the material i have seen as replacement material is black. however most all cars have a greyish color, clearly from sun fading. however, if you look inside the glove box at areas that were never sun exposed, is is still a darkgrey material and not black. i am uncertain which way it came. when i have asked, i have heard "black". but is that jet black, or just a dark grey black? you got me.
Also look in the underside of the instrument pod. Dark gray, at least on mine. I have an original covered dash, where most of the mousehair has worn away completely, but the inside of the instrument pod (under the lip above the insturments themselves) still has the covering, and it's dark dray.
Very dark gray, almost black. This material has wood grain like center console vinyl if you look close. If you have an original dash and decide to recover it, make sure to note the direction of the grain.
Eventually, a hairless mouse. The fur falls off after the years. Henk, in Holland makes beautiful repro material. Regards, Alberto
It is interesting this thread has been resurrected after almost 20 years. SO much has changed since then.
It’s still a interesting thing … Would you use the original dashboard with grey hairless mouse or redo it with repro material?
As per Alberto's recommendation, go to Henk. He is well known for having developed the the best alternative to the original mouse material. Here is how it looks: Image Unavailable, Please Login Best, Peter
Looks great. But i‘m still thinking about keeping it original. Somehow because our Daytona has an original dash (which is looking fantastic especially in combination with the original leather seats) and it would look great if these two cars match well. The condition of the Dino seats was too poor to keep original.
I have Henk's material on my dash now but I recovered my dash back in 1985 with original material from FAF in Atlanta. Very dark grey but rapidly began fading. The fuzz was still there so I sprayed it with VHT black fabric spray and it looked almost like new for a good long time. I think the packaging is different now but this is probably the same stuff: VHT SP943
no pattern. original had pattern same as Dino vinyl. Original was nothing but Dino vinyl that was flocked. O'Rourkes UK has the correct pattern. O'Rourke Coachtrimmers & Supplies https://www.coachtrimmers.com. no association just a happy customer
Henk's material does have the Dino vinyl pattern visible Howard. I think O'Rourkes may even be supplying it - they were certainly using it when I did my restorations.
Here is a photo of Henk's material in my GTS. The Dino vinyl grain pattern is clearly visible. He went to crazy lengths to reproduce this fabric whilst using modern textile technologies to prevent fading. The camera flash makes the material appear slighlty lighter than it is in real life. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Henk's material has all of the original texture and grain as the original. It is an absolutely spectacular reproduction of the original material with the benefit that it does not age the way the original stuff does. While I am big on originality, even if I had a 100 yards of original mousehair I would not not use and and prefer to use Henk's material instead. When both are new they look identical. The difference being is that the original material begins to degrade immediately when exposed to UV light. I often see people get really uppity about 'originality' but sometimes you need to admit when modern technology is just a better option. The perfect example is paint. Originally Dino's were painted with single stage Lacquer. This is an incredibly difficult paint to maintain and will crack badly over time regardless of how much you baby it. Modern paint systems keep a beautiful finish for decades which it is why almost all restorations use them.
For comparison with Ian’s post #16 above, here is 7472 original covering…. Photo just taken… had to crawl across the seats to replicate. Ian’s photo… forgotten how hard that is…! Kevin Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
