Every step in assembling a street rod is like building an addition on your house; with each added layer of detailing, like paint, trim, moldings, carpeting, etc., a difference in the overall appearance is made. After paint, completing the interior of a vehicle makes the biggest difference. What you'll see here is a brief capsule of the time and labor that went into the interior and the folding, cloth top of our 2003 PPG/STREET RODDER Road Tour roadster.
On a roadster like our '33, you can define the shape and profile of the top without ever picking up a torch or a saw. Barry White wanted the car to have a traditional fabric top (as opposed to a fiberglass lift-off top that can be hard to store on a trip) that could fold down and also be removed.
We used reproduction stock-style oak bows and chromed top irons, fitting the front bow over the top of the windshield posts from Wescott's, which were stock-style but chopped 2 inches. Several modifications were made to the folding top mechanism, thereby bringing the front edge of the top where it meets the body (just behind the doors) forward 5 1/2 inches from stock, right to the doorjamb. This makes a dramatic difference in the all-important shape of the "window" opening when seen from the side.
Other attributes he added to our top, besides a great look and shape, were luxury-car touches like "French" seams that run side-to-side rather than lengthwise, a 1 1/4-inch skirt around the front, weather-stripping at the front bow, and a back window that is "bagged" between two double-stitched pieces of material, so the window can be replaced in about ten minutes. When you see it in person, also check out the material. Stay-Fast, an American material, was used--it appears to outlast the highly touted German materials and has a "blacker" black as well.
We were also fortunate to have the help of Blaine Roberts, the owner of RodDoors, to fit and install all of our interior panels. RodDoors makes a number of designer-styled door and other interior panels made from sculptured ABS plastic. Compared to the wooden door skins and cardboard paneling usually used in automotive upholstery, the plastic panels aren't affected by moisture and can be easily customized by heating and bending, cutting, and gluing with standard ABS pipe cement. The panels used in our car were custom designed and first used in the Road Tour roadster. This design is now available from RodDoors--they call it the Pulver pattern.
The main sculptured panel comes as a 44x32-inch piece you cut to fit your application. This would work for a much bigger door than ours. Paper templates are made from the doors first, with markings for the door or window handle locations. After careful marking and cutting with a sharp utility knife, these ABS panels can be drilled for window cranks or handles, cut out to fit one of RodDoors' several armrest styles, then attached to the body with their Dualloc tape pieces that are like hook-and-loop only better. The plastic material can be heated (carefully) with a heat gun and formed to fit a location or to clear obstacles, such as our behind-the-door panels that needed a bump to clear the braces on the Wescott's body steel inner structure at the rear door posts.
Besides the fitting of the basic kick panels, door and behind-the-door panels, Blaine also used RodDoors' '28-34 roadster rear cab cover, which is a three-piece kit that already has the corner curves to fit the body. You cut the three sections to fit your body exactly, then join them into one by gluing them together at the seams with backing strips and ABS cement. Now it can be upholstered as a one-piece panel.
Other specialty panels used were the three-piece console and the universal under-dash unit. The console set includes a floor piece that has a radiused opening for your shifter, a tall thin piece that comes down from the bottom of the dash's center to meet the console, and a third panel that fills between the floor piece and the vertical dash piece. All of these pieces can be customized considerably to adapt to your specific needs, as was done in our car. The universal under-dash unit helps to clean up the aesthetics at the bottom edge of an under-dash area crowded with electrical and climate-control components.
Another major contribution to our finished interior from RodDoors was one of their "ready to wear" RodSeats. These are fully finished, sculptured seats with foam panels. They can be ordered without upholstery or covered by RodDoors with one of the many tweed, ultrasuede, or ultraleather materials they offer. These guys are an almost one-stop shop for making interior work easier. The STREET RODDER choice for material was a charcoal ultraleather. If you have never felt a sample of this stuff, it's as soft as a baby's earlobe to touch, and is so flexible that it adapts well to being used on RodDoors' sculptured panels without wrinkling, as it doesn't have the stiff backing found on most vinyl materials.
