Isetta Interior Panels - Part 1

The Isetta's original interior panels were made from a textured black panel board that was usually painted grey. I couldn't find a source for this material, but I wanted to replicate the original panels as closely as possible. What I decided to do was to bond a textured vinyl to regular panel board. In this photo, I'm tracing the original parcel shelf panel onto a piece of panel board. 

Here I've removed and am tracing the parcel shelfs two side pieces which were riveted to the larger main piece

Once the parts were traced onto panel board, I cut them out close to my pencil lines with my bandsaw.

I used various edge, spindle, and hand sanders to get the pieces smooth an to their final shape.

These are the pieces after sanding to the final shape. The next step will be to roll out glue on the panel board, lay my vinyl on top with a cover sheet (caul) and put the hole thing in a vacuum press.

This is one of the side pieces in the vacuum press. You really can't see anything because it has a cover sheet over the vinyl, but the vinyl over hangs the panel board all the way around and will be trimmed with an x-acto knife when the glue is dry.

These are the two side pieces after coming out of the vacuum press and having the vinyl trimmed flush to the edge of the panel board.

All the vinyl has been bonded and trimmed and in this photo I'm in the process of riveting the side pieces to the main piece.

A few photos of the finished parcel shelf interior panel.

And a few photos of the finished parcel shelf panel installed in my Isetta

Gould's Microcar Event 2012 - No.17

Charles Gould now has photos of the 2012 17th Annual Gould's Microcar Event up on his Bubbledrome website. As always, it looks like a great turn out and a good time. One of these years I'm going to be there! Click on the photo to go to the Bubbledrome page with several photo albums of this great microcar gathering.

LeMay Museum

I recently had the opportunity to visit the newly opened LeMay Museum in Tacoma, Washington. It's a fabulous new facility with hundreds of motor vehicles of all varieties on display. The collection is heavy on American steel, but European cars, motorcycles, and a few microcars are represented. If you happen to be in the Seattle / Tacoma area, I highly recommend a visit.