Front door card finished, waiting for armrest re-dye, crazed child included
I'll probably pop the seatback again and do a little tweaking on the upper puckers next weekend.
My car has gone Euro on the outside. It was time to do something to the inside. Though the leather was not torn, many of the touch surfaces were very tired and had been crudely brushed with a dye that was somewhere between Natur and Perlbeige. The effect was great from 15 feet and through the windows. Up close, sitting in the car, some of the brushstrokes drove me nuts. I'm not a fan of leather anyhow, so a big rejuvenation and re-dye job wasn't something I was interested in. A little over a year ago I started talking to Kevin Chinn and sent him a deposit. I love the cloth/Alcantara interior on my ZHP, and I thought about going leather/alcantara on this car. Then I thought about the later ///M Hurricane cloth that was available for the e34’s. And then I thought that neither of those items was *anything* like an original factory item, nor were they period-correct for the e28.
I wanted something that was, if not what I would have in a Euro M5, then something that was period-correct. Something different, something not leather, and something I could use regularly – i.e. kids in the back on the weekends. I think I checked all of those boxes. This is NOT the Highland cloth found in the M5, which is more of a cross-hatched, plaid type of pattern (http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4071/439 ... 381a_o.jpg). Without dumping the entire interior (gawd how I’d love a Zinno/Anthracite Highland car), I felt that I had located something that was not a factory option but looked period-correct for the 1987 build.
I had Kevin whip up this Natur Houdstooth/leather seating arrangement, to go along with the extended leather that was already in the car. Where the bolsters on an actual cloth-interior car would be a solid color cloth, he did new Natur leather. He did the vertical stitching in the heavy, lighter colored thread that would be used on Natur leather sport seats, which adds some nice highlight to the houndstooth.
Kevin included more cloth for the door cards, and is sending enough of his natur dye for me to re-dye the armrests and console bits that are a little tired. Not everything is getting reskinned or re-dyed. The driver’s knee panel, glove box, seatbacks and the doors (aside from the armrests) were in very good shape already. I’m storing the leather center sections of the doors (I had a second set to re-skin with cloth). The surrounding parts of the door cards cleaned up well and required no re-dye.
Kevin has yet to ship the rear seat and dye. This project has had a long gestation period. I waited over a year for what I’ve got and hope to have the rear seat shortly, but it should all be together before spring breaks. I made great progress Saturday, completing the passenger seat and dismantling the driver's seat. Then at 4:00 this morning, my daughter and I started a round of synchronized puking. There was no further progress today, other than the bolster repair. I should have the Driver's seat done during the course of the week.
Ah, Kevin ... that explains the over a year gestation period 
