There were plenty of variances from the factory. You could take a piece from one car,and it could be off,if you put it in a different car. I have studied a bunch of original and concours-restored Chevelles and GTO with the red interior,to see how it would have possibly been done for Buick. As you know,most colored interiors are two-tone,and sometimes 3-tone. A lot of it depended on if it was metal,plastic,or vinyl. It would be easy to just make everything the exact same color,but it doesn’t look as sharp.
To tell you how bad the factories matched colors, when Ford built the 65 Mustangs the entire interior was supposed to be the same color. They had so many different companies making parts, due to the huge volume of cars they were selling, that they looked 2-tone and customers were complaining. To "fix" the problem, they made the 66 interiors 2-tone, and everything was fine. Duane
71 Buick Saddle there is a big difference in the color between the smooth vinyl color and the perforated. I have NOS material in both and color is off. Originals look different too. Maybe it is just time? The NOS I have are different manufacturers like Ford. I paid a lot for this stuff years ago. Anyone want it cheap?
Funny how they brag about expanded vinyl. You can feel it’s thicker. When I have stripped cars I can tell door panel vinyl is not the same as seat vinyl. Door panel material is thinner on originals. Legendary they both appear the same.
BP is one manufacturer and Naugahyde another. I have seen Uniroyal vinyl on original car vinyl too. They even date coded the vinyl.
Dave, What you are seeing on the vinyl pieces is how they age. Different vinyl batches age at different rates, so even the vinyl samples in the books may look a little different after all these years. One year at Carlisle, I was selling a guy a Saddle interior for his 72 GTO and he swore it came from the factory with a tu-tone interior. He would not believe it was all the same color, so I asked him if he drove his car there. He did, so we went for a walk. His interior definitely looked tu-tone. After he verified he was buying an interior from us, I opened up one of the seams with a razor knife and showed him that the vinyl was all the same color on the inside where the Air had not gotten to the vinyl. At that point he had no choice but to believe we were selling the right colored interiors. Of course he had a hard time believing I would take a razor knife to his car, but it was the only way to convince him. Duane
I remember my 71 looked two tone as well! Now I sit here with all this 71 Saddle yardage just wasting away. Let me know Duane if you know anyone who wants it. I will sell it cheap. A shame to waste it.
Firestone also made some of the material. I have a set of original 1970 seat covers,from a late 70 car,and they have Firestone stamped on the underside.