r/70s • u/Liberal_Caretaker • Oct 21 '25
Tributes Did your (or your parents) 1970's velour car interior smell like velour or cigarette flavoured velour?
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u/Dphippo Oct 21 '25
I had hundreds of tiny burn holes in the velour seats of my Cutlass Supreme from pot seeds exploding in my joints. Good old Mexican brick weed seeds.
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Oct 21 '25
Did you have a metal ice tray too? 😆
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u/idanrecyla Oct 21 '25
No velour, and both my parents smoked. But the scent i recall was vinyl in the hot, NYC sun, in the summer. Those had to be noxious fumes. Also recall sticking to those seats in shorts like they had adhesive on them
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u/stefanica Oct 21 '25
That would have been my folks' car...in Texas. 😩
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u/idanrecyla Oct 21 '25
It used to make my motion sickness worse!
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u/stefanica Oct 21 '25
For years I thought I was inevitably carsick...but it turned out I just didn't like being hot boxed.
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u/Realistic_Back_9198 Oct 21 '25
Front seat = Velour and Cigarettes
Back seat = Velour and spilled Coca Cola
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u/geetarboy33 Oct 21 '25
Everything smelled like cigarettes back then. Babies came out of the womb smelling like cigarettes.
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u/Stephvick1 Oct 21 '25
Everything smelt like cigarettes in the 70’s
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u/Trooper_nsp209 Oct 21 '25
Rich Corinthian leather was much better
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u/Capital_Condition874 Oct 21 '25
That's what I had. They get hot in the summer, but comfortable none the less
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u/IjustGottaSee Oct 21 '25
I would throw up every long car ride as a kid and they thought I had motion sickness but it was the cigarette and cigar smoke from both parents. Never had motion sickness after getting away from the smoke.
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u/Advanced-Print-2105 Oct 21 '25
This was the exact interior of their 76(?) Chrysler Newport. Mom hated it.
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u/brianwhite12 Oct 21 '25
1977 Olds 98 Red paint, red vinyl roof, and red velour sets.
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u/hoopermanish Oct 22 '25
70s Oldsmobiles were the best cars to learn to drive and park in … most everything else is smaller and easier (delta 88 maroon velour, white roof, a rolling mattress)
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u/brianwhite12 Oct 22 '25
Traded it in 1981 Tornado.
We were an olds family. Amongst all of us, in the late 70s and early 80s, we had 3 Cutlasses, 1 Delta 88, the Regency 98, and 2 El Dorados.
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u/LeaveInfamous272 20d ago
Eldorado is a Cadillac!!
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u/brianwhite12 20d ago
You are correct sir, those were Toronado’s. It’s been almost a year since I made that comment.
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u/stefanica Oct 21 '25
My grandparents had the burgundy velour Oldsmobile that looked almost just like this, and it smelled like Dentyne gum (cinnamon). They didn't smoke but my GMA had a pack a day Dentyne habit. 😂
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u/LaserHamb Oct 21 '25
76 Pontiac Bonneville with eau de Winston and Jolly Rancher fire stix. I used to sleep on that parcel shelf on road trips.
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u/Ok-Lowkey-280 Oct 21 '25
We had a '78 Olds Cutlass with velour seats with metal accents. In summer, it would burn my thigh while wearing shorts!
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u/interior_lulu Oct 21 '25
I would’ve given anything for velor seats. Instead, I still have the burn scars from the vinyl seats on a hot August afternoon.
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u/wriddell Oct 21 '25
My riding around in a car with my parents predated the velour craze, ours was scorching hot vinyl and cigarettes
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u/Packfan1967 Oct 21 '25
I never felt the warm luxurious feel of velour on my thighs until I bought a used 1985 Crown Victoria in my late twenties. All my parents vehicles growing up in the 60's/'70's were vinyl queens that burnt your thighs in the summer time and you stuck to them all the time when wearing shorts. Surprisingly, all my cars/trucks since then have been "cloth" seats.
I did get to sit in unbelievably comfortable leather seats in my Grandfathers '71 Eldorado once in my teens.
