One of the interesting nuances of our open roadsters is having the body come under the windshield and into the interior. With our shiny paintwork, and dash faces with no visors or overhang, we get all sorts of added reflections we normally don't have in our daily drivers. We have this distracting imaginary steam and reflected sunlight to contend with on sunny days.
The automakers found these problems years ago, and solved it with soft, flat-colored dash-pads that also doubled as safety bumpers. These pads extended well past the gauges, and eliminated any reflections. In addition, the shapes and angles, along with the flat or textured finish also killed off any glare. (Have you noticed that when you Armor-All your dash in your classic muscle car, you get the glare?) Only in our replica roadsters, whether it's a Speedster, snake, or Lotus, do we get this phenomenon.
Though our faithful test car is still in gelcoat, it still has a shine and the problems we're talking about. A fun afternoon in the sun and an investment of $10-$20 fixed two sources of aggravation that had bothered us for years. The solution was almost too simple! Follow along and we'll show you what we did.