I have this 72 Coupe Deville, which is a low mile garager, but the previous owner ruined the seats and vinyl top by cleaning them. Probably with bleach or something nuclear, but the damage is done.

I've stripped the top and have material coming, so that isn't a problem.

The problem is the seats. They are cloth/vinyl and the cloth part needs to be fixed. I have samples coming from SMS, and I think material supply is ok, but seat repair is something I doubt I want to tackle.

Another problem is I live in New Hampshire, and the only 2 shops listed aren't much help. One is on vacation and the other wants to slap on a generic cover.

This car deserves to have the seats repaired correctly, but my budget is limited. I won't do anything if it is the wrong thing, but I will pull the seats and deliver to the right shop or mail the covers.

I guess what I really need is a recomendation for a shop that can repair these seats for a good price. The only other options are I buy a sewing machine and do it myself, which is absolutely a possibilty, or do nothing.

I'm confused. You want to have the seats done correctly, but not pay very much to have them fixed. You would also be willing to spend a minimum of $750 for a cheap sewing machine and the tools and materials to try to fix the seats yourself without ever having sewed a seat before?

First of all, no shop would be willing to do the work without making a reasonable profit. Any place that is capable of doing the work correctly is not going to be inexpensive. The other thing is that taking apart seat covers to replace only certain parts is almost as hard as re-doing the complete seat. If there is any kind of topstitching on the seats it is next to impossible to re-sew in exactly the same needle holes, and getting the parts to go back together exactly like they were sewed in the first place is extremely difficult. I think that if you can't afford to have them done correctly you should just not do anything.

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The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

I don't have a problem paying a fair price, this just isn't a case where money is no object.

The real problem I have is I can't find anyone local to do it, nor is the car registered. So no matter what I'll need to pull the seats, and if the shop is very far away just mail the covers.

As for sewing them myself, I'm not afraid to try, but I don't need anything else on my list of things to do.

I am new to this forum but I have a custom interior shop. As Dan said, it is very difficult to "repair" the old cover, due to exposure to UV and body oils over the years, the vinyl tends to dry out and crack and the fabric tends to fray easily. Very few people want to tackle this. You just cannot predict what you are getting youor self into.It is much simpler to sew a cover from scratch.
As far as taking the cover off and sending it to somebody without the seat, most upholsterers will not do that either. They will need to have the frame and foam in their shop to be able to fit the new cover tightly. If this Cadillac seat is a split back bench, I would think the labor cost to have this recovered should be around $450 to $550 . If it is not a split back, labor should be around $400 to $500.
Can you purchase an industrial machine and tackle this yourself? Why not? With the way the economy is right now, I would think that you could find a relatively inexpensive decent used machine. Buy some cheap fabric from a local fabric shop and teach yourself how to sew. This forum has a lot of good stuff in it. Dantwolakes has a article on doing a truck seat. Your cadillac seat would be about the same only you would cover the rear of the back seat also.

Tim is right on the button. It would be a lot easier if we could see these seats so we knew how difficult they are to duplicate. There are factory seats that would be near impossible to do yourself, and some, like in the truck seat tutorial Tim mentioned, that are not difficult at all.

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The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

If you get the cloth get the matching vinyl too and have then redone,I have been doing interiors for over 20 years and sometimes its easier to just do the whole seats over again. Like it was said before the vinyl gets hard and cant be reused so just have then done over and you will be happier,a project like that is a good winter project for a shop since sometimes it tends to slow down over the winter and then the shop could give a little break in the price. Jeff