My new seat covers

Here's a before on my seat: As you can see, they were getting a bit ratty after 22 years. As I had the seat out anyway to fix the parking brake, I decided to recover them.

And here's the After:

That's one full hyde of Argentinian leather for the two seats. I barely had a few scraps left over after some careful laying out. The leather is significantly thicker than the original, but that's all my leather supplier had in black. At $230 delivered for the hyde, I can't complain. With all other supplies, I have about $240 total in both covers. They sit real nice.

Dr.Hess

Wow, total improvement - they look great. Much cheaper than I was expecting, too. I imagine an upholstery-resto place would charge a couple of grand for that kind of work.

How difficult is the process?

Well, as most things Esprit related, it is a PITA. But, it just takes time. Take the old seat apart, down to the individual pieces. Lay them out on the new leather, trace it out, cut it out, then sew them together. I used black upholstery thread with Oma's hand cranked 1930 Singer, which she bought new and mom learned to sew on. It made it through WWII Holland, the trip to Canada, L.A. and Arkansas and a Dutch funeral. The hardest part was probably putting the covers back on the seats. Glue, pulling, hog rings, pop rivets, etc.

That's impressive work!

Wow, nice job. Had you ever done that before or was this your first attempt?

Looks fantastic.

This was my second seat cover re-do. This was the first: My 1986 Toyota RN Truck. I didn't take any Befores for that one, but just imagine foam rubber showing through ripped up vinyl.

Here's a pic of the Midwest Se7ens Gathering last weekend, where we tried out my new seat covers: