Pre-war (up to 1942) 1939 LaSalle - Interior Trim Inquiry

[39LaSalleDriver]

A little over two years ago I decided to redo the interior trim work on my car, but determined to hold off on doing the seat covers. The trim work was a mess, but fortunately, gave me enough of a pattern to work from to do it somewhat properly. So three weeks ago I went all in and ordered materials to redo the seats. It has been quite an adventure (yes, I am making them myself) but so far, I have been fairly pleased with the results.

My inquiry comes back to the panel which sits above the arm rest and below the quarter window. When I redid this panel a couple of years ago, it appeared to me that there was not a solid backing panel to the cloth which attached in there. What I had was basically a chipboard "frame" which suspended the cloth and a layer of batting around the edges which was then tacked in.

Now that I'm redoing that area permanently, I am wondering if I am missing something. Should that whole panel be backed by chipboard, cardboard, whatever you want to call it, or is it just basically like a picture frame with the material stretched taught across it? Seems to me it should be more solid. Does anyone have any experience with this, or can state whether there is a hard(er) surface behind that cloth?

[LaSalle5019]

Hi Jon,
My car has an original interior. I checked the rear seat area and can feel a stiff "cardboard" frame around the area you described but I also feel a material in the center of the frame that provides a padded support. If I were to describe it in terms of a modern material, it feels something like a polyester batting.
Scott

[Ohjai]

Jon I don't know if this is helpful or not, but in this picture you can see the wooden structure for the arm rest of a 1938 Cadillac 60S.
Jim

[39LaSalleDriver]

Hi Jon,
My car has an original interior. I checked the rear seat area and can feel a stiff "cardboard" frame around the area you described but I also feel a material in the center of the frame that provides a padded support. If I were to describe it in terms of a modern material, it feels something like a polyester batting.
Scott

Thanks again...this corresponds with what evidence I had, though it it is somewhat flimsy design in my mind. When it comes to this kind of stuff, I like to double check everything because it had gone through a "restoration" some years ago and I don't always know what I am dealing with. Whether it is factory original, or a restoration trimmers fanciful interpretation is sometimes in debate. Here are a couple of photos of what I ended up making based on the evidence I had. I replicated this panel board framework if you will, covered with wool batting as you noted, and then the fabric itself from the mess I had that came with the car. It was attached to the door frame with nail on panel clips, and presumably tacked to the arm rest and window frame tacking strip. I just had to imagine that there was some sort of more substantial backing on there, but apparently not from your observations. Also note in the photos, that there is a panel board section mounted to the body which helps support this section from the interior. I recreated it from the remnants of the original that was in the car. Like I say, it's pretty flimsy, but I guess got the job done.

This is all valuable information to me as I have had to painstakingly recreate every bit of trim work myself based on a mix of questionable previous restoration work, and some small elements of factory original parts. From what I can tell, very few car owners have ever attempted to do what I am doing so information and photos are severely lacking. The luxury of ordering a pre-made interior kit to have installed by an upholstery shop doesn't exist anymore, and quite frankly, I don't know of a shop that I could turn to that I would trust to do the job right. So I have to do it myself or it doesn't get done. So again, thanks for the observations and assistance for these little nagging details that I can't find the answers to anywhere else.

As for Jim's photos, the 38s appear to be similar in concept, but slightly different. Note the arm rest photos from my car. I was more interested in the panel above them. That being said, restoring, rebuilding, stabilizing, and recovering those arm rests has been the biggest challenge in this whole project.

[LaSalle5019]

Sure. Let me know if you need anything else.
Scott