I was flipping through an unnamed on line auction service and came across an Alcantera center console that caught my eye. I'm a real lover of this stuff - steering wheel, e-brake, dining room set, living room chairs. All made from poor suffering alcanterrier's. This time I decided to do the install myself. I've always been put off by interior work - the risk of damaging something, marring a surface or breaking hard-to-replace clips have kept me from doing it.
But my son and I both agreed that the design center of the Porsche, much like other german cars but more so, is that everything is designed to be serviced/removed/replaced/enhanced which has made home-mod'ing of the car so much fun. Hoping that that design gestalt carried to the interior, we dove in.
In short, it was pretty simple work. I had purchased a set of plastic interior fastener tools and taking our time, it all came apart quite simply. I did have some trouble transplanting some of the parts from the old console to the new, but it ultimately came together and went back in no problem.
And thanks to the MacCarbon folks for posting an on-line tutorial.
A few pix:

 

Nice work. Looks custom and professional!

 

wow! that is fantastic! I never really got a full appreciation for alcantara before, but that is pretty nice indeed.

 

More likely **** retentive and OCD. But thanks.

More seriously, I have to admit that all those threads about the IMS failures have gotten me spooked. I have done a lot of work on this car, and it feels very personalized. One that I plan to keep for a long time (I have a good track record of 10+ years of ownership with cars I've really enjoyed). But now there's this little peep in the back of my head that I might be in for an engine overhaul sometime during my long-term romance.
I know that the odds are on my side, and I suspect that the stats are somewhat overstated (I don't think that Porsche could be solvent if they had to fund engine replacements in 5% of their cars. Oh, wait, they're not solvent!).
Anyway, it's temporarily taken a bit of blush off the rose.
I guess I'll have to get a rear wing, headers and x-pipe cats to banish the concerns from my mind.

 

It's really very nice stuff. Both racer-like and elegant at the same time. More practically, it's never hot or cold, steering wheel grip is amazing (I'm sure even better with a pair of nomex gloves) and the wear factor, though likely not as good as leather, is supposed to be very good. I wish I could replace the seat backs and bottoms (especially to avoid thigh-burn in a cab) but since they're not removable/separable, it's too big a job to tackle.

 

I am also a lover of the alc, as you can see in my sig i need to get started

 

Go for it. You'll love it. THough I must say that it's one of the few products that I'd only buy new. It's just delicate enough (in theory) that I don't want anyone's hand prints (or worse) on it.
But hey, I thought you had a need to keep your car relatively quiet, so what's up looking for the pipes?

 

LOL on the alcantera dining room set:P Looks like you had some fun in there!

My GT3 is over the top with that darned stuff but I'm addicted too:P

 

Nice work Verde! When do you re cover your seats with it?

 

I love the look. I've got the steering wheel in alcantara and want to do more. Great job.

 

Seats?????? I was thinking CUSTOM car cover

 

Sweet job Verde. How much did that stuff set you back? I've seen the center consoles well over $1k.
You could easily have any upholstry shop do the set centers in Alcantara too. Probably would cost less than the console did!

 

Looks good - I would have never thougt to use a hat to cover my SC wart though.

 

Well less than your quoted amount, but still exorbitant. And I agree that I might be able to have a local upholstery shop do it. But I'd never be sure about the outcome until it's done. I'd rather be able to take a look at the part before I'm committed. Since this stuff is used where CF is also often used, I compare the process and pricing to that stuff. Which I like BTW, but not as much as 'terrier-hyde'.
And gee, I wish the Alcantara car cover hadn't been mentioned. Hmmm...

 

Great job Verde – looking very nice