A custom dash is a great idea for this year as nobody repops them. I looked into having it made and remember it costing the better part of 800 bucks. Please post before and after pics! Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
The fake fur was a fad back when the customs were pushing the envelope with ultra modern styling and the customizers were looking for the next radical thing beyond stock material choices. It came on like a big wave and crashed fairly quickly, too, when it reached a saturation point and the novelty wore off. A lot of amateur builders copied the idea and used it as a fix to cover up some nasty dashboards and interiors, sort of a quick fix. This didn't help make the memories or nostalgia for it become warm fuzzies. (Pun intended )
Well @Puka your vintage car is your canvas to build using gleaned wild from the Yesteryear. Have fun with it. It sure is a solid base and wagons are popular material for modding.
Wood grain contact paper! My mom used to put that shit on everything. I know an upholster who could do as 1pickup suggested, seen him do it, but it would likely take a day in labor to do it right. Not many options on the cheap I can think of. Wrinkle paint? You could mold it some with filler. There is that thick pre-made tuck and roll vinyl, might could do something with that.
I’ve seen some pretty big beavers. Beaver pelt would make awesome upholstery. Fun fur can get ugly and no doubt difficult to clean and it gets matted.
I did it years ago on an O/T car years ago where I smoothed the dash with fibreglass Matt and resin The wrapped the dash in a grained black vinyl fabric. It looked like a leather wrapped dash from a high end car when I was done. The trick is to use a high end vinyl , the one I used was thick but with no fabric backing so it could stretch and form in the corners without wrinkling. Really sharp look, time consuming but not super expensive
A good upholstery guy can sculpt a new dash pad with foam and cover it with vinyl. IMHO, the car is too nice for a fake fur dash. HRP
Yes, I'm still weighing options as to the direction of the dash. I'm actually taking ownership of it this Saturday , so who knows what I'll do with the dash. I kinda dig the woodgrain idea a d yes, a good upholstery guy good work wonders. The problem is, here in Central Arkansas we are pretty limited in good upholstery guys. Either way, I'll figure something out. I though even encorporating the vent holes that are there but normally covered. I think they look kinda cool
Electro static felt spray was a fad for a month or so back in the early 70s. There was a 46 ish Chevy in the Boulder Colorado area that was light brown and gray two tone fuz with dark brown fake fur interior.
Years back a friend of mine had done his dash in the stuff... it gets all over the place. Just be warned. It will probably look okay for a while.
One thing about it, here in Arkansaw we are many years behind the times so folks might think fur is cool.
If you want to do it go ahead, (reviving an ancient fad can be cool) but if it were me, I wouldn't spend much on fur, because you will either get tired of it, or it will turn shitty, either case you will want to remove it fairly soon.
Back in the sixties when we were living in Memphis, my wife (we were married by a Buddhist monk in Harmony, Arkansas) were given an off-topic German, air-cooled people's car. It had been built in the fifties, and the heater was a non-functional mess. We drove it year round and when winter rolled around I hit the Starvation Army, St. Vincent de Paul, and some other junk shops and ended with four ratty mink coats. Two went on the seats and the other two we used to cover our legs and over our feet. You might do something similar, and find some mink. If I remember correctly, mink was big with the Dada Art Movement. With a little work you could turn your dash into a work of art.
Here are pictures scanned from Canadian Hot Rods & Customs Nov-Dec 2006 of "The Wilde One", one of the nicest local rods of the 1960's. The early picture is of the furry dash and the later one is of the upgraded leather. Thought that furry dash was so neat in my adolescent days.
Not everyone likes redheads either. I'd say go for it. You'd have to be really careful about stains, i.e., beer, pop, etc.
Wrapping the existing dash would look good. Repairing the cracks and shooting it with tan bedliner would make a presentable repair, use real bedliner shot from a gun, not rattle can or brush on. Hows that fur hold up at 70mph with the windows down, will it fuzz out all over you?
You are right about limited options for upholstery places in Central AR. Where central are you? I'm in Conway. Did you get that car out of Springfield? Longroof Larry's car?
It's not a dash but here are is a fuzzy interior on a 1961 olds coupe sitting in a junkyard. Sent from my SM-G960U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
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