According to RodDoors, about 10 yards of material is required to do a roadster like ours, counting the seats. Armed with 7 yards of the charcoal ultraleather (RodDoors had used 3 yards on the seat already), we methodically and carefully measured, placed, and trimmed our material over and around the interior and trunk panels. Blaine Roberts said that if this had been a closed sedan, 14 yards would have been required, counting seats.
By now, many of our readers have seen Jerry Dixey and the 2003 Road Tour '33 at various events across the country, but for those following the buildup in these pages, the concluding reel of the drama is coming up, with final details and a good overall look at the finished car, which we think you'll agree has met every expectation and then some.
We began our roadster's top...
We began our roadster's top by modifying and assembling the reproduction top bows and irons. At the front, the header brackets fit on our chopped Wescott's windshield posts, and at the rear the irons bolt to the body's steel inner structure. Note how the new PPG Mercedes silver paint was masked off to avoid scratches.
With the top skeleton in place,...
With the top skeleton in place, it was time to add the skin, starting at the back of the body and working forward. The body-side halves of the top snaps were installed, then the top material placed and temporarily secured with "quick-grip" fasteners. The black Stay-Fast material was stretched up to the rear wooden bow and held with a few staples. Cloth "spacing" straps run from the rear bow to the middle bow so that the top always looks the same each time it is put up.
The top is composed of three...
The top is composed of three panels, the front, middle, and rear. The rear is in place, and here the fitting of the middle section of material between the rear and middle bows takes place. The finished seam between these sections will be covered by "hidem" welting.
After all the cloth sections...
After all the cloth sections are trial-fitted and carefully marked, the fabric is removed and sewn, in our case with French seams. Bob has reinstalled it here and is stretching the material forward to make the final attachment at the front header.
From this angle, check the...
From this angle, check the finished top's profile and the all-important shape of the "window" opening above the door. This is one good-looking roadster top!
You won't be able to see all...
You won't be able to see all of the time that went into our '33's interior, but we'll give you a brief overview. Blaine Roberts of RodDoors fitted his company's sculptured ABS interior panels personally. Paper patterns made on the doors were used to mark off the panels for cutting.
After the door panels were...
After the door panels were cut, sanded to fit, and heated and bent to conform to the top-front corners of the Model 40 doors, Blaine used his Dualloc fastening tapes around the door opening. After the matching tabs are affixed to the back of the door panel, the panel can be taken in and out of the car anytime with no clips or screws.
A second piece of the panel...
A second piece of the panel material was used for the panel behind the door. Here, the continuation of the "Pulver" design was drawn onto the second piece, which had already been heated and bent at the bottom to clear part of the Wescott's body steel structure.
To show you how easy this...
To show you how easy this stuff is to work with, the shape was cut out, and then two pieces of material bigger than the hole were attached to the back with ABS cement, which Blaine is smoothing out with a rag here. The finished piece now has just the shape and depth to match the pattern in the door panels when both are upholstered.
The second panel is here being...
The second panel is here being fitted to the Dualloc tape to align with the door panel, then marked for trimming at the top and bottom. This same process of using paper patterns, cutting the ABS, fitting, and taping was then applied to the passenger side of the cockpit.
The area behind the back of...
The area behind the back of the cockpit was paneled off with RodDoors' '28-34 roadster rear cab cover. The three-piece kit is curved to fit the radius of the body, and filler strips are provided to glue the trimmed pieces together for a one-piece panel to upholster.
Final tailoring of the Road...
Final tailoring of the Road Tour '33 starts with the floor. First, a sound deadener layer was applied. Insulation was next and then the carpeting was installed. Here, carpet is being carefully fitted around the Lokar shifter and E-brake handle.
Charcoal ultraleather was...
Charcoal ultraleather was used in our interior, a good choice with our black top and silver body color. In this shot the RodDoors ABS armrest has been sprayed with glue, while the wrinkles are steamed out as the material is stretched over the armrest.
After the door panel has been...
After the door panel has been covered with ultraleather, the armrest is pushed through from the backside and attached. In this completed passenger door panel, you can see how the very flexible ultraleather conforms perfectly to the sculptured pattern in the ABS panel.
RodDoors also makes sculptured...
RodDoors also makes sculptured seats. For our roadster, they supplied their "Burney" design, which was covered with the charcoal ultraleather for a seat comfortable enough for a whole summer of cross-country travel.