Popular Mechanics restored a 1967 Chevy Camaro convertible in 1992 in honor of the Camaro's 25th anniversary. The lesson's learned from this project are applicable to restoring any old car-from a Model T to a Lamborghini. And every restoration project provides the same deep-down satisfaction of bringing a dying car back to life. Here, we take on the interior and convertible top.

Probably the silliest bit of engineering in this whole Camaro was the convertible top/rear window. The top well boot, the rear window and the top all staple to three pieces of metal channel containing compressed paper. This channel is then bolted to the car, in theory, stretching all three pieces of cloth-backed vinyl to the proper tension.

Just to complicate matters, the top well boot goes over the top of the channel, hiding it from view when installed-and hiding it from the installers as they're trying to bolt it in. It literally took all day for two people to fit and adjust the convertible top. There's nothing difficult about it, but as you're juggling three different pieces of vinyl, a hair dryer for smoothing the vinyl and the staple gun, you're thinking, "In 15 minutes I could come up with five better top designs than this!"

Next, we laid out our sound-deadening pads for the floor, followed by the molded carpet. Compared to tag-team wrestling the convertible top, this was a cinch.

Once the carpet was in place, we installed new doorsills as well as our center console. The console was stripped and repainted and the trim polished. Then the unit was reassembled and installed as a subassembly. With the console in place, we were able to add the stock console gauges and our new shifter.

Obviously, the stock 2-speed Powerglide shifter would not work with our TH700R4 4-speed automatic. But B&M came up with a cable-operated MegaShifter that fit our console perfectly and looks very much like the stock '67 shifter. We did have to fabricate an aluminum adapter plate to mount the shift lever in the console, but that was a minor chore.

Next came reproduction rear side panels and ashtray panels from D&R. These arrived preformed and installed easily with a half-dozen trim screws each. The new door panels were more trouble. These reproduction Deluxe panels were molded plastic, surprisingly expensive and not as well made as we would have liked. We had to modify the molded backing with a heat gun in order to fit them to our doors. Then we had to move all the mounting brackets to line up with the mounting holes in our doors.

Surprisingly, Camaro door panel trim was not available in reproduction. We had to remove the trim from our old panels, clean it up, then install it on our new panels before hanging the whole assembly on the doors. Before hanging the door panels, we securely glued repro weatherproofing panels over the inner doors and sprayed the window sills the proper semigloss black. With the interior panels in place, we installed new door handles and window cranks.

Camaro seats are a snap to restore. The rear bench is made up of two simple pieces--the bottom and the back--each built around a metal frame with padded flat springs, foam rubber cushioning and vinyl surfaces held in place by the time-honored use of upholstery hog rings. With the seat frames stripped, it was an easy matter to clean up the springs, lay out new foam padding, fit reproduction Deluxe seat covers, stretch them tight and fasten them with new hog rings. We installed new rear seatbelts, then snapped the two pieces of the reupholstered seat into place.

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