well after doing 2 mobile discos in mine I decided to do something to prevent it ending up like a builders van. My old escort was in a bad state after 2 years of loading and unloading all my equipment every week and there's no way my marea will suffer the same fate!
What I will say is that the escort had a good solid boot where as the marea has some poor flimsy cardboard stuff that sinks into the spare wheel hole under any sort of weight. This is probably the cars biggest design fault and I know that's being picky, but they should expect an estate to get some heavy loads.
So 2 sheets of 12mm MDF later it's gig ready! :slayer:
I made a stencil of each side using some wallpaper before cutting the final shape and it fits nicely around the wheel arches.
NOTE: If you try doing this, realise that each side is a different shape because of the fuel intake pipes. (I didn't notice at first and tried flipping the left stencil over to cut the right hand side and it didn't fit) :bang:
I've done 3 different panels, one for the main boot and two smallers ones for the 60/40 split seats. It's all covered in a single bit of dark grey carpet and held in place on the seats when upright by sticky velcro strips.
The gap between the folding seats and the boot expands when folding the seats down so there is a spare few inches of carpet holding the middle and rear sections together which acts as a hinge.
The main panels also lifts easily if you needed the spare wheel.
Now I can chuck speakers and amps in there and slide them straight to the back without them getting caught on all the lumps and bumps.
(photos to follow)
Hellcat, I like the close up of the JTD 130 badge, very arty farty! :yum:
And is that IKEA gateshead by any chance? I love going there and watching people struggle to fit a bed in a pug 307 or ford focus only to pack the stores entire contents into the marea where it seems to go into a black hole or something!
Don't know if Fiat meant to do it, but the way you have left the drop down part open is probably the only legal way of having stuff stuck out of your boot like that!
When you see other people doing it, it's actualy illegal if your boot is open at more than a certain angle as you number plate is not visible from a certain distance.
Nice one Fiat !