Carpet in 1930s cars

[31nash880]

I did look this up but did not fine complete answer. Working on a 1931 Nash 880 4 dr sedan. Looks like interior has been done once maybe in 60's or 70s. 

Have seen posted that many cars like this had rubber floor covering in front, carpet in rear. Many pics I have found of these cars restored have carpet front and rear. Guess I can decide this.

Unanswered question is, does the floor covering go under the front seat? To do the maintenance that I am, had to remove front seat to remove carpet. Would this covering not be easily removable for servicing?

Sorry,no good pictures. 

[Steve Braverman]

Of all of my early 30s cars, none has carpet that extends under the front seat. Most "production" cars had rubber up front and carpet in the back. I recently bought a 1930 Franklin, and the lower-end cars all had rubber mats, while certain body styles, including my seven-passenger sedan, had carpet up front. There is no real consistency here. Franklin was very specific as to which styles had rubber mats and which had carpet, and its detailed in the sales literature as well as the parts catalog. 

[Bloo]

Rubber in front in almost all cars. Carpet in the back in most closed cars. Cars with carpeted fronts existed, like some versions of the Model A Ford. I've seen original(!) front carpeting still present in a 1932 Pontiac V8. It seems odd today that most cars had rubber in front, but it's normal for the 30s. One practical aspect is that the front takes all the abuse, and in those old flat floored cars, you can sweep them out with a whisk broom.

 

Many 30s cars have something important under the front floorboards like maybe a battery or a master cylinder, and if that is the case you have to be able to roll the mat back for access. Heavy rubber was the order of the day. Modern SBR rubber that is mostly plastic and doesn't weigh anything is unlikely to stay put in my opinion. Carpet never stayed put very well, and was less practical in cars where you need access under the front floorboards. The 32 Pontiac V8 had some hidden snaps to keep the carpet from pushing forward.

 

I would expect nothing under the front seat unless it folds open. If it opens, probably a mat of some kind. If you have to unbolt the seat to get under there, maybe some jute for sound deadening, maybe nothing. That is a guess.

 

[TexRiv_63]

Higher priced cars like Packard and Cadillac had front carpet but they also had the batteries located in areas that did not require floorboard removal.

[hidden_hunter]

2 hours ago, TexRiv_63 said:

Higher priced cars like Packard and Cadillac had front carpet but they also had the batteries located in areas that did not require floorboard removal.

Yep, and the sales booklet points out this “luxury” of having plush carpet in the closed cars which was secured via press studs

[chistech]

Many of the early thirties cars had a tool tray underneath the front seat. Accessible by removing the front seat cushion. Just in front of the tool tray (and the rear )edge was a 3/4-1” high board the width of the seat side rails. These boards were to keep things from going under the front or rear of the seat and falling into the tool tray. The front floor rubber mat, which was cut straight across the rear edge, went right up against the front board just under the front f the seat. Two pieces of rubber matting were tacked down on each side of he seat slider rails to cover the sides of the sills. These side pieces went slightly pass the front and rear boards so the front mat and rear rug would go over the ends. This is how many GM and other brand cars were done. Does your Nash have a tool tray under the front seat?

[TexRiv_63]

12 hours ago, chistech said:

Many of the early thirties cars had a tool tray underneath the front seat. Accessible by removing the front seat cushion. Just in front of the tool tray (and the rear )edge was a 3/4-1” high board the width of the seat side rails. These boards were to keep things from going under the front or rear of the seat and falling into the tool tray. The front floor rubber mat, which was cut straight across the rear edge, went right up against the front board just under the front f the seat. Two pieces of rubber matting were tacked down on each side of he seat slider rails to cover the sides of the sills. These side pieces went slightly pass the front and rear boards so the front mat and rear rug would go over the ends. This is how many GM and other brand cars were done. Does your Nash have a tool tray under the front seat?

My 34 Chevy

[Bloo]

7 minutes ago, TexRiv_63 said:

My 34 Chevy

What holds the lower seat cushion in place to prevent it sliding forward?

 

[PFitz]

1 hour ago, Bloo said:

What holds the lower seat cushion in place to prevent it sliding forward?

 

Often there was a metal fitting screwed to each end of the underside of the seat cushion's front wooden frame that jammed against the seat base front wooden frame. If you look closely at the rear edge of the seat base's front wood frame you can see evidence where those fittings rubbed and chewed the wood from taking the cushion in and out. 

 

Paul

[chistech]

If you look at Texriv_63’s 1st picture you can see what looks like where a board was fastened right along the back edge of the tool tray on rear floor. The front board, if it’s there cannot be seen because the front of the seat frame is blocking the view. When I was installing interior kits from Lebaron Bonney, the kits always came with two pieces of vinyl to cover these 1”x3/4” boards as the originals were covered. In many cars these boards are long gone.

[31nash880]

Chistech,

Thank you for your description. That helped a great deal.

My seat was mounted over the carpet making it impossible to remove floor covering without removing seat.

You also asked if I have a tool area under the seat. Yes, the other side is were the battery sits. That will be rebuilt this winter.

