Vinyl roofs

As the style of the times, vinyl roofs were all the rage in the early seventies.

But when was a vinyl roof not a vinyl roof ?

When it was a Continental Top, and they were definitely of their time.

The Continental Roof

It would appear that Continental roofs were not a factory offered option like those shown at the top of this page, but were fitted by dealers. Also, they were not limited to one area of the country, but were from all over. I guess they were ‘groovy’ for the period.

They did come in a wonderful variety of styles across the XA and XB models.

XB four door

Very wild XA GT four door

XA Falcon 500 four door

XB GS hardtop, with close-up of the ‘Continental’ badge

A similar XB GS hardtop

Another XB GS hardtop, but if you look closely, you will see that the top is different in style being shallower under the quarterlight and running straight across the top of the door.

Here is another view of this style of Continental top running further along the door.

And the associated trim pieces.

XB GT hardtops were not immune either.

And it even carried over to the XC.

And ZH Fairlanes.

You have to love those acres of vinyl.

And just in case you thought the XA GT escaped ?

From an old newspaper advert, described as a ‘Vinyl in continental style’.

This is a variation on the standard vinyl roof.

But with strange flying buttress extensions.

And yet another, even stranger.

Here is another Duhig car, this time a very heavily optioned XA GT with the same sunroof as above. This was a dealer option roof, and seems to have been unique to Duhig. This particular car appears to have been the dealer principle’s car, plus a showroom/car show attraction.

And here is the GT cleaned up and back on the road.

The current owner of the above GT has acquired some old photos of the car which shows it was a very unique car indeed. Duhig, the dealer, fitted it with a Clarion stereo, rear demister, rear electric aerial, blue vinyl roof and boot lid, blue paintouts (blue outs ?) , 8x15 Aunger mags. And doesn’t it look seventies stunning ?

Possibly another ‘Duhig’ roofed car, this time an XA Fairmont.

The finishing to this roof is slightly different as it seems to extend more onto the door, than the Duhig XB above.

Here is yet another variation of the above style of roof, fitted to an XB Falcon 500.

A dealer fitted vinyl roof on an XA GT with the conti roof irons.

Here is another variation of a roof, as fitted to Peter’s XC hartop.

Peter wanted to remove the rear spoiler but found that the chrome trim had been removed at the ends of the vinyl.

But perhaps the strangest we have seen is this car, which, while it may be suffering from a crisis of identity regarding its wing badges, has the wildest roof yet seen.

It would appear to have a very seventies American style ‘opera’window cut into the ‘C’ pillar. Bizarre. Plus, like the red Duhig car above, the vinyl roof stops halfway along.

Thanks to Steve for the photos of this car, and the additional photos above of the gold XB GS hardtop he owns.

However, subsequent to posting the above photos on this page, I received this photo from Dan, a friend who has moved to New Zealand.

Unlike the opera window car, this GT still seems to be in use. Brave man or woman.

Here is another funky XB vinyl top, this time on a GT. This is a genuine Metro Ford Horn car with imitation targa roof,made up of nifty brown vinyl and stainless edging strips.

There were two XB GT’s fitted with the ‘targa vinyl’. Both are shown above, one with black trim, the other with brown.

Seventies-vinyl-tastic.

ZF Fairlane continental roof

XC Falcon 500

Here is yet another variation of the Continental roof running, like the grenn XA GT at the top of the page, on to the front doors.

The LTD Landau roof

 The Landau had another variation in shape to accomodate its altered rear quarter window, but it was also thickly padded and featured shorter extensions over the tops of the rear wings.

The Landau roof material, showing the padding.

But, thanks to the folk on the Australian Ford Forums, we have, perhaps, the strangest roof, or roof modification, to any Ford we have seen yet.

T-Tops

Someone has gone to an awful lot of trouble to add T-Top roof panels to this de-vinyled Stratosphere Grey Landau. Weird, but innovative.

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