The interior may well be the most important part of any hot rod. A trick paintjob is great, but you can't admire it much from the driver seat. The cabin is where we live. With that tenet in mind, this month we tackle the E-Rod '79 Camaro's interior décor. In previous episodes, we covered the project's introduction (Jan. '11), E-Rod LS3 engine and drivetrain swap (Feb. '11), paint (Mar. '11), and chassis (Apr. '11). When it came time to do the Z28's living room, we didn't call in the swatch shufflers and feng shui consultants, but we did bring some special talent to bear.
The E-Rod Camaro's interior is basic black and retains a number of stock components, but we still managed to obtain a combination that is accommodating and, dare we say it, elegant. The Auto Meter gauges, which light up in rainbow colors as alerts, provide the one touch of bling.
As he has since the start of the project, Mike Copeland of Diversified Creations in Brighton, Michigan, directed the effort, aided by his lead wrench and fabricator, Jeremy Salewsky. But with the yet-to-do list mounting and a big, fat deadline barreling toward us, Copeland reached for his infinite Rolodex of Motor City automotive talent and rang up a couple of sharpshooters to help out. The hired guns were Nick Salewsky, Jeremy's brother, who installed the Pioneer audio system, among other duties, and Corey Hansen, who, with Jeremy, designed and fabricated the six-point rollbar assembly.
You might remember Hansen from HOT ROD's crate motor shootout adventure back in the Oct. '08 issue, where he served on the both the build team and the track crew for the wheelie-prone yellow Chevelle. His own drag cars include a 9-second Chevy Cavalier and a turbocharged LS1 Camaro, while in his day job as a prototype fabricator at the GM Proving Grounds, he's constructed countless rollcages. When Hansen dropped in at the Diversified shop to double Jeremy Salewsky on the E-Rod's rollbar installation, all (except Copeland, of course) were immediately blown away by his exemplary fab skills. The man is faster with a TIG rig than ordinary humans with MIG, and his work is pretty enough to bring a tear to your eye.
To reference the extent of the makeover, witness the interior as delivered. It was in better shape than what's often seen in late-second-generation GM F-cars, though the predictables were all there: duct tape on the seat, broken door pulls, flapping door panels, and a loose console lid. Only the original dashpad was retained.
Nick Salewsky, our audio wizard, installed and wired the Pioneer sound system. He slipped a Pioneer head unit with integral AM/FM receiver and CD player into the stock dash opening, then constructed a pair of fitted enclosures for the Champion Pro Series subwoofers, which tuck neatly into the Camaro's interior quarter-panels in the trunk. A pair of 6x9 five-way speakers were dropped into the rear parcel shelf, while a 6.25-inch midrange, tweeter, and crossover was stashed away inside each door. These components are a mix of Pioneer's Stage II and Stage III parts to create a complete system priced around $1,500. If you are a typical hot rodder unfamiliar with stereo components, selections for performance, features, and price are made easy using the FitGuide at the Pioneer website.
The rear seat in a second-gen F-body is your basic cruel hoax, incapable of supporting human life. You'd never stuff an actual person back there for any length of time, not anyone you like. And since the rollbar now thwarts access/egress anyway, we found a new use for the space: The former rear seat is now a nifty luggage area in the Grand Touring manner. Nick Salewsky constructed the cargo platform with more of his MDF, which was then covered in black carpeting to match the Classic Industries OE-style rugs used up front. It looks great and provides a handy place to toss the laptop, photo bag, and toothbrush. You know, the necessities.
After gutting the old stuff, work on the E-Rod interior began with the installation of the six-point rollbar kit from Autoweld Chassis, which we chose to stiffen the chassis and to meet NHRA requirements for stock-floorpan cars that run between 10.00 and 11.49 seconds in the quarter-mile. It is bent from 1.75-inch diameter, 0.134-wall ERW tubing, the later being well ahead of the NHRA 0.118 spec for mild steel tubing. Here, Jeremy Salewsky uses a ratchet strap to pull the main hoop into alignment.
In finished form, the E-Rod's interior is deceptive; there still are plenty of disco-era elements in residence, including the door panels, which are reproductions by Classic Industries. But the Corbeau seats and harnesses along with the carbon-look dash insert and the Auto Meter instruments give the '79 a contemporary look. It's totally practical and attractive, but not too flashy—homey, you might say. And we've got a complete Vintage Air in-dash heater-A/C setup, so we've got all-weather comfort, too.
