Hi everyone! I got back to Oregon this week after a nice vacation back in California. While I was there, I met up with Todd Gregory (known as ntgregory on MC.net) who lives in the area and took some photos of his car.
The main objective of doing this was to show the new leather front seat upholstery that he helped develop (seen on our website here). Todd basically served as the guinea pig for developing the seat patterns, and it turned into more work than any of us thought it would be. Thanks to Todd’s attention to detail and tireless back-and-forth work with Distinctive Industries, after several different attempts, trials and errors, they finally got it right, and the result is great.
The rear seat and door panels are untouched originals, which is a testament to how well the new upholstery blends in.
If I remember right, the side strips, back panel, and horizontal rough grain strips are vinyl, and everything else is leather. I believe the originals were the same way. The headrest is leather too, with the exception of the little side tabs that wrap underneath.
Of course, while I was at it, I had to take some artsy fartsy shots of the car as a whole.
I think this one is my favorite (below). Looks like it could have been an advertising shot back in the day. By the way, don’t give Todd any crap for having 67-8 wheels. He made that choice on purpose, and I think it looks great.
Well there you go! Big thanks to Todd for taking the time to meet with me and let me take photos of his car, and also for all his help developing the upholstery kit. Oh yeah, it’s also available in black.
Thanks for the introduction! This is my 2nd forum post here.
Yes, these photos are by far the best I’ve ever seen of my car. Hats off to Andrew!
Indeed, this was more effort than previously imagined. But, throughout the process, Don and his supplier were receptive to my “help” and indeed, the final product showcases their efforts.
In regard to the headrests, Andrew is correct that these are leather, but the sides are vinyl as per the originals. I believe WCCC kits are now factory-correct all vinyl which is easier to install and produces a more uniform appearance since vinyl can stretch whereas leather does not. Nonetheless, I like these headrests the way they are since their face matches the leather seat centers.
What you see is the WCCC leather kit installed on reproduction seat foam. I don’t know what new foam was like back in '69, but this foam is more dense than my 43-yr decayed foam and a slightly different profile. So the seats end up a bit more square, but still compare favorably to the original back seat. I expect the kit would look as good or better on original foam.
Too bad there isn’t smell-o-vision to share their new leather smell.
My understanding from Don at WCCC is that someone has repop’ed that vinyl insert material. The originals were made the same way (as you have described).
The alternative in the past had been either to imitate the insert in vinyl (what a lot of shops did) or to re-use original inserts from original covers (what only some shops did). Mine (from JCC) are the latter, done that way at my request when I had my covers made.
My covers (black) look to be a little more “glove-soft” and smooth grained than what I think I see in Todd’s covers. Come to think of it, I have seen another set of seats ('70 high backs) in white (think they were from JCC - on a KTL car) and their leather was less smooth grained as well. Not sure but wondering if the color has some bearing on the type of leather that is used to make it.
In any case, the results speak for themselves - they look great!
Regards,
Bob
Edit: coupla’ pictures (which pale in comparison to Andrew’s shots!) of my black JCC covers for comparison:
Glad you all like the pics! Here is one more… It was a challenge to edit because there were a bunch of signs and trash cans in the background, and when I got rid of them the water didn’t quite look right. So then I solved that by doing a fake lens blur in the background. Hooray for Photoshop!
Just for giggles, here is the original (minus the license plate) just to prove that 60% of good photography is being good with Photoshop. Haha…
Darkened the highlights a little, lightened the shadows a little, sharpened a little, bumped vibrance and saturation a little, bumped contrast a little… Some things were done just to the car and not the background, some things were done just to the sky to bring out the clouds, etc. I have my methods One thing you learn over time is not to OVER do anything because it just won’t look realistic.
The color combo on this Cougar is striking.
One thing you learn over time is not to OVER do anything because it just won’t look realistic.
Also some nice photo’s , well done 