Ideas for custom 4G things, you ideas to...

One thing that sucks about 4Gs or at least the Hatchback is the carpet in the trunk. It's real crappy and doesn't do much. I was thinking that if I could find some material like a carpet or rug like thing I could get it cut to fit in the back. Only thing is I don't know how I would get the coutours of the back. I was thinking of using that plastic thing as a guide but it's smaller than the actual carpet would be.

I was also thinking of removing my back seat since it is old and dirty and no one uses it, and maybe making a cover out of plywood and then covering it like a subbox and then putting a full size spare there and then belting it down. It would look cool and "racing" like. Thats the kind of stuff I like.

I have seen a setup in a hatch that I liked, basicaly what was done is the entire OE carpet was removed the rear seats were removed and the pivot in the center (long sharp akward piece of metal allowing the seats to pivot down) were rmoved and the carpet was layed down to cover it all. in the trunk the carpet (much thicker than stock) was held in place with snaps (like soft tono cover) to still have access to the spare tire. the setup looks stock and is real clean... i have a feeling it was professionaly done though.

I have my rear stripped right now and im gonna make a fiberglass shell to go over the rear of my car...then Ill cover it in carpet and just have the spare tire back there

My friend gave me this carpeted plastic tire cover from his VW Golf. It's pretty cool but I need to cut it down or something to get it to fit better.

use the stock carpet as a pattern. Thats what I did when I built the false floor for my 1G. works very well.

-Dustin

I was thinking of just using that, but what kind of material should I use for the carpet? If I went to a carpet store would they have a big piece I could buy. And if I cut it what can I do to the edges to keep them from fraying?

Idealing some kind of material like a floor mat would be good, where can I get that?

My rear interior is stripped right now to. I'll be building a "floor" out of 3/4" MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard). That will then be covered with black vinyl. I bought a fifth rim and tire (Focal F10 and Nitto NT-450) just like the ones I'm rolling on, and I put it where the spare was... The rim/tire will be "showcased" back there, and then, I'm building a fiberglass sub enclosure to go where the back seats were and some fiberglass speaker pods for the 6.5" speakers. I've also removed the pivot like Kunundrum said, as well as the bracket that holds the jack next to the spare tire. I'll be keeping the original side and rear plastic panels, but while I had the side-panels out, I took that opportunity to trace the edges of them onto some foam-board to use as a template. I haven't cut the MDF with the template yet, so I don't know how well this is going to work, but I will deffinitely post when it's done.

Here's some pics of the hatch area as it looks now:
http://files.automotiveforums.com/uploads/924356smRearBrace02.jpg
http://files.automotiveforums.com/uploads/282399smRearBrace04.jpg
http://files.automotiveforums.com/uploads/394811smRearBrace05.jpg