Custom Auto Interiors

1 • Designing and Planning Your Interior

In the world of hot rod building the last people to lay hands (and sometimes eyes) on the car are the trimmers. If the owner has an infinite amount of time and money, the trimmers can sometimes give him or her what they're looking for—a show winner.

Ms. Owner and Mr. Builder will have planned down to the last 1/32 inch where everything mechanical will be located while depending on the ability of the trimmer to solve the problem of where the seats will go. Mr. or Ms. Owner could save a bundle of money, weeks of time, many phone calls and numerous headaches with just a little bit of preliminary planning of the interior while the car was in the building stage.

We've seen cars come into the shop where the brake pedal was beautifully located, but so far left of the driver's seat that it had to be operated with the driver's left foot. Foot-operated dimmer switches are very often located so the kick panel will cover them. Wires are almost always run through a location convenient to the person doing the wiring rather than with any thought of how they might be affected by the upholstery. You can bet that fingers will be pointing everywhere if a $1,500 headliner has to come out to replace a 15-cent domelight wire! Planning the interior must be part of the whole planning process and should begin as soon as you have the body.

Dan Bissell's ’57 Chevy Bel Air featured in Chevy Tri-Five Custom Interiors.

Jim Burr's '55 Chevy featured in Chevy Tri-Five Custom Interiors.

Photo 1. The fun of rod-building is your ability to do anything you want. There really are no rules, so wherever you go with it, it's OK. Here, the designer named the car Black Rose and has embroidered a headliner panel with a beautiful black rose logo.

Interior Planning

Locating the Seats

As this is a planning project, locating the seats—and all of the interior parts—should be started as early in the process as possible. Whatever planning you can do to prevent having to relocate parts will be the best thinking time you've ever spent. Much of the following should be done with the body off the frame.

The oldest, and still best, method of locating the seats is simple trial and error. If you have a seat picked out, maybe the one that came with the car, or an aftermarket such as Recaro, Cerullo, Glide Engineering, or Tea's Design, stick it into the car and begin making adjustments. Leave the tracks and any other adjusting mechanisms connected. Get into the car, sit down and take a look around. How much headroom do you have? Where is your left elbow in relation to the door? Is your body centered along the steering column? Do you have room to raise your knees without bumping into the steering wheel? If you plan on having a center console, is there enough room? How's the view out the windshield and side windows?

Now, we must complicate everything. Consider where your headliner will be. It could be anywhere from 1 to 3 inches below the shell. Next comes carpeting and insulation, usually a combined thickness of over 1 inch. Together, these can eat up as little as 2 inches of headroom but sometimes upwards of 5 inches. By adding strips of plywood under the base of your seat and gluing squares of cardboard to the roof with contact spray adhesive, you can get an almost exact idea of where your seat will be located in relation to the headliner and carpet.

If you find yourself having to slide down onto your tailbone to get enough headroom then something must be done about the seat. In the body of the book we tell you just how to do that.

There are several tricks you'll learn on how to drop the seat to give added headroom. (You can get an inch just by raising the front a bit and adjusting the back to compensate.) And, if an inch or two is not enough, then we'll talk about fabricating new frames.

Finally, you'll learn how to build a seat from plywood and polyfoam for that complete custom fit.

If it looks like you'll be building a plywood and polyfoam seat, get a 5/8–or 3/4-inch piece of plywood and about 3 inches of polyfoam and rig up a trial seat. By blocking up here and there you'll get a good idea of where your body's going to eventually come to rest.

The final location of the seat should put you in a position where you have at least 2 inches of headroom; you can operate all the controls comfortably; the center of the steering wheel aligns with the middle of your chest; and your left elbow is about 9 inches below the top edge of the door panel. That 9 inches is an arbitrary, but standard, location. Consider it a starting location—especially if you're a little shorter or taller than average. When you've finished reading the chapter on seat building you'll know how to make adjustments beyond what we've described here.

