Interior Assembly
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| Like a lot of other features the door panels are rather unique. A fiberglass shell provides a substrate to mold the door fabric to instead of applying it directly to the door inner panel. The old interior had to be stripped and the fiberglass shell cleaned. Fractures and general age related flaws were reglassed then ground down to the original panel. Ray from the trim shop (Leo's Trim in McKinney Texas) did a fantastic job, the best I've ever seen on a 54. The final door panel is composed of 5 pieces. The door shell, a perimeter trim cover, the upper panel, the door pull and the upper door pad. To give the shell a smooth surface Ray applied a very thin layer of foam to the fiberglass shell. He then stretched, glued and trimmed the leather over the bubble portion of the panel. He used a back material to fabricate the perimeter trim which goes around the bubble. This gave us a smooth surround which covers the bitter ends of the fabric coming off the bubble. The upper panel was a panel supplied by Al Knoch. I might add - all the materials were precut and sewn by Al Knoch - and all the material gave us an excellent fit. Ray had to shape the upper panel to the curve of the door and install the door opener and window release knob bezels. Between Al Knock and Ray the result was excellent. | |||
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| The door pull (the white fiberglass piece) maries to the dash as does the upper door pad. The door pull helps keep the upper panel curved to the door. The end product - GREAT !! The 54 Vet is not a fancy car but the interior is impressive. The white stitching in the red leather is striking with the white dash. The wrap around characteristics formed by the dash / door pulls and dash and door pads depicts the styling touches used in cars in the 50's. The speaker grills are painted differently to blend into the dash. The lower grills are white (like the dash) while the upper grill is black (typical of most speaker grills. | |||
Not 54
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Pedals in an Automatic Original 54s are all automatics - mine is a 4-speed. This is supposed to be a sports car not a luxury sedan. The 6 cylinder power plant with the 4-speed delivers unique performance and there's no sweeter sound than a split manifold Chevy Six. I went to a lot of trouble to engineer this mod to appear all GM. When I got it - it was a cob job - today only knowledgeable Vet enthusiasts know its not orig. |
When is a steering wheel a steering wheel. When it 18 inches across. The White rim and Red center compliments the red/white interior. And like a lot of cars in the 50's the horn ring is designed to be stylish as well as functional. The center medallion repeats the nose emblem and is the only location the name "Corvette" appears on the car.
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