starting to think new interior

[newmexicomatt]

Now that I have a car that is driving great, I'm starting to think about fixing up the interior. For the most part, my interior is in pretty good shape. I can probably get away with a good cleaning on the headliner. The side panels and dash are probably a good 7 out of 10. Back seat is in tact, no tears or really bad marks. The big problem is the front seat is split and dried out (the backs of the seats are in great shape) and needs to be replaced.
Just wondering, would you replace just the front seat and not touch the rest, replace front and back seats or replace everthing?
My interior is bright blue and matching colors might be a bit difficult....I'll post pictures as soon as I get some taken!

[Mad Scientist]

Just wondering, would you replace just the front seat and not touch the rest, replace front and back seats or replace everthing?

I have noticed I have a similar problem. I will replace only the front and rear cushions (so that they will be matched) but nothing else.

While I am certain the all of the leather is equally dried out as my front seats it does not have to endure the stress and flexing that the seats do, therefore it should not be a problem.

[Doc]

I suspect our situation was very similar to what Rich is describing; the front seat was bad, the rest of the interior still in pretty good shape. However, the biscuits in our seats were not in authentic material, so we chose to replace both seats completely. In the rest of the interior, one door panel had suffered some water damage and was rippled, everything else looked pretty good. Thus, we redid both seats completely, replaced the one door panel, and had everything else cleaned and re-dyed. We're very pleased with the results. If I told you one panel was replaced, on close inspection you could probably pick it out; otherwise, I don't think anyone would ever recognize that our interior is a mix of old and new. The key is to use the right looking leather on the parts you replace (so the textures match) and have someone do a really good dye job (so the colors match).

For anyone in California, I'd add that our upholstery was done at Westminster Auto Upholstery (which is actually in Anaheim) by Pete Engel. If you're a hot rod fan or watch any of the TV car shows, the name/shop is probably familiar, Pete is highly regarded and has done many prize winning customs for designers such as Foose along with many concours-quality restorations.

[Don Henschel]

Now that I have a car that is driving great, I'm starting to think about fixing up the interior. For the most part, my interior is in pretty good shape. I can probably get away with a good cleaning on the headliner. The side panels and dash are probably a good 7 out of 10. Back seat is in tact, no tears or really bad marks. The big problem is the front seat is split and dried out (the backs of the seats are in great shape) and needs to be replaced.


You might want to give more thought to cleaning the headliner. I to thought my headliner was in good shape. When trim peices were removed around the back glass, that told a totally different story. I'm also in the same boat as the leather on my dash is in very good (IMHO) condition and I am concerned about the dash horror stories.The leather on the dash is avery small peice and the dash is hard to remove, but is the dash hard to recover??

[Don Henschel]

The backs of my seats are not too bad but the top strip directly in front of my rear package tray is totally shot. My biscuits are also the wrong material so I will probably go for a complete seat re-upholstery of the seats as partial repair looks like a waste of time. Mad's experience with the dye cracking steers my in this direction as well.There is also an unusual seam in the middle of the front seat, a repair?? who knows?