Looking for black leather upholstery set for my '68 XR-7.
After some research, it looks like there are two players for leather upholstery, John’s Classic Cougars and Distinctive Industries.
Does anyone have experience with both companies? I know there is a price difference but are the two equal in quality/fit?
Thanks.
Dave
John’s
Distinctive does not have the correct grain and sheen on the leather, it is supposed to have two different grains, DI does only one.
John’s. Looks, fits & wears great! I have had mine since 2003 and it’s still like brand new.
I agree with John’s but he’s not infallible. Make sure you check them carefully as soon as they arrive. I ended up with a set of parchment upholstery that wasn’t up to the standard I wanted but I didn’t check them for almost a year after I ordered them.
I didn’t think it would be fair to ask John to take them back after all that time, so now I’m sitting on them as potential spares in case anything happens to the set I had made locally (using material from SMS, I think).
Spot on Bill. I got my '69 XR7 'vert upholstery from JCC and while in general the quality was good (and the wait to get them long), I did have to re-refinish the '69 XR7 OEM trim insert bands because they were not properly prepared when JCC refinished them. There was some pant/dye “crawling” (refusal of the paint/dye to lay out) due to residual silicones (or the like) that were not properly removed before the refinishing. I did not notice this until after I installed the covers on the seats. I carefully prepared the offending surfaces, masked off and sprayed them with SEM charcoal black metallic for vinyl (which ended up being a perfect match).
So it all worked out in the end but not without some work I should not have had to do.