I thing I found carpet to match oem Options

[PanelBilly]

https://www.upholsterysupplyusa.com/product...ver-knit-carpet

Is this the right stuff?

[JeffBowlsby]

A quick follow-up to this excellent thread, I am time challenged at the moment.

The charcoal carpet change for the LEs did occur in about the middle of the LE production. VIN 14854 is a the 9th week car and it clearly has the earlier charcoal carpet, not the salt and pepper later version (photo of 14854 from my files). I have not found a good match for this early charcoal carpet.

To my eye, the later S&P carpet looks very much like the Classic & European L907 Charcoal that Wonk posted above.

[wonkipop]

A quick follow-up to this excellent thread, I am time challenged at the moment.

The charcoal carpet change for the LEs did occur in about the middle of the LE production. VIN 14854 is a the 9th week car and it clearly has the earlier charcoal carpet, not the salt and pepper later version (photo of 14854 from my files). I have not found a good match for this early charcoal carpet.

To my eye, the later S&P carpet looks very much like the Classic & European L907 Charcoal that Wonk posted above.

i dug in a little further before knocking off last night.

so this white fibre mix in the carpet called hair yarn is exactly that.

originally it was horse hair mixed in with the wool.
the horse hair reinforced the carpet yarn/fibres and made it stronger and long wearing.
as horses disappeared in the kind of numbers they once were in from the urban/rural landscape in the 20th century other animal hair fibres also began to be used.
goat hair being one of them.
apparently this type of yarn was very particular to german manufactured carpets.
almost a kind of tradition in germany.
(more recently its been making a comeback in architectural applications given that it is completely made of natural fibres).

so thats what is going on here.
the base fibre being used is hair yarn with the wool being dyed to the color desired/required. black. brown. tan. in the case of the 73 and 74 914s.
additionally there was one other carpet. a variant of brown which was lighter but this was purely wool carpet fibre without the hair. not hair yarn.

and from there with the base stock this is how the germans did it based on what i can dig up.

first. lowest quailty. needle loom. this is where the carpet is not looped back through the backing. it is simply punched in from on end into the backing layer with a needle tool. this is made from the base black/bown/tan hair yarn.

second. next level quality. loop pile. as the name implies. yarn is looped back into the backing. this is sometimes also described as square weave. but this term is too broad as it does not cover the yarn being used specifically. this pile carpet is german square weave pile made with black/brown/tan hair yarn.

third. top level quailty. velour. this is loop pile stock which is then literally mowed,
like a lawn mower. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) they cut through the base loop pile. it produces something sort of vaguely akin to needle loom except its much denser as final product. and smoother.
reason its expensive is that half the fibres are wasted to make it, being cut off and thrown away. this velour carpet is made with black/brown/tan hair yarn.

all three versions use the same base material.

VWs got the needle loom as the base type of this carpet across the board.
i believe 914s got it in accord with that. more on that later.

VWs also got the loop pile but in higher spec applications.
ie up optioned type 4 sedans, karmann ghias and 914/4s.

Porsche got the velour (cut pile).

all more or less over concurrent time spans. through the sixties and into the early to mid 70s.

----------

i've also gone back over my research material.
i feeling like the evidence points to what i had suggested re needle loom in the USA market for 1974. that is they dropped it from USA market cars.
i'll make another post. but i have dug up the images from my files.

i have the 73 examples and 74 examples. and i have images of the 74 base euro 1.8 held in the porsche museum.

its interesting - and possibly helps settle or at least goes toward helping to settle the question of what should go into a 1974 restoration. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)