A few pics after painting

[Merv and Sharon]

Thanks Gregg. The seat frames are the ones from Warwick Harrison. They are tested to meet all registration requirements. I liked them because they were thin backed and strong and had a relatively (without the headrests!) original look about them. They also gave more legroom. I had them trimmed in good quality dark green leather.

Carpets: Well I made a big fibreglass panel to fit behind the seats to cover the messy rear area. I covered it with auto carpet, as with the side panels and in the upper parts of the footwells. I wanted the transmission tunnel covered in that "over the tunnel style" rather than having flat strips along the tunnel (see an earlier post) and used a more flexible unbacked carpet with a thin water tolerant underlay. No moulding needed. It is just sprayed and glued on. The floor carpets are in backed auto carpet and edged in black vinyl (had to pay for that!). On the side panels I also used fibreglass panels (got heaps of great stuff from a factory that makes the council busses!) cut to the shapes I wanted and drilled and tapped holes to the frame so I could remove them later to get at wires and fuses easily. You really can't see the edges.

Cutting carpets is not hard if you start with some large sheets of paper or cardboard and buy some white chalk (the kind that tailors use if possible) and mark out the carpet after testing with the cardboard. The cut over size and spray the middle areas and work outwards, then trim off the excess. Buy the best trimming knife and straight edge that you can get and have a large sheet of old plywood on the garage floor for cutting. Adhesives also vary but avoid the cheapies as they don't like getting wet.

I could have used a much more expensive route with vinyl sides and tricky mouldings, but I wanted the "less is more" approach to most of the Cobra build anyway to get a more subdued appearance. The boot is also fully trimmed over marine ply removable panels.

The dash is made in thick aluminium and has no padding at all. I wanted to use black leather but found a great and very tough leather-look vinyl that the seat trimmer suggested. It was easy to fit. The Cobra magazine - the UK one that is now defunct I think - had a great issue on trimming that I read about 6 times! Could send it to you if that helps. I think I have the full set.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Merv