My 72 Europa SS

[Sofa King]

Thanks Clifton. I’m not an engineer either, so i tried to over build it when ever possible. Great idea with the dial indicator. I’ve never tried to measure the deflection on mine, but lift any corner and it’s rock solid even fully loaded.
You are right about time spent planning! I must have built this a thousand times in my head before I started. It would drive my buddy that was helping me nuts, because everything was in my head and almost nothing on paper. It was very satisfying that every step I took worked pretty much as planned, and when it didn’t the solution turned out better than the original thought.

[Sofa King]

My vision for the interior was “nice racecar”. Which is another way of saying “I don’t feel like paying someone to do it better than I can do!”
So I started by attempting to build the dash. Like most things on the car, it was first built from cardboard.

[Sofa King]

Then built again from 1/4” birch plywood.

[Sofa King]

Then built again from 1/4” Cherry plywood and coated with automotive clear.

[Sofa King]

The dash ad was covers with 2 layers of 1/4” dense foam and covered in vinyl. And the gauges were installed. I also printed a Lotus logo and put it in the horn button of the cheap aftermarket steering wheel that came with my parts Miata.

[Sofa King]

The radio is a marine unit that takes very little space and mounts like a gauge.
It’s blue tooth compatible and water proof.

[BDA]

Very nicely done!

[Certified Lotus]

You have a lot of talent sofa king!

[Runningwild]

Great job. What did you use on the bottom of the dash? 

[Sofa King]

I picked up some 3/4x3/4 aluminum angle from Home Depot, shaped it on my Shrinker/stretcher and wrapped it in the same vinyl as the dash pad.

[Sofa King]

Not shown in thes photos, is a small section of an additional panel that sits above the tunnel and below the dash and contains the switches for the heater, lights, fans and cigarette lighter. I’ll post a pic of that soon.

[cwtech]

Impressive work and an interesting build. 

What is the brand of the marine radio? 

[Sofa King]

It’s from Planet Audio. I was trying to find white with a chrome bezel to match my gauges, but silver was as close as I could find. Black with chrome was more common.

[Sofa King]

I have been driving the car without door cards or windows, so today started the process of getting the doors back together. The only set that came with either donor, was in decent shape, but had over spray from two previous paint jobs, and were otherwise just a little dingy. Today I sprayed them with vinyl dye. They will never be concours, but they turned out pretty well! Time will tell how well the new finish holds up!

[Sofa King]

One of the little details, that make the drivetrain work, is a pair of adapters that a friend made for me. The Boxster axle mounting flanges are 1” narrower than the stock Miata rear end, so 2 half inch thick spacers make the axles the perfect length, and allow me to bolt the 4 bolt Miata axles to the 6 bolt Porsche flange.