Photos 2-4. Headliner designs become more and more involved as imaginations search further and further for originality.

Photos 5-7. The stock door handle on this Willys coupe fell right under the armrest. It needed to be lowered about 2 inches. The final solution: put a Volkswagen door pull in the center of the pleated insert.

Locating Controls

Clutch, Brake and Dimmer Switch

As upholsterers, we're not about to begin a discussion on mechanics or engineering of your clutch and brake pedals. We can, however, make a few suggestions and reminders to help you locate these two vital parts and still have a comfortable ride.

The relationship between the seat and steering wheel has a lot to do with how accessible the clutch and brake pedals are to your feet. If you're sitting too close to the steering wheel, you may bump your knee against it when you lift your foot to actuate one of the pedals. So now the depth of the seat back and the distance the seat can travel on its tracks (if there are any) must be considered.

Again, in the seat-building section we discuss how to expand or reduce seat-back thickness to gain added leg room. If seat adjustment is not going to give you the needed leg room, consider changing the steering-wheel or steering-column angle.

When locating the clutch pedal, consider what your kick panel design will be. Often, a rod builder will expect to locate one or more sound-system speakers here. If the speaker has a lot of depth from cone to magnet, then the kick panel will have to protrude past the front-door pillar. This could interfere with clutch travel. If you then try to add a manual dimmer switch (the foot-operated style) you'll be in all kinds of trouble.

So, with seat in place (this will give a good idea of what you'll be doing with your quarter panels), locate the clutch, brake, dimmer switch and speakers. Then you won't have to worry about jury-rigging some kind of solution later.

Photo 8. Speaker wires from this amplifier run too close to the emergency brake (arrow). A screw-down plate covers the raw edges of the carpet around the base of the brake lever. Screws for this plate would penetrate the speaker wires if this loom were not rerouted. Even with no screw problems, the wires are rubbing against the brake—a sure bet for a future short.

Photos 9 & 10. Sometimes it's impossible to arrange things to suit the upholsterer. Here, the frame and rollbars of this racing roadster present problems the trimmer must solve. Ron's team did a good job of solving them.

Emergency Brake

Here's another one of those things you can really mess up. Boy, look how nice the emergency brake will fit right here on the tranny! Yes, it will fit just fine—until your wife gets in the car and moves the seat forward. Now the brake is useless! Unless the emergency brake will be located within a console, be sure the seat placement will not interfere with its use. This may mean setting the seat up on the frame of the car (without the body) and making sure there's plenty of travel room for the brake. If you fail to do this, your only solution may be to cut a corner out of the seat!

Door Handles

Door handle (and window crank) placement is a direct extension of door panel design. Some builders will want the door handle incorporated into the armrest. Others will want that beautiful aluminum billet handle to be completely visible. There are those who may elect to have a button in the console. These decisions are all yours. What matters now is that you make them. It's always a tragedy to build a door panel only to find the window crank hits the armrest.

This is a touchy situation at this early stage of rod development. It presupposes you have a design in mind that's completely finalized. Most often, this is not the case. Nevertheless, you need to be aware that this decision (door handle and window crank placement) must be made before you begin assembling the door panel. Because it is a relatively easy project to relocate a door handle, this project can be left to the last minute—even after the door panel is well under way.

The window crank is not an easy fix. Maybe that's why most rod builders install power windows! Locating a button is much easier than relocating a mechanical window mechanism. Be alert to these two important aspects of interior planning.

Wiring

Unlike assembly-line manufactured cars that employ snap-in trim finishing, custom car builders cement almost all of the interior parts to the car. On the family Ford or Toyota you can pop the headliner out in about 30 minutes, then install it in another 20. On a one-piece leather headliner in a ’39 coupe, it's there to stay. If it must come out, then putting it back is the same as making a whole new headliner. This works the same with carpeting and about 1/3 of the many panels that make up a custom interior. Therefore, accessing the car's electrical wiring could be a very expensive project unless a little forethought is employed.