Thanks to all

[chistech]

you’re welcome and I’m glad I was able to help. Found a picture of the 30 I recently restored. If you look at the picture closely and enlarge it, you will see the back edge of the floor mat is up off the floor because it was just a little too long and was sitting on top of that board/strip of wood that runs along the front of the tool tray. The end of that board are recessed so the ends can be closer to the seat sliders allowing space for slider to go  over each  end of the board. The board is painted black and hard to see so enlarge the photo and look right at the end of the floor mat. I trimmed the floor mat so it would be flush with the face of that board. The board serves double duty as it not only prevents things from sliding underneath the seat but it also prevents the floor mat from moving back away from the cowl, pedals, and shift tower.

[Bloo]

Is the seat movable on that car?

[CHuDWah]

On 1/6/2023 at 12:31 PM, Bloo said:

...One practical aspect is that the front takes all the abuse...

 

That's logical - there's always at least one person (the driver) in the front.  OTOH, I'd think Mom and Dad would be in the front so the easy-to-clean rubber should be in back with the messy kids, dogs, whatever.

[nzcarnerd]

This is a subject I had not really given much thought to. Our mostly original 1929 (Canadian-built) Plymouth probably lost its original front floor covering a long time ago, though I still have the original rear mat.

 

My 1928-built, 1929 model Studebaker Dictator cabriolet was restored by its previous owner in the 1980s and has (modern) carpet on the floor with fixtures to hold it in place. It is not that hard to remove to access the battery. The only other known example of this model was restored in the US and is probably more correct.

 

 

[31nash880]

Thanks to all for your contributions. Glad I asked the question

 

One more while on subject of floors. My son bought up that rubber floor mats would be more prone to hold water under them and cause rot. My car still has most of its original floor in good shape. Do any of you use a sealer on the wood before the covering?

[chistech]

7 hours ago, Bloo said:

Is the seat movable on that car?

If you mean the car I showed, yes.

[chistech]

18 minutes ago, 31nash880 said:

Thanks to all for your contributions. Glad I asked the question

 

One more while on subject of floors. My son bought up that rubber floor mats would be more prone to hold water under them and cause rot. My car still has most of its original floor in good shape. Do any of you use a sealer on the wood before the covering?

Many of the cars used a preservative/insecticide which I know was made of copper arsenic and I think blended with either pine tar or more likely, creosote. If you look at original woods often you will see a green color which man mistake for mold or a color caused by water when in fact it’s the copper arsenic you see. You will often see other areas of the wood that’s brownish which I believe was used to make the green be brown and more pleasing to the eye anywhere the wood was exposed to the eye. With both copper arsenic and creosote off the market, copper naphthalene and pine tar have to be substituted. This is what was originally done and varnishes were not applied on body wood framing that was covered by metal. Today, many do it but it’s not what was originally done. Cuprinol would be a good clear preservative/insecticide to use. Again it could be “browned” with pine tar or even some good brown stain. It was realized years back that insects could destroy the wood way faster than than moisture.

[31nash880]

Thanks to all for the info here.

Getting to the point of reinstalling things and realized we never covered the topic of types of carpet.

Did they use cut pile or looped? Shag?lol. Colors?

Would like to stay somewhere near period correct.

Thanks again to all helping.

[West Peterson]

Front seats of high-end OPEN cars even had carpet up front in the early 1930s

[Bloo]

1 hour ago, 31nash880 said:

Thanks to all for the info here.

Getting to the point of reinstalling things and realized we never covered the topic of types of carpet.

Did they use cut pile or looped? Shag?lol. Colors?

Would like to stay somewhere near period correct.

Thanks again to all helping.

Nothing you can still buy (almost). Wool would have been common. Hogshair was possible.

 

You can still buy Wilton, which is a weave style typically made in wool, not a brand. You will find several types. It is a cut pile carpet, with a stiff woven back. In modern times, there may be some kind of a binder on the back.

 

There were loop styles. You can still buy "German square weave" in wool. It is or should be a stiff woven backed carpet. The loops are not cut. Since as far as I know no types of USA loop carpet from the 30s are still avaiable, German square weave starts to look attractive. It has a stiff woven back that might or might not have binder in it today. It can "look old". The trouble is, most of it does not come from Germany anymore, and doesn't look quite like it did. Postwar German car restorers are complaining that there are less knots per inch. "In my case, who cares?" I thought, because I have heard that USA square weaves back in the day had bigger knots (I can't prove it). I ordered some. When you get it in your hand though, it really can't pull off the "old" look as well as the old German stuff. It is still a stiff carpet, and looks like reasonable quality, so it has that going for it.

 

Speaking of stiff carpet, a lot of these old cars didn't have much holding the carpet down. In most cases the carpet was pretty stiff. The floors were flat or almost. You see a lot of cars for sale on the forum here that have modern automotive carpet installed. Modern automotive carpet is meant to stretch to deal with some of the postwar floorboard curves. It looks pretty good when first installed in a 30s car, but soon turns into a mess by stretching and wear, while the original carpet would have been stiff and heavy and held it's shape better. Watch the ads in the "Not Mine" forum and you will see what I mean right away. I think if a person was going to use modern carpet, I think the better option would be some commercial short loop or very short pile carpeting that is stiff like the old wool carpet was.

 

Wilton of some sort is probably your best option. For colors in regular cars, there was a preponderance of taupe, gray and maybe beige interiors, and the carpet color usually followed. In expensive cars, all bets are off.