Hey! My only qualifications as far as car interiors;
1. I'm a Woodworker.
2. I was eyeballs deep into competing in car stereo shows in the early
90's.

Those of us competing would rip out everything in the car. A complete
gutting was essential to eliminate rattles and bad vibes. Then the new
interior panels were fabricated to hold all of the speakers and
equipment. Door panels were the easy part just as you speculated. The
rear decks for us were a little complicated. We had to match the deck
to a box underneath to contain those big-a$$ boomers. Or we turned the
subs(big-a$$ boomers) directly into the back of the seat. That made the
rear decks much easier. BUT the dash was an entirely different story.
Like you said, there are curves and strange mounting geometry. Do you
want to know why I quit messing around with car srereos? A custom dash
is a pretty serious deal. Most guys would use fiberglass to lay up a
complicatd shape like that. Before you start cutting and hacking the
foam and vinyl of of the steel mounting plate, consider how heavy the
wood is going to be and how easy it will be to warp.There are
defrosters, high humidity, direct sunlight, extreme temperature
changes, etc. But if you do proceed with this bigger-than-it-looks
project, cupholders are good, post some pictures the very day you
finish so you will have documented proof that it looked pretty nice
when it was new. Maybe the way to go would be to have an upholstery
shop to fabricate some part of the dash, the curved parts, and then you
can fit wooden panels on the top. You would have all of the effects of
a wooden dash pad with much less weight. Then you could use a matching
veneer to cover the flat parts around the gauges and the glove box.
some of those old Fords had a console down the center with a flat panel
all of the way down the center. I've also heard those flat panels
screaming and begging to be covered with wood grain.

Tom in KY,Wishing you luck and hoping you post some pictures of how you
do this and someday, the finished product!