UMI’s 1987 C10 Interior Build

When the 1987 C10’s rolled off the assembly line they were destined to be work trucks and utility vehicles used to haul various goods. Over the last decade the car culture of this county has changed how these trucks are perceived, and many C10’s have found themselves picked up by automobile enthusiasts. One thing that nearly all C10 owners would surely agree on, is the interiors are dated and leave plenty of room for improvement.

We have plans to use this truck for the Long Haul on the 2020 Hot Rod Power Tour which means we need some serious improvements in the comfort category. Three things come to mind when talking about lots of miles in a vintage vehicle: comfort, cold A/C, and good tunes. We are lucky enough to have a stock drivetrain with cold A/C as our starting point so we are good on that front.

Nobody wants to drive thousands of miles with a cracked dash pad full of dust and a seat spring poking you in the back. We wanted to address these issues and add some style while we were at it. The call was to TMI Products for help on the interior and they worked with us to make an interior package that gave us the country feel we were looking for. Considering we had the truck repainted the factory Nevada Gold Metallic paint scheme we wanted to get out of our comfort zone a bit and went with a more country motif on the interior vs the race cars we are known for.

Waylon at TMI set us up with a seat that GM could have only dreamt of back in 1987. We went with the Sport-AR seat in Brown Distressed with a Camel Distressed insert to give a nice contrast as well as match well with the fresh exterior paint. This specific insert stitching pattern really added a cowboy boot look to the seats and made for a different look than most C10’s on the road. Our stock bench seat might have been well suited to have your significant other seated close to your side, but it lacked in the seat bolsters. The new TMI unit adds some serious support and matches well with the sport truck feel that our Stage 2 Suspension package provides to the truck. We also added TMI’s matching console for some much needed storage and a pair of well placed cup holders for our long haul big gulps. After years out in the sun the dash pad of our C10 had surely seen better days, so we opted for a matching TMI Sport dash pad. TMI added the insert of our pad in the Camel Distressed material to really bring the interior scheme together.  To complete our comfort transformation on the C10 we opted for a new steering wheel from our great friend Melvin at 80Z Performance.  Mel helped us narrow down the search to a Forever Sharp 14” Black Muscle wheel in a Mahogany and Brass finish to complement our color scheme.

Now that we have the comfort situation addressed in our Square, we’ll move on to the music department. We wanted to keep that factory look while upgrading to some of the modern convenience we have become accustomed to in our daily drivers. We have had great luck with the headunit in our 2019 Power Tour proven ‘65 Cutlass so we went back to Retrosound for their Hermosa unit. The Hermosa bolts into the factory location with ease and allows us to keep the factory look while adding bluetooth capability and much better sound quality. After 30+ years the factory speakers were freshened up with Kenwood units in the stock locations. Lastly, we installed sound deadening material on the floor as well as new carpeting to finish off the look.

Swapping this interior has taken this truck from run of the mill to a modern cruiser which will be a pleasure to put the miles on. At the end of the day the goal is to keep these classic vehicles on the road, and what better way than to add a modern touch.