Recently completed a set of VH R/T seats for a Charger that a customer brought to NZ from Australia. Not a bad way to start 2025!
Front bottom seat springs in both seats were fatigued and way past their usefulness. New seat springs are a must for seats this old. Wouldn’t be very comfortable or great looking seats if we simply put them old springs back in.
We love a comfortable drive so we think great driving seats are a must!
Speaking of long drives and road trips we happened to visit Te Aroha, where we spotted a “Valiant” … …
A front set of black VJ Charger seat skins in vinyl being made for a customer. Would suit VH Chargers with Todd Motors seats (non reclining bucket seats).
Some sad looking sun visors are seeing the light of day again, after a major refreshening from new wire form to new board to new foam to new cover…finished off with a bunch of hand sewing (fingers need a few days to recover)!
Since moving back to NZ we have been busy bees. In a recent trip to Whakatane and Opotiki to see family, and a customer to whom we supplied complete leather seats to a few years ago, we had the pleasure of seeing this customer’s NZ VJ Charger in person.
This VJ Charger’s interior is fitted with reclinable seats that we retrimmed in cow leather, and vinyl door trims done by Richard Kirby from Gore.
It is our absolute joy to see our customer being so happy with his interior. As a huge bonus, we found out this interior won an award this year!
This is a new model for us, so we’re very excited. As development is needed to make and test the new foam and ensure new seat skins fit like a pair of gloves, we can only work on development jobs in the background. These jobs take us longer as we must have access and reference to the original seats. This is the only way to ensure everything is done right and well. This page will be updated as we progress.
Customer’s original tan interior, which will be changed to a black vinylinterior.
One of the issues that the customer has spotted is how saggy the backseat is when his grandchildren sit in it. Bad / worn out foam and/or potentially broken / fatigued seat springs. This will be inspected when we strip the back seat down.
VH hardtop front seat patterns getting made:
One of the issues we have spotted in the front seats is that we can feel the metal of the seat. This indicates that over time, the foam and skin have shrunk so much so that the foam is essentially crêpe. The seat skin hugs and wraps around the seat as if it were fitted over bare frame, without much in the way of cushioning / padding. What should have been 25mm thick foam when new, for example, would look about 10mm thick by the time we strip the seat down and inspect the foam. This is why we find it extremely inaccurate and pointless to copy from shrunk vinyl skins. Fitting that back onto seats means you will either have to use old foam, or deliberately use a smaller / slimmer foam kit.
Inspections of the factory foam show what’s lacking:
Valiant VH hardtop seat: common problem shared by seats of this age is that you can feel the metal frame through the trim. Foam padding is virtually non-existant, and the seat skin is not reliable to copy from.This part of seat foam breaks down more quickly from wear due to the lack of foam. The edge wire of the seat has also cut through the foam.
Door Cards:
Meanwhile, we’ll be sourcing the backing panels for these door cards. The door trims will be recreated using a sewing machine. So the heat pressed stitches from factory will be real stitches. Door trim backing panels will also get test fitted to the actual doors before the door trims get made.
This 2-door Oldsmobile Super 88 Holiday Coupe’s interior fabrics can only be sourced from USA. A combination of NOS and remade cloth and vinyl has helped to make this Oldsmobile feel like a holiday car again. The seat foam that has been wrapped up in BOTH factory trim and retrim presented itself as tumeric powder by the time we stripped EVERYTHING back. There was enough “tumeric” to make a wedding banquet!
Regarding foam: Factory used a combination of what appeared to be polyfoam (that has become tumeric powder), and blanket-like filling/padding (not quite crêpe-thin, but not plesant to sit on either). The “blanket” used in the front backrests is flat and compressed (maybe this was considered or felt plush and luxurious in the 50s?), and we replaced it by making up a new foam kit using Dunlop foam. Mock up seat skins for BOTH front and rear were then developed over the new foam already fitted onto the factory seats. We then made the actual seat skins.
