1972 GS dash bezel black or wood grain.

I was just wondering could you get a dash bezel with the black insert area on a 72GS or are they all wood grain. Was it a option to order black are does the GS only come with wood grain?
THANKS

 

The GS came with woodgrain inserts. Greg Setter repro's the inserts, excellent quality.

 

So what you are telling me it that no GS cars came with the black. Right?

 

Any of the GS cars with the custom interior, which almost all had, came with the woodgrain dash inserts. There were several of the non custom GS cars. They have the short arm rests (16" vs. the 18") and the unique door panel trim and material. Richard Lasseter's (70 Stage 1) car comes to mind as does the Reynolds car (70 Stage 1) that Guy Parquette owns. Those non custom cars have the non waffle pattern interior material. Both these are 1970 models. And both these cars have the bench seat. Looking through the original order books they actually show the custom interior as being standard on the GS455 cars and Skylark custom models and optional on the GS350 and all other Skylark models for 1970, listed as sales code Q6. But Guy's car and Richard's car don't go along with that. It was listed as option sales code Q9 for 71 & 72. So it appears you could get the bench seat equipped cars without the custom trim, contrary to what the order form shows, and without the wood grain inserts. I know if you ordered the bucket seats you automatically got the custom interior and woodgrain. Clear as mud?? I had the Reynolds car in the shop for over a year redoing much of it many years ago, so I'm confident in what it had from the factory. Which was non woodgrain dash, bench seat, column shift, non custom interior in black.

 

Here is the bezel originally from my 1st 72 GS 350 non deluxe interior car. Had bench seat.

 

Well....in my younger days(aka stupid) I did some really strange stuff. I had a 72 GS that was a body shell when I got it and used parts from other cars to build me a car. It was traded to my buddy Kevin and back to me several times. We switched it to a 4 speed then to an auto car so many times back and forth I forget how many times. In the 4 speed era, I removed the PRNDL2L1 decal and added my own little feature to be different. This speedo is from my 70 GS and the gauges from the same. The clock I had laying around. The bezel is in decent shape, so I am considering putting it in my 71 car as its nowhere near original anyways. Just one of those things to bring back memories of past cars. I know it looks cheesey, but I don't mind.
Pat

 

In the mid-80s I had a 70 GS 350 with black buckets and non-woodgrain dash. Can't guarantee that the instrument cluster hadn't been changed, but that's how it was. (The rest of the interior was all correct 70 Custom stuff.) The woodgrain-or-not thing has always seemed somewhat arbitrary to me.

 

My 72 GS 455 has the buckets, floor auto, and the black trimmed face plate. I have no way of knowing if it is original to the car, but it sure was old and funky enough to have been. If this faceplate was a replacement, I'd hate to see the original! That being said, cars of this vintage are always suspect. Never say never when this kind of stuff is involved. Often, what was built vs what was supposed to be built varied. I worked at a dealership in the early 1990's and, even that recently, saw plenty of errors and stuff that was not supposed to exist with other stuff on the same vehicle. I remember a few years back when plenty of folks swore that you could not get the factory Astoroof and a power driver's seat together on the 87 GN. I found this "debate" interesting, as my GN is original and came that way. I have seen plenty of other cars, but none with that combo around here. I know that some were built that way, however. Thanks, Rudy E.

 

Thanks for all the input guys!