Randy Shelton

I have an '69 911 and the dash has a couple of pretty big cracks in it. I was thinking about getting an original style replacement dash but the cost is outrageous. I seem to recall that one of the parts suppliers offers a "plastic" dash cover that fits over the old dash, maybe tweeks or performance parts. I know a lot of the newer cars have a "hard dash" rather than the padded dashes of old so I thought this might be an option. Does anyone have experience with these plastic overlays?

JackOlsen

My 73 came with one installed over an old and crashed dash. It looks fine, and I only decided to replace it when I stumbled into a good deal on a leather-covered dash.

Links to pictures:

http://members.rennlist.com/jackolsen/SoReal-M.jpg
http://members.rennlist.com/jackolsen/BA-PassDash.jpg

Randy Shelton

Thanks for the pics. The plastic looks decent, though from the angles, it's a little tough to discern a few of the things I'm interested to know. I think my main concern is that it might look like an add on, since it is. Specifically, I thought it might look cheap. How was the fit? After visiting your links, I realized I've seen photos of your car before and it looks great. I can't imagine you would have anything on it that looked bad since it's done up so well. I gues what I want to know is: would you recommend to a person who doesn't have the money for the real thing.

JackOlsen

I think it looks fine. As I said, it never bothered me enough to even give a thought to changing it (until someone offered to sell me a leather one). I think a non-Porsche person would never notice that it was even there (I had to explain what it was to my girlfriend), and a Porsche person would only notice it if they were looking for it.

It certainly looks better than a fading, cracked dash. And at $80, it allows you to wait for that lottery ticket to come through before you spring the big dollars for a new replacement.

Randy Shelton

Thanks for the help. I think I'll check one of these out. I'll let you know how it goes.

rcs

pacmyster

I have one too. My only complaint is that you can't give it a nice shine like leather. I suppose you could hit it with a coat of semi or high gloss paint but I'm not that daring.
Pete

JackOlsen

More shine = more reflections in your sightline. My concern with the new leather dash is to keep the shine to a minumum.

JayJ

I just bought one of these plastic dash caps. I thought they were supposed to just snap into place . Mine wont. Are they supposed to be glued onto the dash?