This is Harvey, the 268th Bugeye we’ve sold. Soon, we’ll load Harvey into an enclosed trailer headed for Seattle, where the new owners will greet their new adopted baby (in their driveway) to begin a blissful new life together.

But first, we have some work to do. Like the more than 250 cars that have come before, this one will also get a number of upgrades for performance and reliability. And while we are running through our test drives and check lists, we are working on a package of unique cosmetic upgrades.

The new owner asked that we change the interior color from black to tan, and add a roll bar. This week, we have been working hard to execute their request, and also to upgrade the interior in the process.

We are off the map here, as there never was a leaf green Bugeye with a tan interior from the factory, and while we are more than happy to bring this color scheme to life, our goal is always to make the car better with this sort of modification, while creating components consistent with the look and feel of the original car.

Since we make the seat covers here, the possibilities are endless. We chose a light tan vinyl to coordinate with our sable carpet kit. Piping was more of a challenge. I wanted to accent the leaf green paint on the car, but vinyl choices in this color pallet are limited.

The only light green vinyl I could find seemed excessively minty (above). When the flat vinyl was laid out on the car, it looked to me like it clashed with the leaf green body. We made up a sample of the piping to see if it the intense color would soften once the green vinyl was curved and wrapped into piping. And still, it looked off to me. So we made a dark green piping sample and figured that might work instead (you can see it in the picture above). In the end, the lighter green seemed like our best option.

So many people are hurting in the world right now, I am well aware that this sort of angst about color matching is a problem of the priviliged, but alas, perhaps this is what keeps us sane while we are confined to our Quonset hut.

This also happens to be a lot of fun.

What to do about thread color? We wanted leaf green vinyl and leaf green thread, but since these don’t exist, we are limited to the thread choices you see here. Ultimately, dark green thread was the winner. And Ken sat down to sew the seat covers, with both of us extremely hopeful that our creative color choices would bring about a great result.

Something wonderful happened next… the greens and tans magically melted into one another. The human eye does interesting things, and suddenly our otherwise too minty piping transformed into the perfect leaf green. The dark green thread reads as the perfect complement. We now have seats that are just right for the car. And tan panels to match. And door pockets with green thread accents. We are building a better bugeye interior and delivering the clients wishes for a tan interior, upgrading it along the way.

At press time, we had one seat bottom complete, which you can see below, on top of the sable tunnel carpet mat. We succeeded in making leaf green piping! Everything is coordinating nicely, and that, for us, marks the end of another great week.

Next week, we’ll share more about the roll bar. Here too I agonized over color, and considered silver powdercoat, chrome and color matched green. Below the roller is bubble wrapped. Guess which color we felt looked best?

We’ll unveil the finished interior next week as our transformation comes together!

This week, we built a custom tonneau to fit the roll bar-equipped Bugeye above. Kenny carefully templated the roll bar cut-outs (above) and then transferred that template to the deluxe tonneau we sell in our catalog (click if you would like to order one). He made an excellent product, which you can see completed below.

But what about a top? There can be no top bows on this particular car, since the bow holders were shaved when the roll bar was fit. Thus a bikini top makes the most sense, using the roll bar as a hood stick.

Once more the template paper was used, and once again Ken delivered a superior product. This little pocket racer now has a fitting bikini top, that looks like it has been on there since day one!

Here’s the finished product (below). The bikini looks quite fitting for this stripped-down little street racer. This car is an online/EBAY purchase from Texas, purchased by an LA resident. We picked up the car in Texas and brought it here to Connecticut for sorting and custom features as shown above. When we are done, we’ll load this “minimalist” Bugeye onto an enclosed trailer for a long trip cross country to its new home in California!

If you want a string bikini top for your own car, you can purchase one by clicking here. We can also make a custom bikini for your roll bar equipped Bugeye, just call or email for more information!