MotoArigato Project Car: Our CocoMats Arrive

Disclosure: CocoMats is sponsoring the rolling restoration of our MotoArigato Project Car by supplying us with this set of custom mats.

You already know everything is there to know about CocoMats thanks to this earlier article, but even writing that story didn't fully prepare us for what arrived in our mailbox recently, our newly minted bespoke set of Sisal Cocomats. Drew T. Phythian and his crew worked their magic for our very own MotoArigato Project Car by kindly supplying us with a set of the mats, custom cut from a pattern they provided that we then trimmed and returned to their South Carolina factory for final production. Our set consists of both front and rear mats in Red Sisal with red vinyl edging and a beautifully hued maroon rubber heel pad.  

Heel pad feels luxurious in color, weight and material

The mats themselves are incredibly substantial with a massive natural rubber backing studded with nibs to prevent slippage and boy, do they do that job well. Once in place, that's it! They are staying there unless you lift them all the way out by hand and readjust them although ours are so perfectly tailored that they almost click into place as if they were part of one of those snap-together models you made as a kid.

The sisal weave itself is much finer and smoother than the coco fibers they are more known for, no better or worse, it really just depends on what look you are going for in your own car. We like the coco fiber for an in-era look but chose the thinner-strand sisal because we felt it matched the elegance of our W111 coupe much better.

Be sure you're getting the real deal, only from CocoMats.com

We realized a couple of things after installing the mats over our factory carpets that came as a pleasant surprise. We considered adding sound and vibration damping materials such as Dynamat or a similar product to the floors but after driving around with the Cocomats in place we noted that much of the road noise we had been hearing was now muted or eliminated entirely.

We also had been in no rush to make decisions about altering anything that was original to the car, being such a survivor, and those are clearly becoming rarer by the day, we kept going back and forth between replacing the carpets altogether, or dying them back to as close to original as possible. However, once we laid the mats in the car we were all surprised by how much it classed up the interior, making even dying the carpets something we could take some more time to think about since the car no longer looked like the abandoned puppy of the car world. It's somewhat like those infomercials where they wipe some magic Sham-wow cloth across the counter and everything is sparkling like new including the host's teeth, we don't know how it worked so well, we just know it did.

(L) Cheaply made mat that was in our car (R) New Sisal CocoMat

When we received our car it originally had a set of aftermarket coco fiber mats installed that had easily seen better days, and quite a few of them at that. The original mat is black and red with a cheap, almost paper-like vinyl edging, and you can see in our side-by-side image how frayed and loose it has become with time and use. Also notice there is no backing of any sort? That mat came from the passenger foot well and guests were always smoothing bumps down with their shoes or kicking the top portion off of their feet because it was constantly drooping like a bored hound dog's ears.

There is quite literally no comparison to the CocoMat quality (R)

We rather unexpectedly managed to test one of the features advertised by the company on the first week we had them installed. Dirt, sand, and moderate amounts of water will not penetrate to your carpets because of the natural barrier created by the heavy rubber backing. It seems that somebody, who is writing this article now but shall remain nameless, spilled water on the passenger side mat. That clumsy person quickly blotted it up, used compressed canned air to blow out any remaining water and just like that the mats were like new. Not a drop underneath nor a stain in sight. Mission accomplished! Time, money and effort was saved, we can definitely dig that!

When you write about cars and car products all day you sometimes get accustomed to hearing the same things over and over from PR guys or product catalogs and few products stand out among the rest, but once in a while, when you get your own hands and eyes on a product that just feels right in every single way, you have to share it with your buddies. (PS: You're our buddies.)

Our passenger side foot well, with fire extinguisher visible

We recommend Cocomats without hesitation and suggest you use their custom fitting service to ensure the very best match to your car's interior, especially if you are ordering for a handmade vintage beast like we have where measurements don't always match from one side to the other, let alone one car to another.

I want this stuff in my house now too.