste being important in ownership of such a car.

An Aquamarine blue car with blue upholstery would be stunning with tan (or 'oatmeal') carpet with blue binding, however a Dolphin gray C I recently restored had blue upholstery and blue carpet. I'd think blue/blue/blue may be too much blue.

-Bruce

From a Factory choice perspective - Oatmeal carpet wasn't avaialble until later in the A series for 1958/59. In 1956, the carpet was most likely an A or B choice (without seeing the Reutter codes) for Aquamarine Blue paint exterior: Anthracite Grey and/or Dark Tan / maybe Red. Anthracite, not to be confused with Charcoal black (a darker color) is more of a medium Grey tone.

Also, the carpet in Coupes were trimmed on the edges in cloth - but some had vinyl binding too.

Michael Doyle

[bbspdstr]

Hummm, Michael, we may need to go back to the Samba for the letter code info, as I thought that was just upholstery and had little to do with carpet. I do know that the chippies in Atlanta would often place on the CofA that there was "no interior color recorded" because the letter code was with the paint code on the Kardex and they weren't told. They may know now.
Oh, I also mentioned 'oatmeal' as the volunteer interior decorator, not a concours judge, as...'dah-ling...that would look just RAVISHING with blue binding and dah-cah blue leather in an Aqua Marine ensemble`.....(if the owner liked that scheme.)
I 'restored' an extremely complete and original '54 Cabriolet in the '70s which was Fish Silber then painted over with Mode Grau by me because the owner liked that better with the blue leather and blue carpet with a mix of blue leather binding and blue herringbone binding. It was recently sold into a serious collection and being redone by Paul Russell & Co. as original. I was instructed to put a blue top on the car back then, so what it gets now remains to be seen.

[Steve Heinrichs]

The Reutter "code" stuff is very interesting. And, not always easy to decipher. In the forthcoming book as to 4-cams, etc., we opted to not show the various letter codes since sometimes they were missing and sometimes not whatone would expect. Depending upon the year, etc., codes descibed exterior color (and sometimes with words not code numbers), seat upholstery, corduroy, other upholstery, headiner, carpet front or back or both, dash, soft top color and number, hardtop color and number, tonneau.

All really easy (heh, heh).

Steve Heinrichs

[S.J.Szabo]

At the risk of diverting the thread point, I would like to add a dash of personal experience to this interiors stew.

Its the 5607 (Aquamarine Blau) that caught my eye, along with the seldom noted blue carpet from the Factory, as the Trusty Coupe (T1, 58302) came so equipped. Now, the hook is this: the car (did I mention that it too was/is 5607?), which left the Factory with no noted first owner beyond Max Hoffman (making it likely (along with the car's status as one of the first batch of MY '57s) that it was intended to be a floor model), was fitted with grey vinyl upholstery over that blue carpet (edge-trimmed with blue cloth). As a Sidebar, I will note that the sill tops (and the dash, of course) were painted in the exterior color.

What does it mean? Not much, other than that either Hoffman or Porsche keyed the carpet color to the exterior color and not the upholstery. Call it an interesting tidbit.

[Carrera GT]

At the risk of diverting the thread point, I would like to add a dash of personal experience to this interiors stew.

Its the 5607 (Aquamarine Blau) that caught my eye, along with the seldom noted blue carpet from the Factory, as the Trusty Coupe (T1, 58302) came so equipped. Now, the hook is this: the car (did I mention that it too was/is 5607?), which left the Factory with no noted first owner beyond Max Hoffman (making it likely (along with the car's status as one of the first batch of MY '57s) that it was intended to be a floor model), was fitted with grey vinyl upholstery over that blue carpet (edge-trimmed with blue cloth). As a Sidebar, I will note that the sill tops (and the dash, of course) were painted in the exterior color.

What does it mean? Not much, other than that either Hoffman or Porsche keyed the carpet color to the exterior color and not the upholstery. Call it an interesting tidbit.

SJ,

Your Aquamarine Blue (metallic? should be) - early '57 coupe (T1 beehive) 58 302 - was still built as a 1956 series. The standard interior choices were Red or Grey vinyl as choice A or B. Later production '57 coupe models had a choice of Red or Brown vinyl. Cord Samt (velvet corduroy) seat inserts were done as well. Do your fat back style seats have Grey corduroy inserts on them?

To know your car had Blue carpets is interesting. Sounds like a very nice combination that goes very well with the exterior paint color.

By the way - all the carpet colors installed by Reutter had a 4 digit code number assigned to them.

Michael Doyle

[Carrera GT]

>Now, the hook is this: the car (did I mention that it too was/is 5607?), which left the Factory with no noted first owner beyond Max Hoffman (making it likely (along with the car's status as one of the first batch of MY '57s) that it was intended to be a floor model)

>Call it an interesting tidbit.

SJ,

Ok...you do ask good questions, and teed it up by putting the tidbits out there.

Re: floor model --- at the time your 356A coupe was made and delivered (as many/most others) Max Hofmann was the sole and only "Importer" of Porsche cars to the USA. This car could have been an order for his inventory, for one of his customers, or for a customer of another Dealer who was required to buy it through Max Hofmann - this made Max a wealthy man. So, on first delivery, the car was transported to either Max's dealership or directly from the Port docks to wherever that other dealer was located.

This is why Max Hofmann is the only name listed on your kardex or CoA.

Perhaps we have diverted the thread...

Michael Doyle

[Murugesh Nidyananda]

I love the diversion. It means I'm learning so much more about my ride!

So who would be the best to get carpets from. How much are they usually?

[Carrera GT]

I love the diversion. It means I'm learning so much more about my ride!

So who would be the best to get carpets from. How much are they usually?

On the side - I do Vinyl/Carpet flooring sets for the Carrera GS and GT cars. As well as the best Speedster recreated seats to be seen - either on original steel shells or reproduction steel-aluminum shells. My patterns include for your T1 356A coupe. I can give you a quote off-line using wool square weave carpet - but note, my prices are higher - being non-high production, and we do hand cut the binding and trim.

Otherwise, there are a number of production carpet set vendors you can order and buy from. Try Google for a list. They will all have competitive pricing.

If you have a question - you can reach me at: md4mdoyle@sbcglobal.net

Michael Doyle

[Murugesh Nidyananda]

Thanks mate. Just sent you a mail.

[Murugesh Nidyananda]

The previous owner opted for no badges and a clean look.

During concours, what would a judge be looking out for?


I should change this topic to my RHD 356 ( asking all my questions here )