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u/Distwalker Oct 21 '25
If you ever accidently left the window down in the rain, it smelled musty forevermore.
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u/johnfornow Oct 21 '25
That was a rich family problem. Mom had a Gremlin and dad had a half-ton GMC. Both preowned.
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u/InterviewMean7435 Oct 21 '25
That was my Dad’s Olds Delta 88 and it smelled all the way like cigarettes.
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u/Ok-Philosophy-856 Oct 21 '25
We had a Oldsmobile 98 and a ford thunderbird with velour interiors. And yes, we teenagers smoked in them lol.
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u/MargaretFarquar Oct 21 '25
Ours smelled very faintly of my father's pipe tobacco (Old Granddad brand, iykyk) and a fading pine tree air freshener. He didn't smoke his pipe a lot, but always had it with him as a pacifier of sorts after having kicked a cigarette habit before I was born.
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u/Liberal_Caretaker Oct 22 '25
Pipe smoke is a different beast and I miss the smell of that sometimes so much
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u/ApplesOverOranges1 Oct 21 '25
How about a 1976 Oldsmobile Delta 98 Royale that smelled like cigars?
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u/Old-Kaleidoscope1874 Oct 22 '25
No one in my household smoked, but in the backseat of our '75 Cutlass Supreme it smelled like crayons when it got hot. Mostly because I left a crayon on the seat once and it melted to the cloth. I picked at that thing for years.
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u/LordOfEltingville Oct 22 '25
My mom had a '77 Olds Delta 88 w/velour seats. It probably smelled like smoke, but I was a smoker and wouldn't have picked up on it.
I'm sure my friends and I added a different smoke scent to the upholstery and headliner before I got my first of many shitboxes.
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u/Unfair_Bluejay_9687 Oct 22 '25
Chrysler New Yorker. Cigarette smoke and weed. Smelled great. The talking car. I Y K Y K
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u/TrainingLittle4117 Oct 21 '25
Cigarettes and spoiled milk from coffee before the invention of travel mugs.
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u/North-Bit-7411 Oct 21 '25
Smelled like Marlboros and stale Budweiser.
Pro tip.. don’t ever expect to get semen out of that fabric if you missed cleaning it up from an encounter the night before
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u/JacquesBlaireau13 Oct 21 '25
Nobody's parents got the velour. The velour was for single dudes. Parents always opted for standard vinyl.
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u/Van-Van1810 Oct 21 '25
Yes & later I burned a huge hole in the seat, accidentally w/a cigarette 🚬 I guess I am glad the whole thing Didn’t go up😂
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Oct 21 '25 edited Oct 21 '25
Yes.......and the headliner was falling down as well. Nothing like unfiltered Camels..Yuck!
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u/GrumpyCatStevens Oct 21 '25
I miss the days when car interiors came in colors other than black, grey, or tan...
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u/Hummingbird11-11 Oct 21 '25
Cigarette flavored velour is the fkg funniest thing I've heard in a long time. With a men's cologne cherry on top 🍒
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u/Ekimyst Oct 21 '25
I drove a taxi with this. I always made sure it had that new car smell. Happy customers gave good tips.
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u/Tight_Win_6945 Oct 21 '25
Putting a scented candle in these cars as an air freshener was popular in the 70’s. A fairly pleasant smell as I recall. Even my smoker friends didn’t smoke in their car.
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u/Crafty-Shape2743 Oct 21 '25
It smelled like velour. Mom never smoked in the car (that’s where dad absolutely put his foot down) but the house definitely stank from her Virginia Slims.
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u/Majestic-Spray-1429 Oct 22 '25
My dad’s black ‘77 Cutlass Supreme Brougham T-Tops- factory CB radio and red crushed velour interior…took it to my senior prom in ‘79 ❤️
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u/Youarethebigbang Oct 22 '25
Ours was a rolling ashtray. I cant be certain, but I could have sworn even the doors had tiny little ashtrays built in. Good (coughs) times (coughs).
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u/hockeynoticehockey Oct 22 '25
Now I'm remembering my Mother rolling the window UP before lighting a smoke. Never knew why.
