dancutlass

I'm helping a friend with this thread. He's thinking about buying a 1965 Delta 88, which is in overall good condition, but needs the seats redone.
I know there are no seat covers available for the Delta, but are they interchangeable with any other B-Body for which seat covers are available??
Thanks

jaunty75

In the three times in my life that I've had my old Oldsmobile's seats reupholstered, and all three were full-size '60s or '70s cars, I just took the seat to a local auto upholstery shop. We looked through his catalogs until we found a fabric, color, and pattern that was very close to the original. I had those put on, and the seats look gorgeous.

I never really understood this comment that "there are no seat covers available for the full-size cars." Of course there are. You can get anything recovered. Just go to any auto upholsterer worth his salt and discuss the situation. They'll fix you up just fine. They have zillions of swatches, patterns, colors, and books. This is their business.


Below are before and after photos of the front seat on my '73 Custom Cruiser, which I bought in 2010 from the original owner's family. Certainly nobody is reproducing seat covers for a car like this. The first two photos are of the interior front area in the condition as I got the car. My intent at the time wasn't actually to photograph the seat, so it's not the focus of the photos, but you can certainly see what it looked like and its condition. Also, I used a flash for the first two photos, that's why the lighting is a bit different, and it made the seat color look brighter than it really was. This was the original upholstery, then 37 years old, it was certainly a bit stiff and faded, and you can see the big rip on the driver's side that was my main motivation in getting it recovered.

The third photo is the seat as it sat at the upholsterer's waiting for me to pick it up when it was done. I dare anyone to tell me they didn't do a gorgeous job, including saving and reusing the little "buttons" across the seat back. In fact, I would guess that no one looking at this seat, after it was installed back in the car and who didn't know the history of it, would think it wasn't original.







After:




The material was not a special order or anything like that. We just found it one of his books, he ordered it, and we were off to the races. So as I say, go to a local upholsterer, pick out something nice, and have him install it.

I realize that you are in Germany, but I'm guessing that you have auto upholstery shops there as well.

dancutlass

Thank you very much for your answer Jaunty! Your bench seat is looking great!
Yes we have auto upholstery shops here as well and I was there last week, when my dad decided to get his seat out of the 55 Studebaker pickup reupholstered. We didn't ask for anything crazy, just a dark red faux leather with a few longitudinal stripes. Similar to yours in design, but a little simpler. His quotation was at a tad more than 1100$...I realize, that reupholstering a seat is a lot of work, but that's a lot of money!
That's why I told my buddy I'd ask around and see if there's a cheaper solution, as we're both students without deep pockets

jaunty75

For what it's worth, I paid about $750 for the recovering of the car's front seat plus the lower part of the smaller of the two middle seats (the one that folds forward to access the third seat). I'd say $1100 is probably higher than what you'd pay here to have a single full-width seat completely recovered, but perhaps it's not completely out of line for what's typical in your country.

You can also certainly find seat covers that are meant to go on top of the existing upholstery if your intent is simply to cover up a worn seat, and I'm guessing that would be a cheaper route to take.

I guess I always find the term "seat covers" to be vague the way people use it. In some cases, they mean the actual upholstery on the seat. Other times people mean the higher-tech equivalent of throwing a blanket on the seat to cover up blemishes.

delta_88_germany

hey
did you fond somebody to upholster your seats here in germany ?

i live in Karlsruhe and looking also fore somebody to fiy that on my delta 88 1973

alex