EDITOR'S NOTE: at the time the photos were taken, the center console was not yet built. It will go from the dash to the back seat and will house the 8-inch Kicker sub that was not shown being installed.
Up to this point, you’ve seen Project New Guy, our in-house 2000 Silverado build, receive an airbagged suspension and the body get smoothed and covered in a sea of blue paint. After three long months of work, she was ready for her final makeover—the interior. When it comes time to transforming an interior, certain questions need to be addressed before buying anything. First, how crazy do you want to go? For this project, we wanted a big “Wow” factor without losing any everyday functionality. Next, we had to look at materials, colors and, of course, the audio. Lastly, we needed to figure out how much of the work we could do ourselves, and what areas we’d need to have handled for us.
The theme we wanted to go with was black and blue, whereas the factory interior color was a hideous light brown, without a trace of luxury. Unrestricted Auto Trends in Lake Elsinore, California, painted the truck, therefore it made sense to have them tear out the interior plastics and paint them either black or blue. By painting the plastics, we achieve the “Wow” factor that is required for any show truck, but we don’t lose any usability. The truck then went to Extreme Audio & Kustoms in Riverside, California, where the owner, Joel “Grommit” Sandenwasser, took over. He and his interior and audio guys went to work adding a bevy of Kicker audio. Application-specific, paintable kick panel speaker housings were ordered from Q-Logic, and a black carpet kit from AAC was installed. Adding some bling to all of the painted pieces, we quickly swapped the dash gauge panel for an upgraded Escalade piece from US Speedo, and capped the steering column with a billet wheel from NRC. While at Extreme Audio, the team wrapped the seats in two-tone leather seat covers from Roadwire, and wrapped the pillars, headliner, and visors in black suede, also from Roadwire. Supple textures and materials bring an air of elegance, while still being completely functional. If we can do it, you can do it too, so check out the story to see which methods can be applied to your truck project.
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1. Removing the interior was fairly straightforward. The seats were set aside, as they wou
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2. These are all of the plastic pieces that were removed from the truck. They'll never be
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3. After removing the dirty brown carpet and jute insulation, it was obvious that the truc
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4. Providing the brain-rattling audio, we called up Kicker and after speaking with a very
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5. After the interior was taken apart, the truck, Kicker products, and door panels were ta
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6. This is the speaker pod for the 6 1/2-inch component in the front door. It was built fr
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7. Holes for the tweeters were cut out and plastic rings were glued to the hole. The rings
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8. On the rear door panels, the factory speaker location was covered with MDF and smoothed
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9. To smooth the edges, body filler was applied and allowed to dry. It was then smoothed o
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10. While waiting for the primer to dry, the ACC carpet kit (#14370-00, $250.57) was laid
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11. With the carpet installed, the audio install could begin. The first step was to mount
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12. A ground for the audio was taken straight to the frame with 1/0-gauge Kicker power wir
13. Next, wires were run to each amp and into distribution blocks. From there, wire was run to each speaker location and to the dash for the head unit.
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14. Organized wiring is important for any type of installation. After all the wires were r
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15. Instead of going with a 7-inch touchscreen head unit, we went with a single DIN head u
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16. We decided to install the two 10-inch Solo-Baric subs under the rear seat, so the guys
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17. After painting the door panels, the speakers were screwed to the cured fiberglass spea
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18. Since the door pulls are vinyl, we painted them with SEM upholstery paint. The pulls w
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19. To house the 6-inch coaxial speakers, a set of Q-Logic kick panel speaker pods were or
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20. The final step before leaving Extreme Audio was to wrap the headliner, pillars, and su
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21. To give us a nice view to look at while driving around, we picked up an Escalade gauge
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22. To get rid of the disgusting factory steering wheel, NRC Billet sent a billet half-wra
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23. To power all of the audio, we used two Odyssey 75-PC1230-A (#0788-2040A0N0, $305.99 ea
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24. The component speakers in the front doors look as good as they sound.
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25. After reassembling the truck, the interior is stunning. The back doors look great with
26. With the dash painted and the billet steering wheel, this truck doesn't look anything like it used to.