I recently had my 1967 Camaro repainted. It appears that the roof was replaced years ago. Very well done also. My guess is that it originally had a vinyl top. I have heard that back in the 60’s the vinyl tops were glued on to bare metal. Do you think there is any truth to that?
I never heard of them being on bare metal but as they deteriorate moisture gets underneath and promotes rust. After a few decades it might well look like there was never paint under there.
Never heard or seen that before, but they tend to trap water underneath so were very prone to rusting. They were painted, but maybe didn't they got the full paint job like the rest of the car so when water gets trapped and starts rusting thing out and then the vinyl gets removed it looks like it was never painted in some cases.
There is truth to it, and a lot of guys still do the practice today. They use adhesive such as Landau Vinyl Adhesive or 3M Contact Cement to put them on.
Whole car was painted, first. Next, vinyl applied, … trim after. Problem with trim was that it did not hold well, … so trim was redesigned so it had an insert in it, … to hide a pop rivets through it. Yes!
After vinyl was applied, it was trimmed with with a strip that was firmly secured with pop rivets - they just drilled small hole, pushed a rivet head through and popped it! After, … they just snapped in the insert, … to hide those ugly rivet heads.
Anyway, … holes drilled were left raw, rivet heads were raw - usually from dissimilar metal to body metal, rivets had a hole in the middle of them (usually plugged with that inverted nail that you pull on it until it snaps to form a bottom head of a rivet). Add moisture to that brew, … instant rust cell! Perfect example of thoughtless applied engineering!
F.S.
