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914World.com _ 914World Garage _ Seat Eye Candy

Posted by: dangrouche Dec 15 2013, 04:10 PM

I want to give a shout out to a local auto upholsterer in the San Francisco Bay Area, Palo Alto, California. Here is the link: http://www.haroldsupholstery.com/index.html If you don't want to click the hyperlink, just Google Harolds Auto Upholstery Palo Alto. As background, I checked out a few other upholstery shops along the Peninsula ( near Candlestick Park) of San Francisco. The owner of Harold's Auto Upholstery is Brad Nutcher and his employee is Ron Ayers. I liked this site because I wanted to be involved in the re-upholstery process and to save a few bucks of course. Had these been OEM seats, I would likely have done the kit route and done OEM seats myself. Anyway, suffice it to say, based on the complexity of the Koenigs, Brad told me that he would have to do 95% of the work, which meant all I was permitted to do was to cut off the hog rings to remove the old seat covering fabric, so that Brad could use the old seat cover as a template. After speaking to Ron, he confirmed that the seats were not that easy. In me doing the strip down of the seats, I saved about hour. Brad's shop rate is $100 per hour. So I saved about $100. I gave Brad the seats before the Thanksgiving Holiday and got the seats completed on Dec 4. All told the total cost was $1,198.00, which included my strip down of the original seat coverings. I am posting a single "before" picture and all others are aftewards. Brad is great to work with and follows through with what you ask of him. When I was there, I saw an older (70's) Ferrari that looked like it had a complete leather re-do. Since I was not interested in sticking to OEM, Brad suggested Mercedes vinyl, which I am pleased. Brad told me that he is known on the BMW forums, as he apparently does much work on Bimmers. No, I did not get a price break or kickback from Brad for making this recommendation.

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Posted by: jsayre914 Dec 15 2013, 04:39 PM

Love it!

Posted by: mepstein Dec 15 2013, 04:42 PM

Quality cost $. Looks great!

Posted by: Dave_Darling Dec 15 2013, 07:12 PM

I went to them to re-cover the seats in my wife's SC. Seems to be a good shop. I also had him re-do one of my CRX seats with material from an extra seat. They did good work both times; I was happy.

He had an S800 in there (old Honda sports car) one of the times I went in. Pretty neat.

--DD

Posted by: JmuRiz Dec 16 2013, 07:49 AM

MB-Tex lasts forever, great choice for something that will stand up.

Posted by: Cairo94507 Dec 16 2013, 08:12 AM

Those are some beautiful seats

Posted by: boxsterfan Dec 16 2013, 11:33 AM

The work looks very good.

I would love to get my original 914 seats re-done, but I only want about 1/3 to 1/2 of the side bolstering done on the seats. Factory not enough and those look like too much. Heck, I can hardly get in and out of the car as it is already.

Posted by: damesandhotrods Dec 16 2013, 03:28 PM

I’ve known Brad for longer than either of would care to think about. He’s a great guy, and he’s an even better drummer than upholsterer…

Posted by: Dave_Darling Dec 16 2013, 03:39 PM

The upholsterer would likely be willing to work with you on that. He did a little reinforcement on the foam in the wife's SC seats--he suggested it, in fact, because he said that it's common for the foam to sag after a few years. So I'd bet he wouldn't mind trimming some of the foam in the 914 seat down further.

--DD

Posted by: aircooledtechguy Dec 16 2013, 06:37 PM

You gotta pay to play. . . You'll be doing a lot of playin' in those and you'll be able to feel the quality every time you get in. Nice seats!!