The door panels in my newly acquired cutlass appear to have dips/dimples throughout the top. It makes the door panel look older/damaged notwithstanding them being in decent shape. I have never seen this in any of my previous cars. Any ideas/tips on how to repair? I plan on redoing the interior at a later date but in the interim would love to fix this.​​​​​​​

 

Not much you can do about that, the padding is damaged under the vinyl.

 

It appears as though whoever installed the vinyl over the formed/shaped corrugate under layment panel put too much pressure on the adhesive in select areas or maybe they used crimps to hold the vinyl in place while the adhesive set/dried. I agree not much you can do about it in the short-term. Long term, you might be able to separate the vinyl from the under layment, reapply adhesive and start fresh more-or-less. I keep looking at it, and it looks like they used individual crimps to hold the vinyl in place until the adhesive dried/set/cured.

 

Or, it just got deformed from someone's arm resting there while driving.

 

There should be a metal strip under that area. You could remove the door panel to look at the backside and see if it has dents in it.

 

thanks for all the replies, I gave it a closer inspection and it does appear that the corrugate/padding under the vinyl has been damaged in various places. I guess when I redo the interior Ill buy new panels not just vinyl.