I was extremely fortunate when I bought my Monaco that it came with gold/tan interior. It saved me from having to think about the interior for a long time.
As I finished the body and paint work I did get luck and scored most of the pieces I needed to convert the interior into Bluesmobile accurate and not the “luxury” interior of the Royal Monaco.
I use the term luxury in a very sarcastic tone, as there really isn’t anything luxurious about it, save for maybe a little extra padding in the upper door panels.
Starting Point
The pictures below show the interior as it was. Nice, clean, and serviceable. Nothing particularly wrong with it, just not movie accurate.
Modifications
Early on I acquired a three spoke rim in excellent condition. While the horn pad did not come with a ring and had the Dodge/Plymouth log on it, it is extremely close to what is needed.
Later on I was able to score a clean set up ’74 police / taxi specific upper door panels.
While I have other pieces that will go into the interior, for the time being I’m focusing on the steering wheel and door panels.
Approach
To be screen accurate, the whole interior would be dark tan. More than likely during filming the Bluesmobiles came with different colored interiors and were spray bombed dark tan. The only colors close in the brochures are Gold and Parchment, which the Bluesmobile is neither.
Since the interior is completely serviceable and I am on a limited budget I needed to modify the work I was doing to fit in with the overall look of the factory interior.
One thing to mention about Chrysler interiors of this era, even though “Gold” is the keyword of my interior, it is more like 50 shades of Gold and Tan. Since I couldn’t find anyone that had gold vinyl dye in a can, I experimented with various different shades.
I used SEM Vinyl and Plastic dye exclusively throughout the project. Due to some of the color choices I did look at Duplicolor and Rustoleum choices, but unfortunately I didn’t think they were close.
Looking at the chart alone, I chose Palomino for the steering wheel, and I ordered Santa Fe, and a Sand color from the other companies to see what matched.
I sprayed the wheel with Palamino and once I let it dry, I could tell right away that it was too light for the steering wheel. So without hesitation I ordered SEM Camel, as it would be the closet shade.
After noticing the color difference, I sprayed a sheet of plastic with the multiple shades I purchased.
After comparing colors on various surfaces and during different lighting I ended up choosing Palamino for the upper door panels. I also decided to dye the lower door panels at the same time to make them more uniform.
I scrubbed the door panels and wheel with Dawn, then used SEM Vinyl and Leather Prep, and then SEM Adhesion Promoter.
Then I misted the SEM Santa Fe to help lighten the panels in order to use less Palamino.
Here is the steering wheel redone with SEM Camel.
And here are the door panels done with Palamino. I think they look pretty good!
During this time I came across a horn pad with the ring and no markings.
I cleaned up the lower panels and shot them with Palamino, so they would match. I forgot to take more pictures, but the lower left panel is the original Gold, and the one on the right has been sprayed. Not perfect but close.
While waiting for the panels to dry I decided to install the Craig 8-Track in the dashboard where it belongs!
It was a hard decision to make, but I don’t regret it one bit!
Lower panel installed
Old vs. New
Installed.
While I was doing all of this work, I went back and finished the inside of the trunk lid. I original did the outer corners, but let the middle brown.
And the finished result!
