Lee, I've been wondering about that carpet pic on the grass...it looks a LOT like what I pulled out of my car (including the 'horsehair' aspect) but there are some differences too!
I assume it's a shot of the bottom of the passenger side carpet...and that it's actually two pieces of carpet that are stuck together around the mid-point (where they overlap slightly). I haven't seen any original carpets with that dark color backing - what shows in Jay's photo seems more 'normal' - but who knows... Also don't see any of the button fittings that (I think) held the carpet down, as shown in the other pic. Could it be a nicely bound replacement piece?? Whatever the case, the front piece was clearly glued to a layer of insulation of some sort.
So about that insulation....here are two shots of the original mats from my engine compartment. Once they start to unwind (heat + moisture?) the horse hair nature comes out, albeit the color is a bit darker than what is seen from your car. For whatever reason the carpets and all underlayment on my car was in disastrous shape - I assume it had the nice coated mats originally, with the snap fittings for the carpet, etc. No doubt things got wet repeatedly and went downhill quickly. The forth pic shows another car that might have had some similar material failure?
Final shot shows what I *think* is oem carpet....front section, driver's side, without the separate 'heel' type mat that would go on top.
I'm curious about materials too (thanks for bringing this up)! I've cut normal 3/8 insulation/underlayment to retrofit but of course it has no 'undercoat' type surface....very low ratings in the obsessive/compulsive category thus far
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