I'm going to go back stock...ish.
I've seen a lot of pics of people covering their door panels, and it's never a good, clean look.
From the factory, the upgraded interior had the recessed area in the door panels painted a different color. When I do my '62 'Burb, I'm going to cover that recessed panel with the black and silver seat cover insert material from a '57 Chevy 150. You can get heavy cardboard, or thin "interior" board that's almost like really thin MDF. I'm going to spray glue the fabric to it, and then mount it to the door with trim screws, just like a factory car door panel from the era. It'll look like a factory deal, but will have the fabric we want. I'm doing the seats to match, and will also put the the material down the sides on the quarters.
For the headliner, I'm first going to put sound deadener along the roof, and then I'm going to take that same interior board, cut it to fit up under the headliner bows just like the originals, cover it with white perforated material (or something...haven't decided yet) and install it just like original. It'll have a comfortable familiar look, won't hide the cross bows (which I think are an integral part of the feel of the interior), will hide sound deadener, will be functional, will be cheap, and I don't have to re-engineer anything.
With the material on the quarter panel recesses, doing that also allows me to cut big access openings in those recesses, put sound deadener inside the quarters, and then screw covers over the big rectangular holes before covering it with my fab'd interior panels. It'll be very much like the door and quarter access panels in a car of the era. Actually, it's just like the license plate light panel on the Suburban's barn door.
-Brad
