It’s really hard to believe that it has been almost one full year since I last posted a story to the blog! It is mind boggling to me how much has changed in a year. I hope this post finds all of you healthy and safe with your friends and family. 2020 has been a shit year for all of us and I am so looking forward to a better 2021! How about you?
This should have been the year to knock off a lot of little things I wanted to do to the Bluesmobile for awhile, but for some reason I never got to it. But I did start redoing the interior.
Many Bluesmobile builders (myself included) for years have viewed having a car that came tan or gold interior from the factory as being perfect for a Bluesmobile. I believe a lot of that comes from the fact that the Bluesmobiles were based off of California Highway Patrol cars that would have absolutely had the gold interior. But if you watch the movie closely the Bluesmobile does not have gold / tan interior. It has brown.
How can a 1974 Dodge Monaco police car have brown interior? It wasn’t even an option! My best guess is since they used up to 13 different Dodge Monaco’s as Bluesmobiles, all of them needed to match for the most part. How many were actually former CHP cars and how many were regular civilian Monaco’s? How many came with gold interior versus green, blue, or red? I dunno. Maybe the factory gold interior didn’t film well? All great questions that will probably never be answered. So I believe the production crew in charge of vehicles spray bombed the Bluesmobiles interior, never thinking or caring someone would try to replicate the color 40 years later.
I never realized how many shades of brown there were! It felt like a life time of experimenting until I decided on SEM Color Coat Bluebird Brown. It’s a nice in the middle brown, not to red and not to far on the grey side. I have a full back bench that I will have reupholstered along with the rear seat in vinyl to match the color of the dye that I will be using everywhere else.
Starting point. Slightly worn looking gold interior. Notice I already took out the metal middle section. And the 8-Track stereo and some other misc. trim pieces.
While I was tearing apart the dashboard to dye the pieces I decided to replace my speedometer with a NOS 14o Certified Police Speedometer that I have had for awhile and also connect my Oil Pressure / Temperature Gauge that has been sitting where the clock was unconnected for three years. Figure it would be nice to see it work after all this time.
Oil Pressure / Temperature Gauge connected and working properly! This item was NOS.
Dash cover off! Amazing that only 8 little bolts hold the dash together!
Bluebird Brown SEM Color Coat
Horn pad in it’s previous tan color.
First few coats of brown
Dash pad sprayed
NOS Certified 14o Speedometer installed! Beautiful to view at night!
I struggled with what I should do with the lower dash. From the factory the steering column and lower dash would have been painted black. In the Blues Brothers world they would have been brown like the rest of the interior. I went the movie accurate route.
While everything was out I added Dynamat to all of the inner dash areas to quiet down rattles and vibrations. It makes a world of difference and highly recommend it. I will be added it throughout the car as I continue to work on changing the interior color.
Here is the finished dashboard. While it is hard to notice in the picture, there is a HUGE difference between the brown and gold.
Wait. Something is missing.
Much better!
I have already ordered replacement carpet. I went with black to mimic the look of the old cop cars vinyl flooring, but without the moisture issues. I plan on removing the seats to send off to the upholsterer and continue to dye panels.
Look for updates in the near future!
