Dashboards

The dashboard was the original 1968 one and looked it’s age. I’d kept it because back in the days when I first rebuilt the car all the replacements at the time were burr walnut, and whilst they look classy I just didn’t think they suited the car.

But now, talking with Sue Miller, I found she had high quality dashboards in the original finish. Sold !

The original dashboard had the usual assortment of cracks in the laquer, the odd chip and had suffered from the usual “upgrades” over 30-odd years of ownership.

The cigar lighter had been replaced with a voltmeter, the radio upgraded to one of those new-fangled cassette things but otherwise it still had the basics from 1968.

With the old dash removed it’s not a pretty sight, is it ?

But the ideal time to sort out all those “wires twisted together” bodges that will somehow have gone on over the years as radios, etc, have been installed and replaced over time.

With masking tape and felt tip pen for labelling things as they come apart, it's time to get cracking. This is where that digital camera comes in handy, definitely buy a cheapie just for the workshop)

And finally we have the finished product, a Sue Miller dashboard neatly installed with everything working !

I’d decided to leave out the ultra modern radio cassette because it looked out of place once the new dash was in and hey, cassettes are so 1980s....

But I do like having some period sounds in the car, so finding something that looks 60s but plays MP3 CDs is the next project.

Update 2016

Well, it took so long to get music in the car that I ended up with a small unit that simply does FM radio or USB MP3's. CDs are so last century....