Lotus Elan Central

by **E18N SE** » Sat 07.04.2007, 19:02

Hi Guys,

The seats on my car are quite old and cracked and I was looking at trying the restoration liquids. I have heard mixed reports about how well this works. The other alternative is to recover the seats. My uncle is an upholsterer for leather suits and he can be a bit of a stubborn git

He said the most time wasting part is unstitching the seats and making templates of them. He asked me to put this on the site to see if anyone else would be interested in a new set of covers?? I don’t know how much they would cost but he said he would make them very classy, even embroidering the lotus logo into the seats.

Has anyone enquired about doing this and what cost have you been quoted?? I believe the greater the interest the better the price will be.

Chris

by **Enright** » Sun 08.04.2007, 17:58

Chris, I have a spare set of heavily worn covers that could be used to split apart for templates, if that's any help.
I'd also really like to investigate having a single grey leather rectangular panel replaced in one of my seat cushions. It incurred a nasty stain (before I owned it - honest!)

by **E18N SE** » Mon 09.04.2007, 11:04

Hi Enright,

I'll be speaking with my uncle again yhis week and give him an update. If you do have a spare seat cover that would be great, rather than me driving around with one seat. Two is limiting, one could be a little tricky!

by **GeoffSmith** » Mon 09.04.2007, 11:30

I suggest you only post on the other thread!

by **Enright** » Mon 09.04.2007, 16:37

Good idea in theory, but when you come back after a few days off, and there are over 40 threads to catch up on, you have to make a decision whether to start from the top or the bottom of the list first. It wasn't obvious that I needed to check for all of the duplicates before getting stuck back into it!

I dunno - you try to help and what do you get... :twisted:

by **GeoffSmith** » Mon 09.04.2007, 16:49

by **s5tuart** » Tue 10.04.2007, 13:33

I'm going to get my seats and door panels done soon. As a guide to costs there is someone on ebay selling leather hides at around £40 each. The hides are about 45 sq ft with apparantly some considerable wastage, so I reckoned on buying 4 hides to do the job well.
So the material should cost around £160, plus the time of the upholsterer. (I just happen to have an ex-Aston Martin one working for me!)

Sometime ago I did see someone on ebay who would recover seats for about £500 per pair.

Personally I wouldn't bother with the cleaner/restorer route unless your seats aren't too bad. Mine are cracked beyond any such cost-effective option I'm afraid.

by **kmckmc** » Wed 11.04.2007, 07:34

Hi,

What is a fair price for installing new leather cover to a seat?

Cheers,

by **surfboardfiller** » Fri 13.04.2007, 14:30

s5tuart wrote:I'm going to get my seats and door panels done soon. As a guide to costs there is someone on ebay selling leather hides at around £40 each. The hides are about 45 sq ft with apparantly some considerable wastage, so I reckoned on buying 4 hides to do the job well.

Sounds like an optomistic pricing, remember leather is a natural material with some flaws, he may be selling flawed hides or un tanned hides. Be careful.

by **s5tuart** » Fri 13.04.2007, 15:04

Mmmmm! I like what you have done at the bottom of your door panel! Can you post some more pics please?
I understand about the concern of the quality of hide, but the samples I have been sent have passed my upholsterers inspection, so I may be just lucky with them. Thanks for the warning. :wink:

by **surfboardfiller** » Fri 13.04.2007, 15:52

Well it sounds like you have been careful if you are getting samples.

#1 The seats are the same pattern as the original (SE) without logos (I thought they were a bit tacky). Matching piping to keep it subtle.
It's all unperforated leather too.

#3 Panel fixings strait into the panel. These fixings go through a thin piece of flexible plastic, supposed to be perspex but it handeles more like a soft plastic. The leather is stitched onto a cardboard patern. I'd back the leather with a thin layer of wadding before stitching to prevent the sagging if i were you. Card is glued to the plastic sheet with impact adhesive.

#4 Panel fixings into their rawl plugs, I did this first but it just added bulk and took longer to set up. so I left them out on the other side.

Here are some pics:

Lotus Elan Central

re-upholster of seat covers, anyone interested?

re-upholster of seat covers, anyone interested?

Seats Retrim for S2

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