When I first got this car it came with a brand spanking new set of door panels. Unfortunately, it only came with 1 door handle/pull and door pockets that looked like hell (they are essentially made of some heavy duty cardboard). I thought, "no problem, those RS door panels are so cool". Well, it took all of a few weeks to figure out for a street driven toy those are a pain in the ass!
Fast forward about a year and today I've accomplished another Glenda Milestone :) (although I still have the passenger door to do). My interior is slowly beginning to not feel like such a parted out, junky car, place to drive.
OK, so I'll probably never make this into a Concours Show winner (I'll NEVER make this....) Given that, and my general shoestring budget I'm rather pleased with myself on my latest addition. I started out by whacking off the forward portions of the badly deformed pockets. Then I wet them down, re-forming them into a closer facsimile of their original shape with heavy weights and left them in the sun to dry. I cut up parts of an old floor mat (matched the carpet on the pocket) and glued it on the new, exposed front part.
It's not perfect, but it's pretty nice looking, and if it bugs me a year from now like the plain, nothing door panels did I'll nut-up and pay the $100-200 it will cost me for a decent, better pair. It's a LOT nicer to have a handle to pull and an armrest to put my arm on, and now my interior doesn't feel so much like a fake, wanna-be race car.
For the cause of documentation I should note that creating a 911's "door panel" from basically scratch is no easy (or cheap) task. Given that I am cheap/broke most of the time I couldn't bring myself to pay retail new prices for the dozens of small parts required to accomplish this. For example, just the screws, mounting blocks, hinges and door pull rods can easily add up to about $130. I won't even get into the prices of trying to buy door pockets, armrest lids or pull handles new. As it was I only sourced a set of handles & pocket lids and spent over $100 (I did get very nice examples and had been patiently looking so I got them for less than I'd seen others). So this wound up being a very patience trying task, including some on-line pleading (for the mounting hardware) and long term part gathering.
The addition of knee pads (finally) and an ash tray doesn't hurt at all either, that's been a sorer spot for me than anything else to look at for a long while now (just looked awful having the unfinished metal hanging there under the dash).
