You may ask "What is this photography you speak of?"
Well... a long time ago when we didn't know it would be a long time...we thought it would be cool to make a poster of our car before paint so that folks could see what a Milner Coupe is made of. Because once you start painting everything yellow and black, the details kind of disappear. I hope it's worth it in the end because getting ready for this picture has been a chore. Things that can usually be done on the fly now have to be completed in total. The car must be done, just sans paint. Of course we're making up the rules as we go and being a somewhat detailed orientated person, I may have made it too hard on us. And then we thought that having the seat and panels installed would make the car instantly recognizable as the Milner Coupe, even without the yellow.
So here we are, all gettin' our upholstery on. And we know what the Graffiti Coupe looks like inside, right? So it shouldn't have been too hard. But as usual we probably over-thought the thing. See, I always felt the Coupe looked unfinished inside. Like someone didn't really know what they were doing, or didn't have the time to do it right. The way the headliner meets the sides behind the quarter windows, kinda weird. And the side panels behind the doors along side the seat look like they just stretched material over the whole thing and said "let's go". It looks like they ran out of trim. How come the '56 Fairlane 'Vees' don't continue toward the back? They actually do on the Fairlane. It just looks undone, yeah?
So we drew it out and it looked good on paper so we went with it. The bottom of the 'Vee' continues it's downward arch and the top piece shoots at an upward angle. We hope it looks as good in reality as it does in our noggins.
And the trunk. You can see most of how it is finished in old magazines, but Figari has kept the deck lid tight lately so it is there we get to use a little judgement as well. We also are not going to install the wood cameraman's deck in the trunk, so our gas tank will be purty'd up. Fire Engine Red with stainless straps holding it down. If nothing else it will look like the Franklin Mint toy.
The wind lacing, roof insert, headliner and carpet will be left off for now. Cut, sewn and all ready to go but those are one time items. Everything we are covering now can come out for paint. We did have to paint the seat frame because the frame itself gets wrapped. Don't tell anybody.
The pictures included here were taken just before it left A&M. The upholsterer came to their shop to cut the panels to fit so we could scale and set the trim right where it belongs. The trim ends were then welded and everything polished before being mounted on the boards. This way they upholster has to make no judgement calls on trim location. It's all done. We took it to his shop shortly after that and you are now up to date. Coming soon...Black!
'da Hui no ka oi
Steely Dan - Dirty Work
