Finally finished a project long overdue. I ordered some white 1 meter "EL Wire" from
these guys (ancient looking website, but don't let that scare you) and an inverter for "up to 5 meters" (it's tiny), and ripped out the "shifter console" on the car. Then I pulled the EL wire in and out of the hole that was available in the panel there, apparently it's not used for anything except perhaps venting.
After a few attempts, I managed to "pin" the EL wire under the top of the cup holders by releasing the 7 (!) screws that hold the cupholders in by just a little, then I screwed it back in pinning it in place. I tried some superglue at first but it refused to stick in any sort of pretty way.
I tested the 2-wire cable that goes to this console from somewhere in the car to light up the various sections of it by throwing a glove over the light sensor, and it's ~11.5V, which is close enough to the 12V required for the inverter. I had a connector laying around that fit the existing inverter, but otherwise I could've just cut the inverter power cable and spliced it just as well. The (+) wire goes to the purple/gray wire and the (-) to the brown. I just attached them with posi-taps, but any method works of course.
After putting it all back together, voila! (I had the dome lights on in this picture so it's really hard to see the glow, I'll put up a better pic later, it was too cold to be creative. Pardon the spilled soda stain):
I'll go back later and fix where I had the wires come in and out as unfortunately the way I organized them on that side leaves a small gap that's visible from the drivers side, but it's not exactly urgent
Easy and cheap project for anyone who is bored
