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A number of years
ago, quite a number in fact, when I was but a lad, I have a notion
that someone told me it was possible to 'paint' leather upholstery.
With this vague thought in mind I decided to do something about my
Cloud 1. SFE375 had been born in March 1958 in sage green with green
leather and carpets. The second owner had the car painted white in
1970, it being then the principle vehicle of a small wedding car fleet.
The upholstery remained green although being adorned with fake tiger
skin seat covers (it was the Seventies) it did not conflict too much
with the paintwork. I purchased the car in 1977 in then reasonable
condition.
I continued with the wedding car business and added a Bentley S1,
also white, to the fleet. A few years later a Cloud 111 LWB in Masons
Black made up the complement. For a variety of reasons, which are
another story entirely, I repainted the Cloud 111, during the Eighties,
in Black over Burgundy.
By the time that the Nineties arrived, I owned only the two Clouds,
now just for pleasure and decided to change the white Cloud 1 to Black
over Burgundy, thinking that they would make a nice pair. This then,
is the point of this missive, whilst both cars looked quite resplendent
in their matching, rather regal colours, the Cloud 1 still had green
upholstery with tiger skin seat covers. It really needed to be changed
to something that would match the paintwork, maybe red or indeed burgundy.
I successfully ignored this for the next twelve years, always intending
to do something about the interior.
With my original notion that upholstery could be painted, I embarked
on the quest to verify this. The first stop was the club web site
discussion area, where I received quite a lot of well intended advice,
also telephone numbers and web addresses of firms who could possibly
help. Whilst most of the companies contacted did offer leather 'rejuvenation'
products, most baulked at the idea of a complete colour change, especially
from green to burgundy. "You want to do what?" Speaking
to two specialists, re-upholstery was suggested as the correct route.
Eventually, via the RROC site I blundered across the name 'Leatherique'
based in the USA. Via e-mail I was told everything I wanted to hear,
"No problem", "Green to Red, simple". "You
just need leather rejuvenator, a cleaning and preparation solution
and a quart of paint". Wonderful.
Having chosen 'Mulberry' from a computer screen swatch, the relevant
bottles were ordered from the States. Not inexpensive at one hundred
and seventy five dollars plus the same again for carriage, but a fraction
of the four thousand or so pounds to re-upholster.
With renewed vigour, the interior was completely stripped out, seats,
door panels, arm rests, piping, trim etc lying all over the garage
floor.
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How many cows
are in there? It seems like a complete herd. |
Incidentally
with the interior trim removed, I reckon you could park an (Austin)
Mini inside a Cloud 1 |
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Eventually,
after a few weeks and a few problems with Federal Express masquerading
as Customs and Excise, the magic liquid arrived and a couple
of weeks later, all the leather had been cleaned.
So many
different bits.
Some areas were quite badly 'scuffed' whilst others, being covered
with tiger were in reasonable condition.
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Next the preparation
solution was applied. The instructions, alarmingly, read "apply
the preparation solution to a small area and spread using 300 wet and
dry sandpaper". Being a fairly sceptical sort, I first tried this
out on a piece from under the rear seat, which was obviously out of
sight. An hour and two rolls of paper towels later, a still green but
muted strip of leather emerged and was left twenty-four hours to dry
out.
Time to apply the paint. After following the instructions to stir thoroughly
"some of the pigments are heavier and will sink to the bottom",
the first of two coats were applied by brush.
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I
am sure I did not order pink. |
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No
need to worry, however, as after drying it turned a very definite
iridescent purple, well, an improvement on the pink, if nothing
else.With some trepidation, the second coat was applied and left
to dry. Some hours and a minor miracle later, a Mulberry leather
strip was unmistakably evident. It even looked quite like the
computer screen swatch.
Having spent many hours, stripping and cleaning, it was obvious
that extra labour needed to be sought. |
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Girl power.
Women are better at painting anyway and I have an understanding
wife.
Apart from that, I needed to make a new door panel and the door
cappings required attention. Help was requested and given.
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Slowly but surely,
all the pieces were carefully painted, all turning miraculously Mulberry
in the final stages.
Some four weeks
later SFE 375 is back in one piece looking quite magnificent and colour
co-ordinated…… now I just need to get those sills done.
- More
pictures
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