Secondly, wiring must be routed through places you know will be safe. We've run into situations where a wiring loom passes right under the future location of a seat track. Too often, while drilling holes for panel attachment, the trimmer drills right into a bundle of wires. If you plan your interior right along with the rest of your planning, these problems can be avoided.

Try to run your wiring where you will be able to access it without ripping out interior parts. As in the headliner problem described above, install a plastic or copper tube for the domelight wire to travel through. Then, if it ever needs to be removed, you can simply pull it out and feed another in.

If your car has a driveshaft tunnel, it's easy to make a false side on the tunnel, out of chipboard, through which wiring can be run. The carpet can then be cemented down, yet the wire loom is not sealed in for life. It will take imagination and early planning to assure yourself that future repairs will be as painless as possible.

Photo 11. In the panel section of the book, we'll show you how to make this raised type of design. It works really neat!

Photo 12. We added this illustration just because Don thought the way the instrument panel was blended into the modesty panel was one of the best he'd seen. What a very clean appearance it gives.

Photos 13 & 14. Ken Sapper's '32 roadster might be considered the ultimate in high-tech interior appearance. This is, indeed, the hard look. From Ford Roadster Custom Interiors.

Locating Peripherals

Sound System

The largest peripheral in a street rod is the sound system; locating all of its very large parts can challenge the best planner. Often, the way the interior is designed and planned can enhance the system rather than cause an upholstery nightmare. Note the solution to the speakers behind the seats in the truck featured on page 95, photo 20. By designing the seats with a novel megaphone, sound is passed out through the sides of the seats!

Select your components early on. Their size will most often determine their location. Standard practice usually indicates the amplifier will reside under a seat—unless you decide the seat must sit directly on the floor to increase headroom. So, here you are again, mocking up your interior long before the body has been fastened to the frame. You just can't go wrong by doing this. Don't simply measure and say, Yeah, that's good.

With your measuring tape you find there are 3 inches of clear space under the passenger's seat and the amplifier you want is 2-1/2 inches tall. Excellent. Buy the amp now and stick it under seat. Then plunk your heaviest friend into the seat and see what kind of clearance you have. Your friend Big Ed doesn't bottom out on the top of the amp and everything's just fine. Suppose, however, you didn't buy the amp now but waited until you were ready for it. Guess what? It went out of production last month and its replacement unit is 3-1/2 inches tall. Now Big Ed is going to have a Big Amp poking him in the bottom every time he rides with you.

Speaker placement can be just about anywhere. We suggest that you don't place them in the doors. This is not to do with upholstery but because of the abuse they take each time the door closes. The farther the speaker is from the hinge point of the door, the greater abuse it suffers each time the door is closed. Just a free piece of advice.

On page 58, photo 11, note the location of the speakers in the Willys roof and how it was finished off on page 77. This was an interesting solution but a bit dangerous. Above, we discussed wiring under the headliner and the possibility of having to replace it. What happens if one of these speakers blows? Replacing it will be a major problem.

If the speakers you want to use are too deep to be incorporated into a side or quarter panel, don't give up. Why not think about creating a panel design where the speaker is the focal point of that design? Later in the book you'll learn how to make all kinds of curved surfaces on flat panels. Let the speaker stick out. Build the panel up around it, making it appear as a meteor falling with flame trails behind.

Planning should not make you give up something you want. It lets you have what you want without having to pay the price of tearing something apart later on.

Lighting

The lighting can be as simple as determining where you'll use a domelight or courtesy light, to as complicated as installing neon accent lights or fiber optics. In the case of the latter, extensive planning is called for.

Aftermarket dome and courtesy lights are so many and varied that very little planning or thought need be given to them. However, you must again consider the wiring and accessibility problems. Some halogen courtesy lights get smoking hot. Avoid placing them in the rear quarter panels too close to the seat. Don did this once and melted the vinyl seat facing. Not good.

