Interior trimming, Custom and Original
One of the areas of a car that a lot of people overlook is the interior. It is a functional and comfortable part of your vehicle, and should be treated as such. If you have a Premier with a leather interior, it will become quite expensive to get your interior fully done with all areas refurbished, but that is part of building a concourse vehicle. If you were to do the seats in leather, the door trims, console, carpet, headlining, and all of the other trimmings it can cost you about $4000 to get a decent job done. The budget option is to get the seats done in soft vinyl. This may cut the cost down to around $2500.
For a Special or Standard interior, you will only be able to get it done in the original way, by getting the door trims made up to original specs, by Eastern Auto Upholstery in Bayswater Ph. (03)9720 5444. The door trims are about $150 ea, and the front seat will cost about $660 fully reconditioned like new. The advantage is that it is all seam welded vinyl like the original. The headlining material that was used originally is no longer available though, so a close substitute has to be used. For rubber floor mats, the original style full floor mats are available, front, rear or boot sections for about $300 each. Call Obsolete Rubber Mats 0412 941 799.
The other options you have is to put in a custom interior. This can be anything from a variation on the original to a wild all out retro job. Commonly a velour headlining and velour covered seats with vinyl sides with velour patterned door trims is an easy target to aim for. Put cut pile carpet on the floor, and a bit of carpet on your kick panels, parcel shelf and in the boot, and it will look pretty good. Above all, be prepared to pay for good quality materials, as cheap stuff will only fade in the sun, wear and rip easily. This kind of interior can cost from $2000. Don’t get me wrong, there are cheap ways of doing it for around $1000, but like I always say, you get what you are paying for.
If you want to go a bit more radical, you can fit any multitude of bucket seats from most cars. The buckets from 80’s Japanese cars like Colt, Pulsar, Bluebird, 323, 626, RX7, Corolla, are very cheap to get second hand, fit well, and once they are retrimmed in decent cloth or velour, look ace. Bigger seats from say a Commodore can be a bit harder to fit, especially if you have a large console so some go for Gemini or Camira seats. When fitting seats, look for how you are going to mount them. Use the two outside bolt holes for the original bench seat if you can, inside also for the original split bench if you have a Premier body shell. When you mount through the floor pan use the recommended method for your state rego requirements. This usually means a plate of 3mm thickness at least 50mm x 80mm. The bolt would have to be a 8.8 high tensile rated unit of at least 8mm thread diameter. Don’t forget washers and spring washers.
There are other things to do and they include the retro trimming effect, where all of the interior is billet handles and wicked way out shapes, colours and just different to anything else. Digital dash instrument clusters, or modern units are the go. This is where guys start incorporating their sound system and its layout into the design of the interior. You will start paying big dollars here, but if you enjoy it, well so be it.