Asbestos.....aaaarh

[grubscrew]

 Delving in the garage for a rear engine cover for the 500, I found it,excellent. Turned it over and the heat shield was a thin channel section made into a rectangular shape , trapping a very fiberous half "eaten" asbestos    heat pad. Definately the original version. Not nice. Its amazing what you find on these old cars. I wonder if it was the blue asbestos.......have to wait and see.
  The modern equivalent awaits. Mike.

[Rusty's Uncle]

Yes it was kind of lucky that the heating system sucked in the air from outside rather than from the engine bay as it would have combined motoring with silicosis as that panel broke down 
The originals had a metal edge surround but the modern replacements are not much better than a bit of cardboard with a bit of ally foil on one side . They start to break up very quickly at the edges but if you can get some sort of edgeing on there it will prolong the life