When You Can’t Replace Interior Trim – Refinish It With ColorBond

Sometimes the bane of our very existence is fixing up the interior of our classic cars. If you’re lucky, you can find the panels at a wrecking yard in decent shape, or the panels that you have are clean enough to not need replacing. When they’re damaged, finding them can be difficult – let alone very expensive.

If your panels and trim are all in good condition, but are in dire need of some cleanup, or if you’re not fond of the color, there’s an affordable solution from ColorBond, and whether you are changing color or just want it to look great, ColorBond has hundreds of factory colors, as well as custom colors that can be specially made.

Unlike most interior vinyl and plastic paints, ColorBond is a molecular bonding paint that penetrates the plastic, vinyl, or leather to refinish the interior of your car with a long lasting, bonded color that will make your interior trim look new again.

We caught up with Ken Bolen from Miniature Dream Models in Florida as he was getting ready to completely restore the interior of a classic 1969 Cadillac that has some ties to the legendary Rat Pack from the 1960s. The Caddy has seen better days, and needed to be freshened up and made to look great again.

Bolen reached out to ColorBond to get all of his interior refinishing supplies, and set out to tear down the interior and bring it back to life. We’ll do a full-featured article on the complete transformation when he’s finished, but we couldn’t believe what we saw when a few of the panels were completed. Bolen refinished the vinyl, plastic, and carpet on each door trim panel and the result was pretty impressive.

The panels were cleaned up and masked off, and using an adhesion promoter from ColorBond and thoroughly prepping the surface, Bolen applied the material. The product comes in 12 ounce aerosol spray can, or for larger jobs it is also available in quart and gallon sizes for applying with a spray gun.

ColorBond is available for vinyl, leather, hard plastics, dashboards, trim panels, and even carpeting. Looking at the before and after photos of these door trim panels, it’s easy to see that a few hours during some weekend prepping and refinishing can save a lot of money when it comes to interior work. Hundreds of dollars at the upholsterer versus a couple dozen with ColorBond will have you making the decision pretty quick.

You can find out more about ColorBond at their website where they have videos and pictures of past projects. Stay tuned and we’ll bring you more pictures and information after the Cadillac is completed and reassembled. It made a believer out of us, and you’ll be amazed, too, when you see how well it turns out, even the carpeting on the lower part of the door came out awesome.