This holds true also for accent lights behind valances that are focused onto the headliner. Be sure your accent lights are very low wattage and remember that cloth will scorch at the same temperature that vinyl will start to melt.

If you plan to use neon or fiber optics in your car, we suggest you employ an expert in this field as part of your planning process. Sometimes these folks are hard to find, but their talent will be repaid many times over in problems not encountered. Your best and least expensive help will come from factory reps.

Select and purchase the products you wish to use. Then, look for that 800 number on the package where the company sends you for technical help. Call and ask where the nearest rep is located. He or she will usually come out for free and help you with your setup.

Conclusion

Too often, the upholsterer is left to solve problems that should never have occurred. If you're the upholsterer you can't help but agree with this statement. If you're the car designer you can save the upholsterer a lot of time (and your money) by planning the interior while you're planning the mechanical and electrical. This way, the future car will function as a whole. If you leave everything to the upholsterer, then some of the interior will quickly be recognized as an afterthought.

Designing the Interior

Ron says, The most important part of rod design is to maintain a basic, overall theme throughout the car. This means settling on an overall theme—as we describe in the next paragraph—then keep everything working together toward that concept. Overall, simply avoid mixing styles. Don't wear tennis shorts with your dinner jacket. Simple.

Themes have different names among different rodding groups, but most will recognize such names as retro, period, or nostalgia as design concepts of the ’40s and ’50s. These cars imitate the styling concepts that were popular in those years.

Interiors in these cars were generally made of leather or vinyl. Little, if any fabrics were used. Of the many vinyls, Uniroyal's Naugahyde brand has become synonymous with the name vinyl. Naugahyde and other vinyl interiors were affectionately called tuck-and-roll or pleated-and-rolled interiors. This comes from the cotton, hand-filled pleats (Polyfoam has not been around forever, you know.) and the big rolled front edge of the seat—sometimes called a French roll.

On the other side of the rodding community are the hightech or techno rods. These cars incorporate every body style imaginable with every modern convenience the aftermarket can think up. Interiors in these cars are referred to as the hard look or soft look. These looks will incorporate leather, vinyl, tweed and velours (although velours seem to be losing some popularity).

The soft look can be defined as that which is wrinkled. However, the wrinkles must be in the right places. Unintended wrinkles still represent poor craftsmanship. The soft look tries to represent, within the car, the same look your leather sofa represents within your living room.

The hard look is a bit of a misnomer. The materials are still soft and full, but the design is sculpted and chiseled. These are the grooves, panel-on-panel, and raised surfaces that all work together to make the interior of your car look as if it might have been chiseled from a solid block.

Now we see, more and more, these two looks being combined together. Look at the ’49 Mercury in photos 15-17. Here the two styles work together to produce an awesomely beautiful interior.

Photos 15-17. Contrast the hard look of the techno-rod in photos 13 and 14 to the combined hard and soft look combo in the '49 Mercury. The seats look as if they could be used in your living room. Note how the design of the interior sweeps and swirls, flowing the console into the dash and then out into door panels. This is a truly gorgeous interior.

Working up a Design

The way most people design their interiors is to go to dozens of rod meets, runs and shows. There they see every conceivable interior, good, bad and ugly. They take hundreds of pictures, which they file away to look at when it comes time to work up their own design. Usually the concept comes first.

Boy, my next car's going to be a retro—complete with a flathead engine and wide whites. Right there, the design starts to lock in. I'm selling this tomorrow and building something with air conditioning, leg room and a sound system I can hear! Well, you've got a pretty good idea of what she wants and consequently, what the basics of her interior will be.

