Lotus Europa Community

Mmmmm!  That floor pan!
Impressively tidy workspace.  I think it's so that you are familiar with cars.

Now that Prestige Autowood is no longer in business, a source in the US for good reasonably priced wood dashes would be a very good thing!

One of the things that the owner of Prestige Autowood sold me on was finishing all sides and edges so humidity could not seep into the plywood. I hope you'll follow suit.

Thank you for your thoughts, Horace. Believe me, I’m all too aware of restoration costs vs. completed value. Unfortunately for me, I love the process of building them even more than owning/driving them, and I am afflicted with the curse of, “If I don’t save this, who will?”

I’ll include some photos of my current folly for context…

Reading your thoughts as to what to do with your find, I thought I'd give you a couple of points to think about regarding costs
As the owner of a black "JPS" coloured TCS, can I offer a few words from the UK.
Restoring a car over here (by a restorer, if you cannot do the work yourself) is a VERY costly way of achieving your desire, buying the finished article is much more cost effective. You'll never get your money back.

I've had mine for a year or so and as bought it looked great, with great paint, new interior, wiring, ashtray etc. A local guy who has restored a couple of twincams and now does S1 Esprits said "It's about a 95% car, really good". I made a few minor mods to it, got the brakes working to my liking etc, and I'm just about to refit the engine after doing a rebuild at 92k miles, due to it being a bit smelly, not smokey, just smelly with the windows open . (zero/zero on the crank, new valves, guides, a new liner and a 0.010" re-bore to +0.030" pistons etc.). Probably about GBP £2,500

During my investigation into its massive history file it dawned on me that the previous but one owner to me hadn't spent any money at all. After contacting him he said he had indeed spent a fair bit and gave me details of the restoring garage who did the work, starting with a new chassis,  etc.

Now to the figures, this guy bought the car for GBP £40,000, and it had already been "restored" by its previous owner with the new paint, wiring etc having been done, and did look great. However, he felt that there was something wrong with how it drove, took it to HIS restoring garage and said "Put it right". They did and gave him a bill for another £45,000!
The car was sold a couple of years later to my seller who I bought it from for £34,000

So, I have a car which has cost me, say £37k but has had over £50k spent on it in the last 10 years apart from purchase costs.

Right about $500 in our hands.
Veneer choices are limited and no glove box door available.
Compared to $1,200 from Madera Concepts the UK are cheap.
My hope is to do one in Rosewood and Birdseye Maple for my own car.
I may be able to re-use the original matrix after carefully peeling away the old veneer.
A CNC router can do much more than dashboards.