Interiors

[Bill Musarra]

I am starting on the finer details of the interior of my car. After searching the forum, I have come to the conclusion that almost everyone wants to show the following:
1. Their car form various angles

2. Their engine from various angles

3. Their dash from various angles

4. Their seats/consoles from various angles

After searching for pics of other things in the car interior finish, I could only find about 4 or 5 pics of doors. Yes there are lots of door hardware, but not of finished doors or headliners or door tops.
I have gotten one of the best in the interiuor business to do my interior work. He does the interior work for Year One which is one of the better fabrication restoration shops in the country. He just finished the interior work on "The Bandit" from Smokey and the Bandit fame. It is the cover car for two hot rod magazines this month. The car is slated to go to the Barrett Jackson Auction this month. These muscle cars are going for an insane amount of money these days.
Fortunately for me, he lives about 4 blocks from where I work. His main business is actually doing boat work, insulated convertible tops on classic cars etc.His shop is out of Sugar Hill, a sleepy little suburb of Atlanta. I have given him what pics there are of Pete's interior and the few others I could find for a starting point. Will post what pics I can when they are available. The car is in the fast track mode right now. Just finished the undercoating last week. Going to the engine shop next week for the finish panel welding that I couldn't do,and the engine completion, exhaust work. Hoping to have it finished in about a month. Scheduling these shops is the slow stuff.
What I would like to do is start a thread on nothing but finished interiors. Some have truely finished their cars off as comfortable road cars, and others have left them a little more spartan.
I would like to see what you have done, if it is just paint or gone the plush route. Construction shots of how you handled the insulation would be great as well. So post away and lets see how you have finished them off.

Bill

[Peter D]

Hi Bill,

By some strange co-incidence, I am also about to start the interior door trims (at long last) !

At this stage, I am thinking of the following :

- Full trim over all the insides of the doors below the window
- Retain space for future speakers above inside door latches (ie, top front)
- Keep the access holes open, carpet inside the door cavities
- Arm-rests along the lower edges of the access holes
- Steel or Aly strengthening bars behind arm-rests (full length)
- Leather trim with fore & aft stitching to match the seats

Like you, I have been keeping a watch out for pics of door trims - the following is what I have found so far :

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

[Dalton]

Bill and Peter D,
I can't (yet) speak from experience, but Steve Shedden (local DRB Sydney representative) had an armrest similar to the one shown in your photos Peter, and removed it as the sill proved better.
I agree with your thoughts Peter, the full trim over the door, apart from storage opening, looks good, trimmed to match the rest of the interior. Personally, in a semi-race car, I don't mind exposed screw heads, particularly in a black finish. I don't like the captive plastic barbs you get in mass production car door panels, which break, pull out, etc. A GT40 I looked at recently had neat rectangular courtesy lights built into the lower edge of the door, near the inside handle.

Dalton

[Bill Musarra]

The pics you posted are about all that is out there at the present time, maybe one or two more. I have them all, and were the ones I showed my upholsterer. I have mounted the speakers just above and slightly behind the door opening mechanism which was donated from a Toyota. May keep the door opening, may not. The upholsterer is going to make up some plans for preliminary approval. He has a trick or two for the speakers and is going to incorporate a real door closer pull into the design. No straps or cables. The restraint strap will be kept however. He should have a design or two in a couple of days.

Bill

[Peter D]

Dalton : yep, those are pics of Steve's car some years ago. I am still tossing around the idea of a straight, shallow arm rest along the bottom of the opening, so I think I'll try a mock-up before the whole backing board gets upholstered. That way, if they don't work out, we can cover the mounting holes & nobody will be any the wiser !

I'm with you on those nasty plastic barb gadgets - they were designed with only one purpose in mind - to ease (cheapen) construction in the factory (no thoughts of r&r later) ! I am planning to use marine ply for the backing boards, & to f/glass some s/s c/s bolts thru the boards - these will slip into holes in the inner door skins & then the boards will be secured by washers & nyloc nuts inside the door.

I like the courtesy light idea, but that will have to wait until I make a call on the stereo/speakers - I was in such a rush to get to rego that I forgot to allow for wiring into the doors, so this will be quite a challenge in terms of getting wiring into the inside of the car (the inside side panels covering the filler pipes are fully sealed into place with polyurethane, & guess who didn't fit inspection hatches) !

Bill : I have been scanning for door trim pics for ages, & those below are the only ones I found. Hopefully, a few other members will chime in with their own pics ?

The reason that I want to preserve the door opening is that it would allow access to the interior door storage areas whilst on the road. Most of the "fold-down" setups I have seen look like you would have to have the doors open to fold down the panel & get at the interior space. If the insides of the doors were trimmed nicely (eg, carpet), it all should look pretty sharp & provide some further sound-deadening.

