I forgot to mention, the car is a 1968 4 door dart. 270 trim. I'm also a carpenter by trade, so I tend to make things.
The interior was green, and the body was bronze... it did not match... at all. I vowed immediately to get rid of the green, and thus the project started...
Pureists probably wouldn't like my build at all I'd imagine...
This is what I started with, the green interior remnants, a blanket stapled to the trim by the back seat to cover the garbage rear seat, and a weird Pyle tape player installed into the dash. They butchered the dash to put it in, probably sometime in the early 90s. I also had to deal with some strangely colored Camaro, or possibly Corvette seats. They don't look bad, but the colors are just weird.
So I felt justified in butchering more.
And did some painting as well, nothing too fancy, but not green. At that time I at least had something to listen to.
The wheels on the left of the car were gray, and the right ones were red. I have no idea what possessed the Previous owner to do that, but I believe he should never spray paint anything again:
I pulled one wheel off at a time, and cleaned them up, and repainted them gloss white for now, till I can buy a new set of wheels. I got as much overspray off as I could too.
I got rid of the green wheel eventually, and also reupholstered the door panels in white vinyl, which I intend to change to a darker color. White is getting dirty too often.
I also replaced the ripped, gross green carpet with some black recycled carpet and some peel n seal flashing to help with some sound deadening.
From this:
To this:
It's good enough till February when I can buy a real carpet.
I got rid of the trim on the dash fascia, and got a 1970 style heater control cover. This eliminated the rest of the trim to the right of it. I sunk the radio faceplate in the dash more, and trimmed it, then added 6.5" speakers to both front doors, painted the upper and lower parts of the door panels flat black, and the dash pad, and made a custom gauge cluster for temperature, tach, and oil psi. Then swapped the steering wheel out for a more classic looking one.
I built that center console to house my door locking module. Yes, this dart has power door locks that are remote controlled. I ran power to all four doors for it, grommeted, and it works beautifully, and cost less than $60.00 for all the parts I needed.
I tried cutting holes in the rear parcel shelf to access the 6x9 mounting locations there, but wound up practically destroying the fiberboard material in the process, so with a contour gauge, I sat in the back, and measured, and gauged, and measured, and gauged till I had a pattern to make a new shelf out of MDF.
I wrapped it in black vinyl and mounted it, then installed speakers. It made my previous seat cover look dated and dumb...
... so it was time to adress the lion in the room, or rather what looked like someone left a lion in the car.
It's so pretty...
At the time, I also purchased some shoulder 3 point belts for the front seats, and newer lap belts (that weren't green) for the back seat, so I pulled all the old seat belts too.
Here's some in place:
Then I used these up front; military surplus HUMVEE belts. They worked awesomely, but i had to drill into the pillars and rivet some brakcets on them to work with these. The original shoulder belt points put the seatbelt across my face.
Since this car is my daily driver to and from work, and also carries my two children, originality is not a main concern. I'd rather have some sturdy safety equipment. The old seatbelts were impossible to work with the carseats I have. These fit through the mounting points and tighten down way better in the backseat.
Since I still don't have a sewing machine to make my new seat upholstery yet, I had to settle for making a cover. $20 worth of fabric at the fabric store, and some cool Orangeish vinyl that matches the exterior and a shark grey color, along with some hog rings, I came up with a cover:
Not perfect yet, but much better.
I scored this setup for $40 a little while ago and installed it. It fit nice.
I also made a custom subwoofer box and speaker grill; the amp sits in the dash where the glovebox used to be.
I also had a custom stripe made, and spent a whole day installing it. I had it made in the idea of sticking with a supersix carter setup on the car, but I still like the stripe, so it stays, lol.
There's still lots going on with the car and more being improved as I obtain more money for playing with it, but it's come quite a ways.