Whiel I respect your personal taste about what is nice or adequate for a car interior, it seems a relatively large number of persons, including the motor car press of the era, qualified the interior plastics of the Crossfire as "cheap" and not to the overall standard of the car...and of its price tag.

Your reference to plastic for the inserts should take into consideration that the aim is for a glossy look without compromising safety. In fact, more and more, if not the majority of manufacturers, have adopted "simili" as the real wood with 25 coats of varnish ( or modern urethane) gives the same final result for looks and will likely fade, then crack over the years.

Trust my experience as I am currently restoring my second Jaguar 340 ( 1968) and the original burled walnut veneer is a mess. On the other hand, I have a Volvo as a daily car and this company having always been well ahead of most in safety issues, has converted their "wood" capping inserts to simili a number of years ago.

To my taste, plastic for plastic, I still think that synthetic burled plastic walnut looks a lot better than the dull finish silverized original plastic in a Crossfire,as it does in many other fine cars

Le chat.