Interior

One major thing I replaced because I thought it was hideous, was the original air bag steering wheel, I swapped in a 3 spoke steering wheel off of a 1987 Firebird I had for parts. Which in my opinion looks so much better.

I also, while the interior was apart painted the gauge cluster trim bezel black, I also added a 3 gauge a-pillar molding to house a few extra gauges that come in handy when I am autocrossing. There are a vacuum, trasmission temp and air/fuel ratio gauges. I went with Auto Meters carbon fiber as they are a close match to the factory chess board design and color. I plan on replacing all the factory gauges in a modified cluster with all Auto Meters, and adding a few extra like fuel pressure and Oil temp gauges. The center console has also been changed with one that I got a screamin' deal on from a 1996 Trans Am, the person I got it from traded even for my stock original. When I still had power windows, I had made a custom switch panel in the ash tray for the power window switches ( I don't think I ever got a pic of ), now I am going to run my I-Pod cable through there.

Pictures of my custom door panels, I am really happy with the way these turned out, the picture on the left is after I swapped to more reliable manual crank windows, and the right is the stock original. I also removed all the power lock stuff as well. I replaced the factory gray arm rests with the black ones off my 84 Firebird. Which is where I also got the manual window cranks. The panels look better 1 pattern and color as opposed to the factory 3 shades of gray and 3 different materials. I also left off the factory cup holders as I wanted a clean apperance ( and I was always kicking the one on the drivers door anyway when I would get in or out of the car ) The door handle surround trim was also painted black, and the metal door panel trim was put back on to give the door panel a factory apperance.

Another change I decided to make was removing the rear shoulder belts ( 89-92 ) and replacing them with rear lap belts ( ala 82-88 ), I work for a Auto Salvage Yard and went looking through the General Motors cars we had looking for Graphite seat belts. I found some in a late model Cavalier ( 2003 I believe ), and put the complete rear lap belt assemlbies in the rear and the receivers in the front with the original belts.

For the trunk area I decided to just use some of the tweed rather than bothering with new carpet. The T-top bag is always back there, and I generally have the security shade covering the trunk all the time anyway, And it matched the back of the back seat. Down in the cargo area you can see my orignal carpet and interior plastics color.

The locking cargo cover was added by me, my car did not have one originally, but after having one in my 83 Trans Am I decided to put one in the Formula. above, a couple pictures of the trunk area, in the picture on the right you can see the tweed covered piece on the inside of the decklid.

Another thing I changed was the dash mounted map pocket, I don't have a picture of the original one right now ( I am looking for one ) I changed the map pocket soon after geting the car. The one on my car now is from a 84 Firebrid parts car I had back in 98. The shift knob is off of a 05 Impala, and is leather wrapped. First I had one from a 03 Bonneville on there, which looked just like this one except it was not leather and had a light grey button, then I found one in a 02 Monte Carlo that looked just like it but with a black button, then finally I found the leather one in a 05 Impala but it had the grey button, so I swapped the black button out of the Monte Carlo shifter. The picture on the left shows the stock shift knob.


Left is a pic of the 2002 Chevrolet Monte Carlo shift knob and on the Right is a pic of the 2003 Pontiac Bonneville shift knob


Here are a couple of pictures of the headliner done in tweed. One picture with the t-tops removed and another with the t-tops on with the t-top shades installed. I also installed a Overhead Console, my car did not have one originally ( they were a factory option from 84-87 ) so I put one in myself. The rear view mirror is out of my old 89 S10 Blazer, I liked the idea of the map lights and since I traded the Blazer in on my 93 Camaro, I figured i'd take the rear view mirror and use it in the Formula.

I have deleted the air conditioning from under the hood, so I swapped the controls to match, and to give it a factory appreance of being a A/C delete car. And on the right is a picture with the back seat down ( just needed to fill space ).



My car originally had power windows and door locks, but manual is more reliable, besides Race Cars don't need no stinkin' amenities. Another thing I had planned on doing when I had the car apart over the winter of 2005/2006 was replace the power trunk pull down with a manual unit. But due to FAILURE I ended up changing it the third week of June 2005.


Below are a couple of pictures I took of the interior removed form the car, just for the heck of it.


While i was finishing up this page, I realized i really didn't have a good full picture of the seats. So i took the camera out to the garage and shot this.