Gator Grain V. Top Material:

Just found a roll of this in black. Is this the right stuff - the correct pattern?

I will let others decide. I have this piece from a 70 Challenger.
Last time I had seen the material from NOS it had a date of 1969 or so stamped on the back.

Man it looks like it could be, even looks to still have some of the brownish tint to it, but I'm thinking close but no cigar. If you look at 6bblgt's Sport Fury top it looks like in the closeup pic at least some of the scales seem to have little tick marks in the original material, where yours doesn't appear to?

https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/2327508/5.html

Also in addition to the 1969 date code the original stuff is stamped with 'Stauffer Chemical' on the back, might be the biggest giveaway.

Is that from SMS Fabrics?

No. Do they offer a "close" substitute for this stuff? I don't believe what I found is actual OE stuff though. It IS black, not brown. My cell photo does look a little brownish, but it is black. I'm not even sure if it is exterior grade stuff, but it seems pretty heavy-duty. Not much different HD-wise than my roll of Boar Grain silver/black stuff. The roll is wide enough to do the Challenger wide seams.

Yeah up until Legendary started offering their reproduction gator grain the material from SMS was pretty much the only option unless you found NOS. I guess it was better than running a regular boar grain top if you had a gator grain car but wasn't really close to the original if you looked at the two side by side.

It's close enough for my ride. Know anybody that can do the seams to custom fit my Charger's roof?

SMS has the Gator mat'l in black, you can either have them do a top for you, or have Legendary make the top for you, with SMS's material, as Legendary sources a lot of their mat'l from SMS directly

Legendary also offers the Gator grain in it's brown/black dyed original configuration (I suspect the "New" Legendary "original" style Gator offering is SMS's mat'l with a dye job, I could be mistaken though?)SMS's last quote that I seen for a BLACK GATOR grain top using their mat'l was $500, Legendary BROWN/BLACK GATOR grains are $1200-$1500 last I recall

Cool! Thanks!

I'd love to own an original Gator Grain topped car. A loaded to the gills
Imperial or 300 would be nice.

V1G - "gator grain" vinyl top was not available on a Chrysler (& I bet that included Imperial)

I found this as part of the front seat when I was taking the seat apart (factory Chrysler cover). Is this Gator Grain?

that appears to be '70s V1Y - "tortoise grain" it was available on Fury hardtops & 2DR coupe (& maybe some others?)

Cool. I didn't know that there was such an option.

Original weathered sample at left & an SMS sample at right.

Dan,there was a 70 Imp coupe local to me 30 yrs ago with a gator grain top.