Re upholstery for your cars interior.

"New threads for your car."

Why put up with the boring colours and fabrics that manufacturers use to design a car interior. TorqueCars members have tried just about every interior mod available from custom re-upholsters to swap in aftermarket parts.

Most cars come with black and grey interiors and sometimes navy blue or a slight coloured cord finish and sometimes if you are lucky a slight variation in the fabric but from a distance it will still look dull.

Whilst a car interior is designed to appeal to a wide selection of motorists and stand up to 20 years use there is much that can be done to spruce up the interior of your car. 

New Seats. Many sports seats are on offer but it is very hard tracking down rear seats to match as most aftermarket seats are universal with an adapter rail to fit the car whereas rear seats have to be a specific size and have precisely cut belt holes and release catches.

Going to the local breakers yard may often yield a complete leather or sporty interior from a sports or executive model of your car. Using these "new" seats as a base you can get them recovered or completely re-upholstered without having to be without the seats in your car enabling you to continue to use your car. Then when you have swapped them in you can sell your old seats to someone else.

Re-upholstered seats. Whilst it is possible to re-upholster your seats yourself most people prefer to pay an expert as the finish is infinitely better and the overall job often takes a matter of hours rather than a whole week or two.

Be careful to choose a hard wearing fabric. Leather is the material of choice as it repels most stains from liquids, is relatively easy to clean and can be stretched to fit which creates a nice finish. Other fabric choices should include Alcantara, heavy cotton and synthetic fibres. (Fur often looks nice although that is very much subject to personal taste.) Ensure that you get a good finish and that the seems are double stitched as they will get a lot of abuse and it would be a real shame if your look is spoiled with some frayed or split seams.

Complete interior makeover including door cards. Remove the door furniture such as catches, switches and handles. The door cards are generally pushed on with studs and these often get warped as they are removed so get a set of spare retaining studs and swap out any which have got damaged.

This is also a good time to upgrade the speakers in your car blending them in with the new look. Sometimes less is more and adding a small coloured panel can radically transform your cars look. Experiment first, take a photo of your car and in Photoshop or another image editing package play around with colours until you feel you have got it right, then ask your friends and family for their opinions.

The new fabric trim can be simply stretched over the door card, holes for the furniture can be added and then you can affix the fabric to the door card with a heavy duty carpet tape spread liberally over the backing surface to avoid stretching or a good quality fabric adhesive.

(When using adhesive make sure it does not ooze through the fabric as this can make the fabric hard and scratchy to the touch - with most fabric glues you need to allow them to dry and form a tacky skin before you add them.)

Ideally you can pull the fabric over the edges and glue down the seam on the reverse of the door car and then rely on the door furniture to prevent sagging but the best result usually comes from using all of these methods to affix the fabric.

Finishing touches, dash board function, dials, gear knob and hand brake can all be upgraded and made to blend in with the rest of your chosen look. Some suppliers are starting to offer aftermarket trim parts including stick on trim surrounds in wood, leather, carbon fibre and a wide variety of custom colours and finishes.

This article was written by Waynne Smith on TorqueCars, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Interior, Styling. You can leave a response below or join TorqueCars forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

If you liked this page please share it with your friends, drop a link to it in your favourite forum or use the bookmarking options to save it to your social media profile.

Check out TorqueCars new YouTube channel, and see their awesome new content...