Beyond The Exterior
Dashboard, etc.
I mentioned previously that the dashboard started off the same way as the rear ledge in the back of the cab - with points copied from the edge of the cab opening. The first picture shows this basic approach. Points from the cab edge are pasted to a new polygon object, and then pasted again, this time setting the Z value of the points so that the edge of the dashboard is straight .
Have a look:
From those simple beginnings, you can get quite a bit more complicated, I extended the dashboard downward by extruding the bottom polygons toward the floor, and then adjusting the bottom points so as to slope the panel away from the driver a bit.
To add the swells in the dash, I just moved the front points on the dash edge upwards on the Y axis a bit... then the final touch was to select the front polygons and extrude them into the object a bit to recess the instrument panel. Of course, this is as detailed as I'm getting in regards to instrumentation!
A simple cylinder object made editable and altered via a few choice knifecuts and some point manipulation makes a great steering column. No reason to get much fancier than that...
Likewise, a steering wheel for a Bel Air can be reasonably well replicated with a couple really thin torii, and a central cylinder tapered to look slightly egg-shaped. The cross-pieces are merely thin extrusions stemming from the inside of the outer torus, and made to look as though they pass through the other parts of the steering wheel.
As an aside, you might have noticed in the above pictures I modeled in a hump on my floorboard! Simple point manipulation on the central floor region, nothing more!