I have been using the lower side-intrusion bar as a door-pull - nice & solid, and easy to reach. I plan on keeping this accessible/visible, but just covering it with either carpet or leather trim. So, I will be able to either use these, or if I go ahead with a shallow arm-rest along the bottom of the opening (braced from behind with a steel or aly strip), this would be a convenient & strong door-pull option.

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

[Dalton]

I really like using marine ply. I get seconds quite cheaply and it provides a stable, easily workable, base for all sorts of things. My son and I used it in re-working the rear of his turbo-ed RX7, housing battery, sub-woofer etc. behind the seats. Countersunk screws sound good, too, and will work with the ply. I tend to like soft finishes for door trims (eg. alcantara, velour, carpet, wool fabric) as they are pleasant for your arm to rest against, acoustically more absorbent, and tolerate the accidental kicking or scuffing without marking as much (particularly carpet).
I was wondering what you were using as a door pull; the lower intrusion bar sounds solid enough.
Does anyone install roof lining, or is this always just painted due to limited height and being very broken up by the door tops>

Dalton

[Dalton]

Here is an interior shot (from this forum), but looks a bit tacky (although genuine).

Dalton

[Bill Musarra]

Dalton,
Beee Caaareful!!! That pic is of my friends original 66 Road Car.


Bill

[JimmyMac]

Tacky ?

.........Due to a lack of MDF offcuts I suppose.

[Dalton]

Apologies, poor choice of words. I said I like the look of exposed screw fixings in a semi-race car (as in road and race), for example, but many interior pics and comments on build threads seem to be heading for a different look with concealed fixings and a more luxurious fitout than the original cars. There are exceptions of course, with some fantastic replica builds. Variety is good.

Some more interiors attached.

Dalton

[Peter D]

Dalton, thanks for the extra pics. That recessed setup in the third pic (blue car, LHD, white wing mirrors) is very, very neat !

Marine ply was my choice for one simple reason - waterproof !!

Most DRB's have a full head-lining installed under the spider & down the A-pillars - the reason is that the underside of the spider is rough glass, not a second molded skin. I'll get around to that once I am 100% sure that no further glass work is required on the spider !

The pics below illustrate my starting point for the door trim, & my 1st draft of the trim design. I have enough leather left over from the seats to do the full door trims (over a very thin layer of padding), but was thinking that a strip of carpet along the lower edge might serve 2 purposes :

- it would break up the large expanse of leather trim
- as you pointed out, it will resist kicking / scuffing better than leather

The remainder of the design comes down to decisions about whether to go with some sort of double-stitching edging around the whole panel (and between the leather & the carpet), and whether to add some horizontal seams to match the seams on the seats.

BTW, the DRB's do not need door restraining straps - there are some steel round-bars welded onto the hinges which limit the door opening movement.

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

[Bill D]

Has anyone upholstered the A pillars and inner roof section? I am hoping to have mine done in Alcantara

[Dutton]

This IS a very timely thread, boys. Like yourselves, of late I've been giving some serious thought to the finish of the interior as well.

I seem to recall something I'd read in Trevor Legates book on the GT40, where he included comments about the interior of the Mk V Safir cars and how the interiors were done to a very high standard.

By chance does anyone have pics of those particular cars?

Best,

T.

[Bill Musarra]

Bill D
My upholsterer is doing up some patterns for me as we speak. As soon as he finishes them I will post what I can(with permission). He wants me to hold off on installing the windshield so he can get to the roof sections above the cage. He has my doors now and will have something for the main and upper sections soon.

Bill

[Jim c]

Dalton

4TH PIC DOWN RACE INTERIOR ,THATS THE STUFF.
A mans car no glovebox no door pockets no hair brush.

Jim

[Peter D]

Jim, yep - I think that race car look is pretty hot (mind you, it probably is, given no centre tunnel / coolant pipes). Perhaps it has an air-cooled
Po*sche motor in the back !!

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

[Dalton]

Jim; Yes, that race car interior doesn't help Bill with trimming ideas much, but I couldn't help including it. Not even a cup holder. The owner removed the switch panels (bottom edge of instrument panel) each side of the steering wheel to get more knee room, if I remember correctly.

Peter, you almost said the P word. Ross will be chiming in.

You can make even a clubman look luxurious (see the fantastic leather trimming that Donkervoort, in the Netherlands, do their high performance clubbies in), but the stark race look has visual appeal for a Forty. On a road trip, a bit of comfort probably has more appeal.

Dalton

[C Westren]

Hi Guys,

I have been watching this thread with interest as i am trimming the interior of my car at the moment.
I have DRB Chassis #7.
The photo included is a picture i took in the DRB factory (as it was then) of a customers car. Im not sure where the car ended up, but the door pull handle and layout interested me. It is something i would like to replicate on my car.
I am currently trying to figure out if the door pull and armrest piece is from a factory car? or it was custom built. If anyone has any ideas i would appreciate it. To me it looks like it has come from an early 90's honda or toyota 2 coupe?