Finally seen a 72 Kingswood Estate with the RARE cloth interior option!

Well, I was finally able to find someone that actually has a 72 Caprice wagon with the ultra rare optional brocade cloth interior. I know we had mentioned this on the 72 Country Squire thread about its upgraded interior.

I have only seen this upgraded cloth interior optioned mentioned in the sales brochure of the 72 Chevy wagon, never actually seen one with it, but finally heard of someone mentioning their 72 Kingswood Estate had that option!

I had wondered if the 3rd seat on those optioned with it was also cloth and sure enough, they are!

Here are some pics he sent of his wagon he emailed and I thought I would share. Its also a rare color... silver. I had never seen another silver one either.

This has to be a RARE car! It also has the rear window defogger.

 

love that pattern!

 

Wow could be a cool car. Wonder if the engine is out with the nose that high?

 

wow what a really optioned out car. Probably has all the bells and whistles and add on too. Makes me wonder if it was born a COPO car. Some high up at GM had it, being so rarely hi optioned car. Looks like its in decent shape also. Body isnt hammered, the inside looks ok also.

 

sweet wagon,I like that goon..............

 

Geeze.....I remember that cloth back in the day. I wonder if they still have it available as replacement material?

 

Presto! http://www.smsautofabrics.com/product-info.php?pid=72-2415&pcl=c&ino=8618

SMS Auto Fabrics!

 

Cool! Good find, wix!

 

Me too. Pretty common patterns in the early 70s.

I think he said the engine is out. He has another that has a nicer body and is torn on which one to restore. The other is a 72 Kingswood Estate and it has a factory vinyl top!

Yeah, I am not really sure how the car is optioned otherwise. He said the rest of the seats were as nice.

Yep, I have had a few late 60s/early 70s GM cars with that brocade cloth. As Wixom posted below, you can still get the material. I have got samples from them and even this sample for a 72 Caprice wagon with the cloth option... its identical! I was impressed. Had my wagon had a poor interior, I would definitely recover with this, but my interior is near mint, so I dont want to do it.

 

I really love the way these 72's look...such a handsome front end...IMO the best full-size Chevrolet styling of the 70's, with 71 a close runner up.

David :2_thumbs_up_-_anima

 

I have always been a fan of the 72s, as well as the 71s, but for some reason I have really always loved the 73 Chevy wagons.

This 72 Kingswood Estate also has the bumper strip option I see... another rarity. I bet that other one he has is pretty rare too... you dont see many Chevy wagons with a factory vinyl top.

AFAIK, no other full-size GM wagon in 1972 offered cloth interior as an option (am I wrong?). Strange that the only one to offer it was Chevy, the entry level make, but at least they only made it available as an option on the Caprice.

 

If im not mistaken, and I might be since its been decades since ive owned a Chevrolet, the Kingswood estate is a caprice wagon in drag. A close friend of mine is looking for a 1968 Caprice with that rare hide-away headlight option. The same front clip is also on the Kingswood Estate wagon for the 68 model year hideaways and all. The Chevrolet Caprice came out in 1966 for its first year as the top of the line Chevrolet as far as passenger cars went bumping the Impala off the top Chevy spot. The Caprice is essentially a Impala with more bells and whistles.

Incidently after 1957 the Bel-Air which was the top of the line Chevy at that time went from first to worst. The 1958 and on Bel-Air was utter crapola. The 58 Impala took the spot of the top Chevy and held it until 1966 when the Caprice was introduced. By that time the Bel-Air and the Biscane were the garbage cars of the Chevy line.

The Kingswood Estate Wagon was a dolled up Caprice. It was the top end of the wagons of the day.

I recently came across a 1968 Caprice with the hideaway headlights. It had a vigilight system that you would use to see if all your lights were working, with the turn lights mounted on the fenders, bucket seats, a 427 motor, factory tacometer on the dash, and the posi rear end. However the car looked like it was just hauled out of the ocean. It had not been reged since 1979 and had sat in a field in in Somoma County amonst the wine grape by the Napa County line. The fog over the decades had destroyed the car plus the guy must have missed his meds that day, he wanted $5000 for it. It was dicey at best to decide if the parts on it were worth using. The cancer on the body was horrific and the many hundereds of major dents on what wasnt cancerous was just too much. I passed on the car. Granted it was a true matching numbers car but he wanted way too much for a car that would never see the road again.

 

Here is a '71 from the TV movie Duel.

http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_5971-Chevrolet-Kingswood-Estate-1971.html

 

You are correct. The Kingswood Estate is basically the Caprice wagon. They were called Caprice Estate from 1966-68, but 1969-72, they were called Kingswood Estate (Impala wagons were called simply Kingswood). In 1973, they were called Caprice Estate once again. However, the Caprice wagons never seemed to have as nice of a cloth interior as the Caprice sedans or coupes, but this brocade cloth option demonstrated on this wagon we are discussing is very close to the Caprice sedan interior in 1972.