A few questions?/introduction Options

[Stacks914]

Hello everyone just wanted to introduce myself! Saw a lot of information from this site and thought I would join. I recently have purchased a 72 914 with a 1.7. Car was in decent shape on outside non running and interior was missing. I am looking to fix this car up to be a nice drivers car. New battery and plugs car is running still needs a tune.

When researching the prices of some items I was wondering if I could gets parts from another car that would help lower costs.

The car did come with two rough seats that are beige and the backing that goes with them which is rough itself. It also has inner door trim beige as well. I would I like to convert the car to a black interior as I am sticking with a white(exterior) on black theme.

Things I do need is an ebrake cable and handle. Has anyone used this from another car that was cheaper?

Also seat belts. Has anyone used just generic seat belts from eBay or another car? Now seem to be $500

Rear rubber padding that is not $300?

Arm rests from another car?

Also a good place to buy front rear and side skirts? Does not have to be NOS.

If some fabrication is required that is not a problem as I have a welder
Thank you in advance, Stack

[forrestkhaag]

I can tell you from experience that when entering the concours is not your ultimate goal, one can "build" a new interior at a fraction of the cost of sourcing all of the tidbits and kits required to do a factory-look interior.

In my case, my 71 is a go-car verses a show car so the full duct tape interior that was present when I purchased the car went into the trash can first off. Then, as mentioned earlier, I scoured the car for rust and found very little and none on any panels in and around the interior of the vehicle.

Along the way to a working daily driver's interior,
I installed:
- domestic German-looking grey square weave carpet from A-1 Foam and Fabric local to SoCal / glued where permanent, and black edge bound where visible edges would be exposed to wear or sight such as the floor mats etc.
- glued domestic German-looking grey square weave carpet on the backpad with edge binding at the rear glass and moved the interior light to a forward dash location within the innards of the obsolete ash tray (so that when you pull out the ash tray, you are actually pulling out the map light to shine down on your sloppy shifter's knob
- two racing bucket seats with superior lower back support to stock seats with
four point harness belts
- a dash cap to hide the San Andreas model dash pad
- a dash recovering kit / made from black vinyl matching the original
- two door panels using the old warped ones as templates
- a manual throttle / very handy on warm up phase on a carbed engine
- a three gauge cluster and deposit box as a center console to tell me what time my engine overheated, caught fire or would have an electrical short from the battery to any of twelve gas lines made of brittle plastic..... replace those lines first thing after you purchase a good portable fire extinguisher and keep it in the car at all times - an do not use a hose clamp to hold it in place as that defeats the immediate access needed when you see flames

a few other little items along the way such as new bulbs in gauges, refurbed by gas tank sender, and learned how to easily tune valves, timing, etc.

Have fun