Integrating audio into the Datsun 620 build was never a part of the plan, but after finding some open real estate and wanting music to be accessible I was able to land speakers in the limited cab space. With only a handful of areas in truck left as exposed original interior metal, I was able to use this speaker mount and cover project to fully dress the truck’s interior in full carbon for a very unitized look. Lofted covers were designed to form fit to the contours of the stock truck’s complicated metal shape while leaving room for the speakers and a grill surround to be covered in cloth. Once the design was validated digitally, it was on to the mold design.

The molds were made by machining male plugs using my 3-axis mill, and going through the traditional process of body working the plug and laminating a female mold over top of it. Once the molds were finished, the parts were laid using carbon reinforcement and resin infused with epoxy. The rear cab speaker cover was a very complicated part to cover, requiring very precise pattern cuts of the carbon cloth to hide the seam lines as best possible.

Once the covers were trimmed and cleaned, 3D printed bezels were made to fasten into the carbon units after being hand covered with speaker grill cloth. The contrast of the carbon and the cloth with the highlighted bezel edges offers a very visually pleasing assembly that has just the right amount of detail to break up an otherwise boring amount of surface area.