Opinions wanted -- 1970 Z interior

[Warty]

I have a 1/1970 240Z that I recently bought. The car had 3 previous owners, first two being the long-term owners. These folks did a lot of work to the car over the time they owned it. The first owner had the car re-upholstered around 1980 (hmm, that didn't last long!). The second owner had the car up on a rotisserie for restore/repainting. Which is great, because they seem to have done a great job on rust. Also, the headliner is nice and firm. But there are some unoriginal elements to this car:

• rebuilt, non-matching L24
• most of the original vinyl is gone, replaced by carpet (even on the tunnel).
• all/most of the original jute material is gone. sometimes, replaced by foam, sometimes by nothing really. 
• dashcap
• luggage straps removed
• original wheels gone
• etc etc etc

I use the car as a weekend+ driver. I don't want to restore to concours or anything. My goal is to have an enjoyable Z that I don't feel bad about driving; and also I want to "do no harm". I might want to see the car in a few years, we'll see how it goes. 

I'd love to hear some recommendations about what to do, and NOT do, with the interior of this car. Some ideas I'm kicking around (not married to any of them): 

• Strip down, do dynamat and/or thermal protection (foam over the muffler cooked!) (lots of good stuff on this forum about that)
• Do squeal/squeak deadening on the interior panels (lots of good stuff on this forum about that)
• Maybe replace seats with something non-Z like that would be more comfortable. Corbeau GTS II from MSA perhaps? 
• Swap for blue interior (this year 903 blue cars apparently could come in black or blue interior; blue-on-blue seems like it might be weird and fun and have super SEVENTIES power). Would this damage re-sale value of car though? It looks like parts are available, maybe $1500-2000 range for the materials). 

Opinions and advice from the community would be great to hear. 

[sweatybetty]

i have done mine the way I want it, but also in a way that it should sell quickly if i need to sell. IMO, do what you like. i do think that leaving the interior black would be your best bet, as it does look pretty nice.

[siteunseen]

I agree with SB. The black looks good to me too.

It happened to me when I got back into the Zs after 25 years but you want to do all this stuff when actually you'll get overwhelmed or run out of money. Do the simple stuff and drive the tires off of it first then you'll have something to do when you get older and bored. Damn good excuse to get away from lifes problems to. 8^)

[grannyknot]

I'm with Sweaty, good quality sound and thermal insulation properly installed is a wonderful thing and won't affect the value of the car since it isn't stock anymore, just make it a nice place to hang out in.

[87mj]

I really like the dated look of the vinyl.  If it were me, I would try to maintain as much of the "240z" personality as I could.  I would keep an eye out for transmission tunnel vinyl.  I would also replace those seats with aftermarket.  Then send me a PM indicating you are wanting to sell your factory seats. 

Seriously, I like everything about these cars and the closer to stock, the better.  But its your car.

 

[Hardway]

I agree with everyone else.  Your plans would not negatively effect the value at this point since much of the original interior material is gone.  It is hard to tell from the photos but your seats look like series-2 reclining seats as I do not see the knobs on the sides.  Since you want to go with something more modern this is a non-issue.  The only thing I would suggest is pulling the half-cap out and replacing it with a full dash cap.

With some nice paint, a clean engine bay, and a clean interior, your car should be competitive at any show.  More people are looking at these cars, even the die-hard American only old timers.  Good luck with it and keep us posted.

[rturbo 930]

The first two are good ideas, I think. However, I would say no to the blue interior, for the cost and effort, not being original, and the resulting color combo of blue on blue. The effort isn't worth the reward. And I would have to say no to the Corbeau seats as well. They don't fit the Z interior aesthetically. I would look into 80s Porsche seats (944 or 911) which look pretty similar to what's in the Z and won't stick out like a sore thumb. No idea if they're comfortable. Miata seats have also been done, but would need new upholstery to look right IMO. Period style bucket seats are also an option if you want to go that route.

Edited July 9, 2017 by rturbo 930

[Pop's Z]

FWIW, my old tired butt was unhappy with the original seats even after putting in new foam. I was at one of the MSA Z Car Nationals and saw a 240 with seats from a Z 32 300 ZX 90s era. I sat in the car and was amazed at how much more comfortable/supportive they were. The owner said it was a pretty simple swap using the seat rails from the 240. After i got home i found a pair of seats from a '90 ZX and installed them. I've been happy with them ever since. Because i have a '73 I wasn't too worried about originality. My old tired butt thanks me every time we go out.

Cheers, Mike

[Mark Maras]

 I actually thought the original seats were fairly comfortable with one exception. During spirited driving, on track and off, my narrow butt would slide from side to side on the wide seat even using a five point harness.

[siteunseen]

1 hour ago, Mark Maras said:

 I actually thought the original seats were fairly comfortable with one exception. During spirited driving, on track and off, my narrow butt would slide from side to side on the wide seat even using a five point harness.

Doughnuts, 12 a day and you'll hear people laughing saying "wide load".

[Warty]

Thanks everyone! 

I read all these, went away and thought a bit, and decided to replace the black carpet with black vinyl, bring it back closer to stock. I got a new head unit, speakers, and Derek's kick panels. I finally had a clear day to work on it today. In the meantime, I had discovered another problem: when I first got the car, there was a very strong gas smell. Overpowering. Mechanic fixed up the carbs, and the gas smell went away... replaced by MOUSE smell. Argh.  So this morning, before doing anything with the speakers, I start tearing out the carpet, vacuuming up mouse droppings, etc. I take a break at lunch, and start putting new black vinyl in my shopping cart at MSA, but hold off on ordering. Maybe a good thing...

While scraping off the foam (well, not original, but old at this point), and the brown hairy stuff from the tunnel, I found 2 little mysteries: 

1. The car had black carpet when I got it. Pretty standard stuff. But it looks like at some point before, it had some kind of brown carpet. And I think it was screwed down. All that's left is a bit around each screw (see pic). Do I need to keep these screws? I presume they aren't original at all. Should I plug the holes they made in the metal if I remove them? 
2. Around the handbrake, something interesting showed up. With all the brown stuff, I didn't realize what it was at first, but it appears to be the diamond-pattern blue vinyl. It's still behind the hand brake mechanism. 

Does that mean what I think? This car had blue vinyl originally? If so, would it have had blue panels too? Or in 1970, was the blue just limited to the vinyl? 

I was also going to ask if there is a way to know if Vinyl is original or not. The stuff in the back is in good shape...

 

[Warty]

Forget to mention: the seats are not original. They have the later bar that will allow tilt mechanism, and they have wire underneath, not webbing.

I had a chance to drive a 2016 vette this past weekend. Nice seats, they kept me in place on the corners. I'll check out 300zx seats. The Porsche ones seem to be expensive in my neck of the woods. The shape is pretty close, I never realized that.


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