Seating • The Dodge Challenger Message Board

by **fal308** » 16 Apr 2006 16:14

Does anyone know of any resources (reference books, online, etc) showing details of the interiors, esp. seating, for a '71? Will be starting to rebuild/restore my wife's '71 R/T soon. They've had the car since the mid-70s but it's basically been in storage the last fifteen years and they don't recall some of the details.

by **Christer** » 16 Apr 2006 16:43

The only source I know of is my scanner.... :s005:

by **dave-r** » 16 Apr 2006 16:43

What in particular do you need to know? All Challengers are basically the same with just some minor design changes from year to year. Seat material for example. Ash tray in the rear of the centre console from 71 etc.

by **fal308** » 17 Apr 2006 13:34

Thanks guys! Am looking for mainly for seat cover style. My mother-in-law has been gathering a piece here and there for the last 20+ years for this car. I've shown her photos of many 71 interiors from my reference books and taken her to several shows but she doesn't think (but she's not sure) the seat covers she's seen are the ones that were in the car (the covers were the original ones). They haven't even really seen the car for something like 6 or 7 years as it is in the back of a very full storage building. The two times I've seen it we had to move quite a bit of storage items and climb back to look with flashlights. I had a pencil shadow of the build tag but have misplaced it.
It was her daily driver/street racer after my father-in-law returned from the service. The car was a miliary sale in Vietnam. It was special-ordered by my in-laws friend. He wanted a street racer for when he got back. Rather different options on this car; '71 R/T 383 Magnum 3-speed, no console etc. Basically if it didn't help make the car go quicker or was heavy it was deleted. Uncharastically though, it was ordered with the dictaphone/8 track?

by **dave-r** » 17 Apr 2006 14:10

Year One sell the correct seat covers. The fender tag or build sheet will tell you exactly what type came with the car i.e. vinyl, leather or cloth.

The 3-speed was normally fitted to the 2bbl version of the 383 fitted to the base JH series Challengers.
It would be very unusual to find one behind a 4bbl 383 in a JS (R/T) series Challenger as they would normally have a 4-speed manual.

I would love to see the fender tag codes for this car as special orders like this show what options were or were not possible in combination with each other.

by **fal308** » 17 Apr 2006 14:23

Yeah, when I first heard it was a three speed, I was also confused. But that's what it appears to be. She drove it for quite a few years before they parked it.
As I stated, it was a daily driver for a long time. It even made several cross country USA trips from the east coast to New Mexico (western USA) and back.

by **fal308** » 17 Apr 2006 14:25

Almost forgot. If I find the pencil shadow drawing of the build tag I'll post it. Unfortunately my M-I-L is almost sure the build sheet was thrown away many, many years ago back when these were just old cars.

by **dcfox** » 17 Apr 2006 15:43

If I were you...I'd definitely order a free Catalog from Legendary Auto Interiors.
They seem to have just about everything you could possibly need.

Legendary Auto interiors Ltd.
http://www.legendaryautointeriors.com
1-800-363-8804

by **Alaskan_TA** » 18 Apr 2006 1:11

I agree, go with Legendary. Year One gets their upholstery from Legendary and marks the price up substantially.

If you can find the interior code from the fender tag I am sure we can come up with a photo of how it should look.

On the broadcast sheet, look inside both bucket seat back, you may find one or two more. If you find any for other cars please let us know?

T/Ake care,
Barry

by **fal308** » 18 Apr 2006 14:44

I had already planned on going through the complete interior of the car looking for other broadcast sheets. Thanks to you Barry, from reading here on the board, I know that sometimes there is more than one sheet in a car. I know it's not in the seatback of the driver's seat as that seatback was changed out many years ago by my father-in-law due to the original being broken.
As a matter of course he bought a Challenger for the seatback and a couple of body pieces. He's told me a couple ofl times of the cars he bought when they were worth next to nothing just for a couple of parts and then scrapped the rest. But back then they were much more plentiful also.
If I find anything, I let you know.