INTERNAL AFFAIRS

THE INTRICATE INTERIOR

The trend right now seems to be about putting all the detail into the engine bay, and while Paul did indeed spend some serious hours under the bonnet (see page 25), it’s the Fast Road and track day-ready interior where he really went to town. “It was all about making it look good, rather than just buying off-the-shelf bits,” he reckons. “I’ve got a folder full of ideas, drawings and patterns for bespoke brackets for the car, and most of them were for the interior. For example, I wanted to run the brake and fuel lines together along the driver’s side inner sill (and mirrored by the wiring loom on the passenger side), but no-one seemed to do a bracket to suit the different diameters of the pipes, so I designed some in CAD and then through a friend found someone who could make them for me at an affordable price — I needed 30 after all.”

The detail is out there — the centralised hot rod steering column bolts to the dash rail using a custom bracket designed to replicate the profile of the Stack digital dash, while all of the switchgear has been relocated to a central console on the tunnel which took Paul five attempts until he was happy with the look. DaveTheTrimmer then trimmed it in leather with orange stitching, replicated on the dashtop. “My favourite elements are the door and rear quarter trims, though” says Paul. “People think they’re diamond-stitched leather, but they’re actually bead-rolled aluminium done by a guy in the US and then anodised black after I sent him a template — I even made sure the fixing screws lined up with the points of the diamonds... I know, I know, I need to have a word with myself!”