Muscle Car Era Console Update

REBUILDING A CENTER CONSOLE WITH YEARONE PARTS

- Chris Holley

The 1967-1976 Mopar A-bodies were, by sheer volume, the most successful of all the A-body productions. The decade-long run produced many Darts, Dusters, Valiants, Demons, and Dart Sports equipped with the automatic selector located on the column, but a select few were constructed with a console between the seats and a shifter handle extending upward within reach of the driver.

We are lucky to have a factory console in our 1967 Dart; however, our console did not fare well over the last 50-plus years. It seems that one (or more) of the previous six owners decided that the console would make a great mounting point for several now-unknown components. Though the components were removed long ago, they left four unsightly mounting holes in the console-housing frame and three holes in the metal automatic transmission (A/T) console top plate forward of the shifter. The factory carpet that had been glued along the parameter of the console frame was missing, and the chrome on the shifter handle and button had worn through or was peeling off in several places.

Our plan is to restore the console appearance with quality reproduction parts rather than break the bank with the use of new-old-stock (NOS) parts if we could even find them. To update our console, we plan to fill the drilled holes in the housing frame and restore the texture on the frame. For the hard parts, we contacted YearOne to pick up the reproduction parts necessary to replace the damaged or missing pieces.