Cadillac floor and trunk areas - what to do?

[57CaddyBiarritz]

Hi-

Restoring a 1957 Biarritz and was hoping for some opinions on what to do with the interior floor and trunk area before putting the carpeting back on.  the floors are in pretty good condition (dirty, but with limited rust; thick black coating in certain spots), but I can't really find what the correct method of restoration is for these areas.

Should I remove all what I can via sandblasting and then prime it?  Do I paint it also - the car color or just a semi-gloss black?  It won't be visible once it's back together, but like most of us here, I just want to restore it in the right way.

Thanks!

[Eldovert]

John,
The floors were painted with the red primer first then the undercoating was applied. When the car was color coated the overspray made it inside onto the floors.There was no effort from the factory to get the color coat onto the floors.Sometimes the painter would put small body colored pieces on the floor to paint..there is evidence of this with my '55 Eldo. The various tarpaper panels went down last.
HTH
Cheers,Pat MacPhail