The interior

Introduction

The new steering wheel for the 1972 VW Beetle. Most Bajas don't have much interior design. But I want to make it a bit more special. The door panels and dashboard will be covered in vinyl. The theme will be sun, sea, sand, and palm trees. A decent audio system is also planned. The woofers will be quite large, so there will only be one seat in the back. Besides the speedometer and a few switches, only a tachometer will be added to the dashboard. The seats will be a bit more unusual...

The interior is planned for the winter. I have no experience with fabric upholstery, but I'm going to give it a try. I already had the steering wheel; it has the "United colours of Benneton," and those will be the interior colours.

Design

CAD design for the interior for the 1972 VW Beetle. I've developed the design in AutoCAD. I can't yet decide whether to go with a setting sun (red) or a rising sun (yellow). In the meantime, I've already adjusted the design, so the sunbeam extends across the left panel.

Wooden parts for the interior for the 1972 VW Beetle. Here I'm cutting out all the parts. The plan is to cover the door panel with a thin layer of foam rubber covered with blue fabric. I'm going to fit the palm tree parts with tee nuts and then glue the fabric around them. When I install the parts, they'll sink into the foam on the panel.
The same goes for the dashboard panel.

Covering the wooden parts with vinyl for the interior for the 1972 VW Beetle. I first made new door panels from 4mm hardboard. Then I cut out all the shapes from 6mm plywood. All the shapes have tee-nuts for attachment from the back. Then I gave everything a coat of paint to protect it from moisture.

All the parts for the interior for the 1972 VW Beetle. In total I made 57 shapes for the panels.

The new door-panels for the 1972 VW Beetle. Here's the final result. The palm tree on the rear panels is tilted slightly to one side because the boom box is partially in front of the panel.

The new dash for the 972 VW Beetle. Also, the dashboard will be the same way. So, wherever I drive to it will always be a "Run to the Sun".
All switches are moved to the location of the ash tray.

The Boom box...

The wooden parts for the boom-box. A nice piece of music is always enjoyable. In my Baja, it's a bit different than in my daily driver. There's no room for a radio or CD player. I opt for an MP3 player in a holder near the gearshift.

Assembling the wooden parts of the boom-box. The materials used were 18mm MDF for the panels, screws, and construction adhesive.
After cutting them out, I used a router to cut all the pieces to size. Then I glued and screwed the pieces together.

Painting the boom-box. Here everything is almost finished, everything has been painted for moisture protection. The woofer space will be filled with damping material. The midrange and treble speakers are separated into two separate spaces.

The finished 2000 watts boom box. A Beetle isn't very spacious, and I didn't want to use the door panels for speakers. I opted to put just one seat in the back and surround it with the speakers. You can see the result here. The Boom box goes in the Beetle's interior trunk.

Monstertach

The 5 inch monster-tach for in the 1972 VW Beetle. I always wanted a huge tachometer, like an Autometer Monster Tachometer. And it's arrived from the USA. Its diameter is 127 mm. The tachometer will sit above the dashboard, against the windshield. The 10,000 rpm is a bit much, but it does look nice.
Update: 2025-11-25 11:50:59