TJohnson

My last car, a 2000 Trans Am, was kind of my guinea pig with my first attempt at custom interior work. I've built and installed tons and tons of custom stereos in my life, but never really attempted the materials and finishing side of it.

I set out w/ the Trans Am and covered the headliner, door panels, speaker grills, rear seat delete, amp rack, and sub box all in black microsuede. It turned out fantastic, but sadly I had to sell the car at the end of last year.

I will be converting to a 1jz later on this year, but I thought I would turn my attention back to suede for the SC3. I just got done covering the center console/arm rest piece. Plans are to cover the headliner, visors, door panels, back deck, speaker grills, and maybe a few other spots in this tan microsuede. I have included pictures of what I did tonight and also some pictures of the Trans Am work I did. I'll update as I get more done throughout the next couple weeks







And some of the TA

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

Works better in a T/A, but I'm game to watch it go down.

RedSC

iTrader: (3)

clean job on your trans am, you should go black suede on the sc aswell. Tan gets dirty too fast.

SClean4

Suede is

Touge

iTrader: (4)

Very interesting, can't wait to see more.

ihiryu

iTrader: (7)

Love suede, isn't it hard to keep clean though? The T/A looks great, and where in tx are ya?

SoarerAZ

good luck! T/A looks awesome.

FormosaSC

ummm black suede should look better IMO

pnyboy27

dang..thats pretty nice and clean! i love that t/a's interior..should be very interesting to see in the sc

ScottURnot

iTrader: (33)

In for progress updates.

clevercat

Good luck!
We had hell of time trying to suede upper door trims and a few more curvy parts.
You will find out soon.
You probably need to get some needles!

TJohnson

Thanks for the comments so far.

I thought about doing the black suede, but I'm happy w/ the tan interior and like how it looks. To each is own of course

Black suede tends to fade faster and turns almost a purple color over time. Granted that will take awhile, but I'm gonna go w/ the tan for now and see how it turns out.

This is also my fun car so I am not worried about it getting dirty. I've had it 3 months and its seen the sunlight maybe 10 times since then. I am in Austin TX by the way.

I thought about attmepting the upper door trim panels too, but the curves in those are a little too much for me. I have a friend who does this professionally that I may have attempt it, but I don't think I'm going to try something like that myself. I'm not that good

TJohnson

I apologize for not many updates so far. This is the insane time of year at work and I've been in my new house barely a month now, lots of extra work to do

But I did finally get some more work done on the suede tonight as well as get some pictures of all that I've completed so far. I have now finished the back dash, speaker grills, and 3rd brake light/subwoofer cover along with the headliner. I did decide against the visors just because of the difficulty in making them look good and I like the contrast of the stock tan on the suede.

I plan on now just finishing the A-pillars along w/ the trim that goes around the back triangle windows so that from the dash and windows up, its all suede. I am also thinking about the shift boot too.

Please note that these are not completed pictures. I still need to go to work with the hair dryer on some places and some of the angles were so sharp that there was no way to avoid showing the material underneath. I will go back later and patch those up. I've found it so much easier that way.

On with the pictures

TheMole

iTrader: (13)

Looks good man. How well do they resist fading from the sun?

TJohnson

I had black suede in my last car as seen in the first pictures and its been in there about a year now and I spoke to the person who bought the car the other day and it hasn't shown any sign of it yet. Many people have mentioned stories to me of the black suede turning purplish over time. I would be very surprised if this faded at all in many years to come.

In my situation, this car sits in the garage and is driven maybe once a week so the fading isn't so much of an issue for me as it might be for someone else, but per the company I bought it from as well as what I've seen so far, I'd be very surprised to see it fade any time soon.