Inside story

Got some interior pieces ready for installation. Doorpanels, armrests and the console with lid.

Behind the sun

The color of the sun visors needed to be changed , apart from that the previous owner of the 'Cuda found it a good Idea to glue a mirror on the driver side sunvisor.

I've had the parts for quite a while so I could fix the new visors quickly...

Taillight housings

Since there won't be any news from the bodyshop for another month or so, I'll treat you to some small stuff. I redid the outsides of the taillight housings. I had them stripped of old paint and grime a while ago and it was hard to tell what color they actually had. From some other restorations I've seen, they seem to have a gold / copper tone to be correct.

Gold paint came out really nice! I've already done the insides in silver - it was supposed to be more like chrome but it's silver - maybee I can come up with some kind of chrome foil on the insides to get a better reflection from the lightbulbs.

Historic Road Racing

Took a trip to the Slovakiaring, just across the border to accompany A friend for some historic road-racing. Historical racing delivers a wonderful atmosphere of burning rubber and high octane fuel ...(actually they all run on pump gas) and is a lot of fun to watch. A swiss fellow rolled to the starting line in this beautiful reconstruction of Jerry Titus' 1971Trans-Am Firebird. Fitted with a Pontiac bigblock, which would definitely have been beyond the rules back in '71, the big bird was the fastet car on the track.

Appearing on pit lane, very much effort has went into the Pontiac to make it look exactly like the original racecar. There is a 1970 Cuda also racing in the series, made to look like Sam Poseys car but unfortunately it did not contend this weekend.

Here is Roberts Alfa Romeo Giulia tucked between a Mark 1 Escort and a Volkswagen Golf. He did very well all weekend, racing in the highly competitive 1.6 liter class.

Console

I got hold of a red console from MCB Performance in Michigan. The original console was broken at the end and had numerous holes drilled into it by the previous owner. The new one will surely tie the interior together, as the Dude would say. You can tell it was designed fourty years ago by the complete absence of anything like a cupholder!

More paint prep

New pics from the bodyshop. Things are coming together on the nose of the 'Cuda. The fenders are straight...

The last wrinkles have been treated.

Driver side quarter.
Sadly that pretty much wraps it up until september since the bodyshop is closing down for summer holidays. They will be back on the job with new energy at the end of august, I hope it won't take long from then...

Fit and alignment

After quite a while, the 'Cuda is coming together again and looking somewhat like a car once again.

The hood, the front fenders, the panel that's in front of the hood and the front valance are bolted to the car to check for imperfections in the surface - yes, there are plenty - and for fit and proper alignement.

All of the spots that need attention are marked , so the finished surface will look good.