Bear with me now. This is one of the messages I tried to post last week.
SVRA NEWSLETTER
Tech Notes
Jack Woehrle, Technical Director
(803) 783-6906 phone/fax
JWoesvra@aol.com
7/2/98
Alternate Interiors: The question of what is our position on the removal or
replacement of interior trim panels on Production Cars has come up. After
consulting the period rule books and talking with a few old timers, I have
this conclusion. There are several ways to look at this subject.
A. What was permitted by the rules.
Pre-1960: There is little reference to this subject before 1960.
1960-70: FIA Groups 2 & 4, to which most circuit racers were prepared,
(Groups 1 & 3 are essentially showroom stock Groups and are/were mainly used
for rallies) allowed manufacturers to list alternate panels as long as 100
sets were available to the public. The SCCA prohibited "gutting".
B. What was actually done.
FIA scruitineers usually allowed neatly installed alternate panels from
various sources as most factories didn’t really supply the "kits" as such.
SCCA permitted the interior panels to be replaced with a suitable alternate
material. It was usually not considered gutting unless the panels were removed
completely and the resulting openings were left exposed. By 1965, it was
common to see race cars with aluminum door panels and dividers between the
trunk and cockpit. Stock dash panels were usually left in place. The Trans-Am
series required original trim panels for the first few years at least.
C. Why was it done.
Certainly there was a little weight to be saved in some models.
However, as
in my own case it was just an attempt to make the car neater when the
originals began to deteriorate. I put aluminum door panels in my Spitefire in
1966. I had no idea how much my car weighed and I don’t remember being very
concerned about it. I thought it made the car look more like a race car. I
also took out the roll-up windows at the same time, even though I was still
driving to and from the races. Tech inspectors encouraged the removal of any
fire hazard, even if the rules sometimes seemed to prohibit it.
D. What is appropriate now.
I think anything that is neat and reasonably period appearing is
acceptable.
Pre-1960 cars would be incorrect if the interior was changed. Owners of later
cars should use good judgment and avoid complete "skinning" until the post
1970 period. This is really more of an esthetics issue than an absolute rule.
>From a safety standpoint, most vinyl material is very nasty in a fire. I have
seen several cars at our races recently with aluminum door panels that have a
photo decal of the original trim panel. I don’t see this as a performance
enhancing modification as all of our cars still must meet their listed minimum
weight, and in actual fact there isn’t a lot of weight reduction in most cases
anyway.
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