Giving the center console some attention

 As I was about to start reassembling the interior, I realized just how shabby my center console was. It's covered in foam backed vinyl, and over the years the thin foam had mostly disintegrated and the vinyl was basically separated from the console shell. I decided to pull the cover off, clean it all up and glue it back down.

The console shell is fiberglass, and took some scrubbing to get all the old foam and glue residue off.

There are some areas where the fiberglass is in rough shape. It's interesting because you can tell whatever Italian artisan built this did not get the fiberglass mat into the corners of the mold. There are plenty of corners where it's all resin and no fiberglass. No wonder it's cracked in areas because there no reinforcement at all.

One of the lower mounting ears is nearly broken off. Now's a good time to repair it.

And also a good time to restitch a section of the parking brake boot that had come undone.

 

 

I had heard stories that back in those days, Ferrari used to use whatever they had laying around. Here's an attachment section at the base of the parking brake boot. Whoever was making it needed some extra pieces and apparently could only find some scraps of red vinyl.

 Here's another one of these interesting little details. Inside the console was an old piece of masking tape with some writing on it. It appears to be an upside down 4, 51 and USA. My car is assembly number 451 and I've seen this number on other parts like the seat foam and other interior parts. No one will ever see this but I'm going to leave it as-is because it's a neat part of the car's history.