Early Cal Look Interiors and Dashes

[rick m]

I came across some really old shots, 32 years old to be exact, from 1976. This was a 67 I had at the time. I tried doing my own interior.  You can tell by the door panels. I over-stuffed them.  I was proud of my dash. It was an original done with a wood frame, herculon covering and OPEL GT gauges.  They were all GERMAN VDO gauges and I got sending units to hook them all up.  It was an original idea at the time.

I will have to keep looking and see if I can come up with a shot of the whole dash. I had the two big gauges (Speedo and TACH) and the three smaller VDO gauges the OPEL GT used. I also put a stereo on the passenger side. This is the car my newlywed wife and I drove on trips from Northern Cal to Tustin (Orange County) to visit her mom in the early days. My wife went to TUSTIN high where Rich Kimball also went to high school.  It is ironic they never knew each other...but then again, you'd have to see the pixs of Rich at the time. :-)

Just kidding Rich!  Long live OCIR!

Rick Mortensen

[wolfswest]

nice!  keep the pictures coming please!

[carlo]

Very KITSCH...very NICE!!! 

[Jason Foster]

diggin the black bumpers

[rick m]

Here are a couple really old pix of the dash I dug up. Keep in mind these are pix that are 32 years old and the quality was tough to reproduce. I have to find the original negatives sometime and get some fresh prints made.

The dash had a cassette player in it. You can also notice the shifter that was an original HURST flat bar shifter (close ratio) made for VW Bugs at the time. I moved all the 67 switches to the area once occupied by the cigarette ash tray.  The VDO cluster guages included one with a fuel level and ammeter, one with oil pressure and water temp.  I converted the water temp to an oil temp, using the same sending unit. There was also a clock gauge, which was the one furthest on the right. All the dash gauges were from an OPEL GT and were VDO.

I also inlcuded a pic of the car in front of the COSTA MESA Auto Haus in Dec of 1977.

Rick M