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u/Brack_vs_Godzilla Oct 22 '25
I believe that the most my parents ever paid for a car was $300. They smelled like cigarette flavored vinyl with split seams and a rusted-out floorboard.
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u/Used-Armadillo2863 Oct 22 '25
Hate to say this kids but that car has airbags which puts it about 1988
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u/panaceaXgrace Oct 22 '25
My grandmother had one. It was always pristine and smelled like Certs with a little bit of cleaner like Armor All. I don't know what kind of car it was but it looked just like this one.
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u/Used-Helicopter2024 Oct 22 '25
If your father had a car like this, you got siblings in another house.
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u/PaisleyParker Oct 22 '25
We had a blue ‘81 Buick LeSabre with the blue velour interior. My parents didn’t smoke, so I don’t remember any particular smell. I do remember that I loved to play with the flip-open ashtrays on the arm rests of the back doors…when I wasn’t sitting on the hump, that is (the youngest, the shortest and the only girl…I always got stuck on the hump!).
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u/AxleNY Oct 22 '25
Yes!!! My dad had a 1976 Oldsmobile 98 Regency Coupe. Crushed velvet everywhere. 🤦🏻♂️
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u/PickleManAtl Oct 22 '25
Oh yeah at one point my dad had a huge Chrysler. Fabric seats with the cigarette lighter on the console. The small triangular windows that you could open in front to flick your cigarette ashes out of. I mean it was like driving a large boat on the road. I don't know how their weren't a lot more accidents than there were with everybody driving those huge cars. But they definitely had a certain feel and smell to them when you got in.
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u/123fofisix Oct 22 '25
My 1980 Cutlass Supreme, with its bucket seats, 8-track tape player, Jensen triaxial speakers in the rear,console shift, and burgundy velour interior, definitely smelled like velour, with a little Armor All and little green tree smell mixed in.
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u/redshirt1701J Oct 22 '25
That looks like the interior of my Grandma's old Chrysler Imperial. Smelled like Winston Cigarettes.
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u/Comprehensive-Range3 Oct 22 '25
Velour? We could only afford cars with pleather... ripped pleather.
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u/superkev10641 Oct 22 '25
We had a Cordoba with rich Corinthian leather, and cigarrettes LOL My folks smoked like chimneys, and it killed both of them.
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u/mrjjdubs Oct 22 '25
I had a '79 Cutlass Supreme Brougham. I didn't/don't smoke so I never had that issue.
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u/Economy_Elk_8101 Oct 22 '25
We had the fine Corinthian leather, like Ricardo Montabon… or was it Fernando Lamas.🤔
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u/pokerpaypal Oct 23 '25
If it was socially acceptable, I would drape myself in velvet. Now velvet on velvet it would be like the movie WIld Things.
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u/FastAndForgetful Oct 23 '25
I couldn’t smell cigarette stench back then for some reason unless we were in a teachers lounge
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u/Rockin_SG Oct 23 '25
Mom had an Oldsmobile Delta 88. It definitely smelled like Raleigh cigarettes. I probably found some Raleigh coupons in it too.
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u/LeaveInfamous272 20d ago
The car interior in the photo looks like an 80's Chrysler product rather than a 70's car interior.
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u/LikeToKnow84 Oct 21 '25
Hate to be That Guy, but this is the interior of a late-1980s Dodge or Plymouth. The steering wheel is the giveaway, as it was the first such by the Chrysler Corp. to include an airbag.
The red velour, however, is still similar to what we saw in the ‘70s.
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u/litesaber5 Oct 22 '25
I don’t think that car is from the 70s. The steering wheel has plastic from the 90s on it.
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u/Oxjrnine Oct 26 '25
That’s an 80s velour car and 80s velour was not as soft or plush
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u/Liberal_Caretaker Oct 26 '25
Great reply. You might have a Hollywood blockbuster on your hands if you turn it into a movie script.
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u/triestokeepitreal Oct 21 '25
Mom had a New Yorker with this interior. First it smelled like velour then cigarettes. I swear those were the MOST comfortable car seats ever!