Trimming a 1967 Mazda Cosmo,

Last year I had the opportunity to do the interior trim work on a number of rare classics. Perhaps non so rare though as the iconic Mazda Cosmo series 1.
This was the first model of car that Mazda ever produced and it also featured the first of their "Wankel" rotary engines to be used in a car.
They didn't make a huge amount of these Cosmo's and in fact they were never really sold to the North American market. While obviously a few of them did make it over here they were all built right hand drive.

This car as it was, had had a few interior changes over it's life including the addition of some more modern seats probably out of an RX7 or something.
The original seats and carpets were long gone and the new owner wanted to set the car back right again or as close as we could get it to original spec.

As you can see, the above pics show the newer aftermarket brown seats that someone had installed in the car and below is a pic of what the original seats would have looked like:

Since original seats are not available for these cars, I had to modify what we had to try and make some new seats that had the right look of what the Cosmo seats should be.
The seats provided at least had a similar hinge structure to the originals so I decided to use the existing frames and just modify them and reshape them to be more like the original style. I removed the headrest assemblies, cut down and re-shaped the bolsters and made new foams and seat covers.

Here is my final results:

The dash was originally a factory molded design that was still in pretty good shape so we ended up removing and just re-dying it in black.

I started the interior restoration by removing the old tunnel cover and sewing up a new one in black vinyl, installed with new foam under it.

Then I made up a new carpet set in Burgundy wool carpet (as original) and began installing it with all new under felt...

I made all new vinyl covers and panels and installed them in the rear cockpit. Here is a before and after shot:

The original door panels also had some factory heat molded design elements that would be almost impossible to recreate. So since they were still in decent shape, I was able to re-use the molded armrests and covers and just replace the inner panels and re-dye them to match.

I replaced the door seals and all the rest of the vinyl panels in the forward cockpit, and then finally re-installed the new custom seats..

Here's some before and after pics of the overall interior:

There you have it - another one back on the road looking like it should.

Until next time -