I am getting upholstety done this week and having a hard time deciding between the two. The Leather will only cost me $300 more for the job. Is the extra 3 bills worth it. What are most of you guys doing out there interior wise. I will also be replacing the factory bench seat with a pair of high back buckets from an early Pinto. They are vinyl and look pretty good. Just the wrong color. Any help appreciated.
If you are not going to drive it much leather would be a nice touch. Everytime you get in and out of the car the leather will stretch and fold and show signs of wear. Just look at any daily driven car with a leather interior. Compare the driver's seat to the passenger's and you'll see a big difference. My son's 69 Maverick has leather side trim on the seats. The driver's side backrest is already worn from his belt rubbing it as he gets in the car, 20,000 miles. The cheaper the leather the quicker it will show signs of wear. I've seen them start to look worn in as little as a year. I've also seen leather interior from 40 year old cars that still look great. Heat, sunlight and use all contribute. Fred
My upholsterer is telling me to steer clear of leather and go with the new fake leather stuff. Says it holds up MUCH better, and is way cheaper. Won't know the difference except that it will look like fresh leather for a much longer time. I thought I got leather added to my truck when I bought it, and just recently (3 years later) I noticed that it is this fake leather stuff. At least some of the parts are. It smells like leather, so I assume some of the seat is leather, but there are some panels that get more wear that are this vinyl/leather stuff.
hey scooper, you going around sniffing seats now. don't matter wether it's leather or not to me... i can't afford either.
I looked at buying leather shards on E-bay when I was about to do my interior. I chickened out. I'd like to see original style interior in leather.
You can fix Vinyl. If you get a tear in your leather, you have to replace the whole panel. If you get a good vinyl, I think it looks and feels better than leather. Less work, easily replaced, and fixable. I'm a cloth interior man myself, but I say go with the vinyl.
decided to go with a vinyl. The upolsterer uses marine grade(boat type vinyl). He says it's better material. It looks very much like leather though. I have a swatch that I showed a few people and they all thought it was leather. I just could not resist telling them it was vinyl. I hope I'm happy with it. The thing with leather is in order to do it right a premium type hide needs to be used. That can get costly. I still have some other things I would like to do. The Vinyl is very affordable.
