I have a 1981 silver and blue,interior is silver,and i think they had two silver colors,depending on what plant it was made at,so I picked up carpet and seats from reputable company,and they come to the auto fair in Charlotte which is where I picked up,that was a few months ago,now I’m almost ready to start installing carpet,and cleaned my back carpet good,only replacing front,well, guess what not even close to my back carpet,who has a 1981 with silver carpet,would love to see picture here’s mine.

 

I have cleaned it since this picture was taken,but the carpet I got from them had a more grayish look.will get some pictures tomorrow of the difference,but my original color is much lighter than they gave me.

 

As you're aware, there were two different plants building Corvettes in 81. The old plant in St Louis built cars from August 80 through September 1, 81. The second plant was in Bowling Green KY, where started production on June 1, 81 and continued through mid November 81. The interior and exterior colors offered were different at the two plants, and as you said there were two different silver interiors (actually just one silver and one gray). The interior used in cars built in St Louis had a bright silver interior, similar to the 78 Pace Car, while the Bowling Green silver is what GM called Slate Gray (and sometimes silver gray). The Bowling Green gray interior is the same gray interior used in 82's.

You can identify which plant your car was built in by the VIN number. The 11th digit in St Louis VIN's is an "S" and is a "5" for Bowling Green cars. On the Trim Tag (inside your driver's side door jam, just above the door hinge), the interior "trim" code for St Louis silver interiors will be "152", and the Bowling Green Slate Gray is "13I".

I can tell from the pictures that your car is a Bowling Green car, both from the color of the interior, and also because you said it's two-tone silver over blue (two-tone 81's were only built in Bowling Green). The Bowling Green gray interior can be a problem to match. Not all vendors even acknowledge that the Bowling Green gray even existed. I'm the original owner of a charcoal gray Bowling Green 81 with the same gray interior.

A couple things about your interior. First off, when new the rear compartment door frames were the same color as the carpet, but with age they've turned to the dark gray that your main frame is now, and the green gray your door frames are. I know because the same thing has happened to by plastic frames. Second, check the packaging for your carpet and make sure you were sold the 81-82 Slate Gray (silver gray, or just plain gray, depending on the vendor) and not 81 silver or even 80 gray, which was another different color gray carpet that came in 80's with the oyster interior. Third, colors fade and change with age, especially things like cloth and carpet. Anytime you're only replacing part of an old interior you should ask for a sample or swatch. Reputable companies like Al Knoch Interiors and Top Flight (Corvette America), the top two Corvette interior companies, will gladly send you a sample so you can see how well what they're selling now will match your existing interior. Finally, not all the cloth, vinyl, leather and carpet material used 40-50 years ago, is still available today, meaning that sometimes you can't exactly match the color shade, grain pattern, etc to what was originally offered.

I can't get to it tonight, but I'll try to post some pictures of my 81's gray interior I took in November 81 when I bought it, and some shot recently, so you can compare them to what you have.

 

Just for what its worth, back in the day when rubber bumper C3's were just ordinary vettes (not classics), when we needed to spiff up & sell customers' vettes, and even older chrome bumper vettes, my boss would sometimes tell me to just 'spray the carpet' where it was badly faded ..if it was in otherwise good condition. We had a lot of different paint colors around the shop.

What we'd do is mix up a color that was close and thin down real thin ...lot of thinner...so it would kind of soak into most of the fibers, yet not make the carpet thick and clumpy. The thinner would evaporate off and, yeah, dang, the carpets would look amazingly great.

On the plastics, mask off everything like you want it. Clean *thoroughly* with a wax & grease remover (remove those years of Armour-All!). Then spray on a wet coat of acetone. That'll "soften" the plastic and allow the primer to chemically bond (bond better). Let the thinner flash off. Then dust a light coat of primer. That's all it takes. If you put on more than a dusting of primer you run the risk of fisheyes. Then spray the appropriate color paint, slightly more thinned out. You don't want the paint too thick that it'll fill the factory texture. Single stage works great. If you want to take it to the next level, add a spoonful of Flattening Agent to the paint ...to give it a slightly semi-gloss appearance. Flattening Agent is a nice product if you have it around the shop (it lasts forever) ...but probably too expensive for one-off home projects. (or buy semi-gloss paint to begin with).

Something you might try after shampooing your carpet and before installing new carpet. Remove the carpet and shampoo in like a kid's pool or the driveway. Suck the dirt out with a good shop-vac.

Just throwing out ideas if you don't find what you're looking for....

 

Thanks,the back is in great shape from what I can tell,the front is all I’m replacing,and with floor mats in it,you want even see much of the carpet,so it’s not a deal breaker even if I had to use these,the most noticeable place would be side console panels.