1957 Thunderbird dash pad recomendation

[Tbird57]

Hi everybody, and merry Christmas.

New guy here...

Santa brought me a one owner 1957 Thunderbird with about 40,000 original miles. A great original car which biggest sin was that it had a color change, from yellow (Inca gold?) to a bright orange. It is very complete and still has it's original interior, in mostly good shape, except the dash.

I intend to get it back to yellow and restore it sympathetically, if that is the word... I mean redoing whatever is not correct but keeping as much of the original patina as possible.

I am keeping the door panels and upholstery as is, but would love to get a great dash panel. I have seen many vendors. Macs now has a promotion on which it is about $450, but others run much higher than that.

Question here is quality: can anybody tell me if Macs dashboards would play the trick of getting the car back to it's original appearance? Or can you otherwise recomend any other option? Goal here is to get a very correct and good looking dash, that would not detract from the car's oriinality, of course.

Thanks,
Victor

[Ferrbird]

Merry Christmas!
Congratulations on your new pride and joy.
First of all, you'll find there are many parts vendors for our year of cars, and everyone has a favourite, being close location etc.
Personally, I' deal with Concours in Carson City NV, outstanding service, or Larrys Tbird parts in CA.
I've found many places sell parts coming from the same supplier, so quality is the same, but my source has been great on what is quality and not, straight up.
So, you might get a cheaper price in one place, only to sacrifice quality. I go for quality and originality whenever possible, shop around.

[CSavaglio]

Welcome to the forum. I do the same thing with mine...keeping it as original as practical..patina is just fine...it means you can drive it and enjoy it more.

Once thing about the dash pad, is that it's color matched to the upper door pieces and the surround of the rear deck behind the seat, so you may end up wanting to replace those pieces as well if they don't match up. The new piece should be the correct color, but won't have 60 years of age and sun exposure.

I agree about going thru Larry's and Concours. Both are great. I go thru Larry's most of the time and they only time I had an issue (a piece of cracked door glass from rough shipper handling..not their fault at all), they replaced it and I had a new piece in a couple days. I can add NPD to the list, as well as CASCO.

I don't like to bad mouth vendors, but Mac's used to be very good until they were acquired by Ecklers several years back. Since then, their service went downhill. Larry's usually ships same day, but Mac's charges an additional fee to do so...if you don't pay the fee, it can take 2-4 days before it even leaves their warehouse. I usually have my orders from Larry's in hand before the Mac's order ships. I used to use Mac's a lot when I had my '56 Mercury, but in the last few years, their customer service dropped off and I received 3 orders in a row with incorrect or missing parts. One order took 3 shipments to resolve and, because of how long they delay shipping, kept my car down for over a month and a half.



Chris

[paul2748]

Personally, I would stay away from Mac's. Customer service has gone downhill and shipping charges uphill since the brand x guys took over, from what I have heard. Stick with one of the Thunderbird suppliers like CASCO, Hill's, Larry's, Concours

[Tbird57]

Thank you guys!

I found this option with dashes direct, apparently made with Ford original tooling and aproved by Ford which seems like a reasonable deal:


https://dashesdirect.com/product/1957-t ... -dash-pad/

I will also take a look with the other sources you reccomend.

Thanks again,
Victor

[Sam]

I also have a 57 with great original interior, except for the dash foam just disintegrated from under the vinyl. I installed a dash pad from Larry's last summer, it was advertised as new and improved, and it was high quality and fit well. And maybe there all made by the same manufacture and sold to other t-bird suppliers. All vendors and restorers will tell you to remove the dash to install the new pad and I agree that will make a lot easier. I was not interested in removing a dash board from perfectly good car I drive every weekend so I installed it with the dash in the car but I had a glass professional come to house and remove the windshield and re install after pad was installed. The biggest obstacle I found was getting the opening for the map light and glove box lock to line up to reinstall them and the stainless steel trim with small screws around the top radius of gauge cluster. If this is an avenue you choose to take cut and trim a little at a time and dry fit the pad as many time as you need to which I may have done 50 times before any glue was applied, because once you apply contact cement there no turning back. I gave myself a B minus on my dash pad it looks great but I know were my mistakes are. Hope this helps you make your decision.

[Firstandtenth]

Congrats on the best Christmas gift ever! I was fortunate with mine in that the dash pad is nearly perfect, but I need to replace the seat cover (and foam), kick panels, etc. I'll second the advice of using Larry's or Concours as a first choice. NPD has also been a good place to shop. I've steered away from Mac's for the same reason as others. I'll likely order my interior package from Larry's (comes with most everything but the dash pad) or run out to Hill's next month and pick up an interior package. Prices are similar, but some of the items are a bit different.

[Tbird57]

Thanks for the leads and the description of how to do the dash pad change. The car was out for it's first spin today, so I will look into it soon.

victor