When we purchased the car was the body was in primer and "appeared OK" except for the already cut-out floor pans. We mistakenly believed it would be faster to do some spot body work than to take everything down to bare metal. Sanding led to more nicks and brittle old paint layers that flaked. We kept chasing imperfections around the car, never quite getting it right. We brought the car in to a local Maaco for final paint and they did a really great job with what we gave them. Our poor body work definitely shows through the paint, and it is by no means a show car, but we're actually quite happy with the result. It is more than good enough for driving around town and going on longer day trips.

There are a number of minor cosmetic tweaks that extend the visual lines of the car, namely we welded a number of the rear panel seams like the gaps between the rear deck and the fenders, and the rear bumper and the fenders. The rear pieces around the taillights are castings, and not sheet metal like the fenders, so to combine the dissimilar metals we used JB Weld, ground it down, and filled any nicks and bubbles with Bondo. We certainly realized that those panel gaps may have been important for preventing stress cracks in the paint, but we liked the look so gave it a try. It has been many years, driving in many different temperatures, and so far no cracks!

When we bought the car it came with a brand new red interior kit that we were never particularly crazy about. We originally put the red interior in, but then eventually changed the carpet and sprayed the vinyl pieces with a black paint designed specifically for vinyl. We had our doubts, but the paint worked surprisingly well, and there is no way to tell that the vinyl was originally a different color. We added inexpensive fixed-back seats with a racing look, and fabricated a custom aluminum dash insert with Autometer gauges.