Car upholstery suppliers?
 

I'm toying with the idea of putting cloth inserts into my 300SD's blue Tex seats. I'd basically need to find a supplier with blue velour or plaid cloth. I know there are companies that specifically supply 'Benz upholstery, but I'm afraid those would be too expensive for me. D'you guys have any suggestions on suppliers? I'm going to flip through my Kanter catalog and Hemmings, but where else should I look?

GAHH and World Upholstery are two renowned suppliers in the world of classic Benz restoration. They will even send you samples!

Hm. I can't tell, but it doesn't appear that they sell by the yard... that's more what I'd be looking for. I'm not afraid of sewing :).

you need to find a local fabric and upholstery supply place.

There is one near me that is huge, bolts of everything you can imagine available, and large collections of cheap scrap bins full of material.

I think this is a better bet than online.

Ive bought vinyl, fleece, leather, ect from the place near me. Call an automotive upholstery shop and ask where they get their material (and if they sell scraps, sometimes they have extra kicking around they might sell cheap)

Ooh, thanks for the tip. What's that place near you called? I'm looking for another excuse for a road trip. Going Boston --> Worcester --> Chelmsford was loads of fun, and that wasn't even a very long trip!

Here is what I like (picture courtesy of Stretch):

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...st-bought5.jpg

The hounds-tooth wool cloth that MB used for the non-North American cars is available in Germany, but at a very high price. I read one quote at 85 Euros for a square meter.

:eek:

That is why I'm looking for a local supplier who might have something similar. I'd pay more for the upholstery than I did for the entire car!

Talk to the guys in a local auto upholstery shop. If you are not sure what shop, ask the guys in a used car business.

The cheap way out may be to buy some car seat covers with similar fabric and cut them up to stitch in your seats.

web search: auto upholstery supplies

The only shop that I tried that was able to offer anything is closer to Boston, but they said that they have samples and can order for me. Maybe I'll give them a try.

Personally, id have an upholstery place make me a couple seat covers that had the fabric insert I wanted, and vinyl the rest. It will look nearly stock, and be removable

That's my problem :). I can't stand the look of seat covers and detect them almost immediately in any vehicle I see.

I was inspired by C.Doner's thread on the SL Forum.

you are a glutton for punishment. :D

One thing that thread shows though is just how fragile the fabric is compared to the MB tex. It looks cool, but you are gonna do a ton of work for something that will not last very well.

Just figured id be captain buzzkill here. For me, unless it was some kind of concours necessity, id keep the tex

This looks halfway interesting.

http://www.diyupholsterysupply.com/m...3cadet_big.jpg

Basically, what I'm looking to do is tie together the exterior color (white) and the interior (blue) with these hypothetical seat inserts. The stuff pictured does just that, although I think I'll try Lorraine's (the place JB3 mentioned) just to see what they have.

Of course, my motivation for this goes beyond aesthetics: the pleats on my current six-pleat skins are at various stages of flatness, the five-pleat skins I may get from John won't match the back seat (but are otherwise much nicer than my six-pleat ones), and this car will be sitting in the sun a lot, so the vinyl will heat up to a nice OW-OW-OW THIS IS HOT temperature during the summer.

The wool fabric that MB used back in the 80s was the cloth equivalent of MB Tex. Wore like very little else.