Bringing great audio to this classic

This car arrived with the fully restored exterior and interior. There was a basic stereo in the console and two small kick panel speakers. That sound wasn’t cutting it for this classic. We found a way to hide a pair of JL Audio 10W6v3 subwoofers and two amplifiers behind the existing trim panels and upgraded the kick panel speakers with Focal Utopia M components to achieve excellent sound quality but fit behind the kick panels.

The Vision

Every panel was covered in leather and trying to match that would be quite difficult. This meant we needed to work within the existing constraints. Fortunately, we were able to give the customer a great system and still look like the interior designer intended.

The Process

We disassembled the rear of this Nomad to see is there was any usable space hidden behind the leather wrapped trim work. As it turns out. we had plenty of room to add our amplifiers behind the back seat after finding a removable panel. Once we looked under the vehicle, we noticed a spare tire tub that was completely covered over by carped in the rear floor. We were able to build a custom subwoofer enclosure in this tub and then place the flooring back over it, making it completely disappear. We modified the kick panels to allow for better speakers and then laser cut new speaker grilles to allow for better audio transparency.

The Timeline

This was a six day project.

1955 Chevrolet Nomad

The speakers grilles in the kick panels when it arrived.

The hidden spare tire well that we found under the fully trimmed and carpeted floor.

Focal Utopia 6WM 6.5″ woofers in the kick panels

Two JL Audio 10W6v3 Subwoofers built into the spare tire well

JL Audio VX1000/5i and VX600/1i DSP amplifiers behind the back seat to actively power the front Utopia M speakers and each subwoofer.

The rear trim and carpet fully re-installed after the install of the amplifiers and subwoofers

New laser cut and painted grilles to blend into the kick panels. Behind this are Focal Utopia 6WM woofers and TBM Beryllium dome tweeters.

Under the driver side dash with the custom kick panels

Front dash with custom kick panel views and the new Kenwood eXcelon head unit in the center console

Finalizing the tune on the JL Audio VXi amplifiers with the MAX tuning software and microphone array.

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1966 Chevrolet