Here are the finished panels installed. I got the sound deadening material in last week using a heat gun as it was so cold. I sealed off the entire inside of the door from the panels and used some Thompson's Water Seal on the backs of the panels to try to keep them looking good long term. Then I had to go and find all 18 of the clip holes and cut them out. Good times.

I got the panels installed on Saturday, but had the folks in town so nothing happened on Sunday. Today I got the door pockets hung, the window cranks installed and put the speakers in the doors . Another project done.

That looks like a really clean job. It's hard to tell in pictures but is it a good match with your seats?

Yeah dude. That's the goods. Looks great!

Looks awesome Craig, very stylish look.

The panels are a dark charcoal grey and the seats/trim etc are a true black. So there is some difference. The camera picked it up, I doubt anyone would actually notice the difference in the car. You can tell that the suede is not the same colour as the leather, but it doesn't look out of place. I'm happy overall.

Wow looking really good!

Just moving the discussion back to my own thread...



You've got to think sleek, if that is a word I can apply to the basic layout of a 240. That's what I'm going for - with the Tethys and sitting relatively low (compared to stock) and with the flat hood the car should look as slick as a 240 can look. I've decided to remove the gutter trim and the lower rocker trim (who's idea was that anyway?). The car has the later bumpers that I'm going to cut down to fit the original rubber trim and will get a certain degree of detailing to go with the interior that I did last year.

I'm not looking for a TBrix car (I built too many of those when I was 18) - I'm looking for something that will be a head turner and basically make me smile when I see it like the 122 does. I also don't want something that will date easily.

Sleek = no stripe, although a thin piece of black trim would be OK How about an "R" color like Sonic or Laser Blue, bold in an understated kind of way, they're modern colors so they would compliment the Tethys. I guess I'm partial to blue but Volvo's in those colors always makes my head turn. You need to post a swatch/sample of the blue you had told me about, if it's like our old 740 (the religious car ) it's pretty staid, I like my turbo beater in the light metallic blue though and it's not very common (code 215 I think?)

Edit: I know I'll probably get hammered by Matt for this but either of the blues above would lend themselves to gold maybe bronze colored wheels, definitely a head turner in more of a swedespeed kind of way.

OK, let the debates rage - as you can see we are not talking about something that is going to happen in the next week, but soon I hope. I've taken very careful note of sun position with these photos as I'm endevouring to stop taking crap photo's just because I'm lazy.

The start - I've put the stripes on in green tape, but it is still a white car, so they are sort of hard to see.



Across the trunk.


I may lay on a thin 1/8 stripe on top, but in the same colour, not contrasting.

Here's the colour (#406)

Straight on.


In the solar position (facing the sun).


In the antisolar position (sun at my back).


The stripe would be a bronze (dark) colour, but I'm open to ideas. The trim holes are getting welded up and there will be a black trim piece around the car.

Let the games begin.

The more I look at GTesque stripes thinner ie:78 looks better. I don't know if you can do it with the thickness of stripe that you have laid out but rolling the corner looks better to me than turning a 90 straight up. I might be missing something but isn't sleek and a head turner almost mutually exclusive? The color blue you have with a bronze stripe will be sleek but maybe too regal to be a head turner? I have to admit that the 2 blues I mentioned before are about as loud as you can go without going full on orange/yellow/sublime etc. I guess my final thought is that blue reminds me of a 940/960 grampamobile, classy but not a head turner...

Something like this? No stripe, modern wheels, sleek and classy but a bright enough blue to turn heads without being too bright.

I'm not going to hammer you, Jim. I'm not a real fan but sometimes it's okay. I think the colour that Craig is talking about is too dusky for dark wheels, but that's totally up to him as it's his car. If he's going to do the stripe in bronze, the wheels in bronze would be alright. As a rule, I avoid black wheels because I like to see them, but any other colour is open for discussion.

I agree that the stripe needs a minor fillet on the corner, and I'd do the upsweep just a little bit broader.

That blue one you posted, Jim - that's a beautiful colour, but is almost too busy on that car. I don't know... IMO, the 240 isn't integrated enough to do some of the stuff that you can do on other cars. I actually prefer what I see of the red car beside the blue one. I don't know if I can describe it.

^ Yeah that burgundy is very nice too, I think I get what you're saying about the 240 and certain colors although I could live with that blue car any day. I thought the medium blue would be a little less bold than say Sonic or Laser blue but I don't know how I would integrate a stripe or even do one with that brighter blue. I agree with the comment on the wheel color, the darker blue on the test fender could definitely be accented with a bolder colored wheel to get some "noticeability". I don't know but building on your theory of the 240 integration I am leaning more towards letting the paint do most of the work and keeping the wheels silver as a compliment to the paint. In the medium blue, with gold or bronze wheels, it starts looking like a WRX knock-off?

This...

There is another blue one like the one in the picture with white wheels and I do like that combination too. Mind you, I'm partial to white wheels for some bizarre reason...

That blue just doesn't work on the 240 - it's trashy looking to my eye. This is the exact opposite of what I am going for - but I guess that's the way taste goes. When I was saying sleek, you have to think subdued and understated. People that like 240's would say - "hey, that colour looks great on a 240". The colours I would consider are this blue, the dark grey or a burgundy. Definately richer/darker colours work best, with the odd exception of the 70's pastel colours - 240's look great in whacky 70's colours.

When I was chatting with Matt some years ago about a possible colour scheme for his old 242 - I was thinking about air force blue (dusky medium blue) in a semi-gloss with darker blue gloss graphics. That would still look cool.

The stripe colour I picked out is from a 2006 Toyota (code 1G2 - Gray Mica) and looks like this:



The metal flake is about the same as the blue and the tone range is very similar. The corners of the stripe would be filleted - I was just doing a quick tape off, not masking for paint. The wheels are already painted about the same colour they left the factory - which is a metallic silver and they are staying that colour. With the black accents it should look good.

Whenever I'm playing with an idea - especially colour - I often ask myself to come up with something completely different than what I'm thinking about, in this case no blues. What colour would the car be then? I'm drawing a blank - but a deep forest green would be great if I didn't have a black interior.