Now it comes down to what features you want and what you can afford. Stand by for sticker shock when you look at the price of leather. Leather still requires a great deal of hand work in the manufacture. Then, a lot of that very expensive cowskin winds up on the cutting-room floor. Remember: the cow is not square. Therefore, neither is its hide. However, the buyer is charged for every square inch of that hide. This includes the unusable portions of the neck, leg and tail area. Then, there are always nicks, cuts and abrasions from fights, barbed wire, cactus and sagebrush. These must be worked around, taking lots of hourly shop time and wasting very expensive leather. So, right off, know that leather is king and you'll pay a king's ransom for it.

Vinyl was invented to replace leather. The very first imitation leather was little more than what was otherwise called oilcloth. A thin, plasticized petroleum product was bonded to a cloth back and stamped with a leather-like grain. This was given the name leatherette and hailed as the greatest technical advance in man's creature comforts since sliced bread. Unfortunately it tended to self-destruct within months. In those days parents left children in the car unattended. To amuse him or herself, the child sat and picked the plastic film off the cloth, trying for ever larger unbroken pieces.

In the ’50s vinyl and polymers were invented and artificial leather became a reality. Ultraviolet light could still do what an unattended child once did but that too was overcome in the ’60s with increased UV protection. Today, the vinyl industry can produce a material that the untrained eye and hand cannot distinguish from leather. A recent brand name that has an excellent finger (how it feels and works) is a vinyl called Mellowhide. If it is not available in your area, call one of the fabric houses in the suppliers list.

With both vinyl and leather there is a seemingly infinite variety of colors to choose from. And if you can't find the exact shade you need, both can now be dyed to match any color your mind can imagine. We discuss this later in the book beginning on page 184.

Because of this great variety of color, you can now match vinyl or leather with the same color and tone of tweed. The combination of these two materials represents about 95 percent of the techno or high-tech look interiors. Again, suppliers for these products can be found in the suppliers list if not in your own area.

Having decided the theme of your car, attended dozens of meets and rallies, viewed and photographed dozens of interiors, it's time then, for you to get out the kids' crayons or colored pencils and go to work. You don't have to be a great artist or even a good artist. Just start sketching out ideas you've begun to think of as what you'd like to have in your car. Later, we'll show you how to turn those sketches into reality. Meanwhile, look at photos 19-22, page 12, to see the two sketches and the interiors they became.

Photo 18. This couple, planning their new interior, brought along a color sample of their paint scheme. Ron has taken them out into the sunlight to look at sample books. Never make your fabric color selection under fluorescent lights. There are dramatic color differences between what you see under artificial light and natural light. Mercury-vapor lamps in some parking lots give totally different colors to some materials and colors.

Photos 19 & 20. One of our project cars in this book is a '57 Ford coupe. Here is the original sketch the owner brought to the shop and the resulting panels.

Photos 21 & 22. Another customer sketch and the results. You can see some of the changes incorporated between the idea and the execution. Changes can be made anywhere along the line so long as you're happy deviating from your original design.

Photo 23. This '49 Ford Retro-Rod looks as if it just rolled out of a '50s trim shop. Ron is particularly proud of this car. It was commissioned by Billy Gibbons of the ZZ Top band.

Photo 24. This owner incorporates his initial into the design.

Photos 25 & 26. This builder wants to show off his Pontiac logo…or a Chevy Bowtie.

Ken Sapper's '32 roadster as featured in Ford Roadster Custom Interiors.

Summary

The most important part of designing an interior is to maintain some type of theme that relates to a period or style. You'll want your nostalgia rod to have plenty of nostalgia and look like it was built way back when. Your high performance, luxo-cruiser, techno rod should give that sculpted look saying, "here's real high-tech

2 • Pattern Making

It's common practice in the street rod and custom car fabrication business to bring the car to the trim shop as a hollow shell. All panels, trim, covering, seats, windshield and backlite are gone—or never existed—in the case of a car built from scratch. You, the trimmer, are expected to make everything that will go into the car as trim or upholstery.

As a trimmer of family cars or a hobbyist, you're accustomed to having something to wrap