[S10xGN]

Hi All,

I have an old Rambler American I'm building into a low-key hotrod. Aside from wheels & tires, it will look stock on the outside. The car is two-tone white over light green and I'm unsure of what colors to go with on the interior. All white is out, I'm too messy when it comes to working on things, it would be grease-stained in minutes. I need to find a pair of bucket seats and was wondering about having them recovered. Katzkin prices start at $1800/pr, waaay over my budget. My initial thought was black carpet and seats, white headliner, green painted metal pieces and green/white design door panels. The wife thinks it'll look tacky, but black buckets are easy to find and I don't have to drop a bag of cash to get them recovered.

What other companies besides Katzkin make replaceable seat covers? And I have no idea what seats yet, so they'd prolly need to be custom, as in sewn from a pattern.

So, my little "Feng Shui" experts, I need color suggestions for:

• headliner
• carpet
• seats
• metal trim
• soft trim

Thanks!

Russ

[biged04]

well....... now first off, you pick colors that will please you, and your wife of course, cause you know if mama aint happy aint nobody happy!.....lol.... but theres a bunch of choices when it comes to interior colors.... just 1 sample book I have I bet has 150 swatches of different material, whew, sometimes its over whelming....... ok..... now that I have you more confused than ever....lol....... sorry...... but you could go all black, you could go all green, you could go black with some green accents in the seats and door panels, you could go even do a green and white with a white headliner........ now I'm not sure on a rambler but you can probably buy a premolded carpet, usually from 100 to 150, and a deluxe headliner kit that comes with sail panels and enough material to do sun visors too for 120 to 150, you can make door panels, theres a how-to that dan twolakes put together thats very helpful..... and theres always a light sand color ( tan ) that you see in many, many cars, no matter the color, seen it in red, blue, black, orange, the list goes on and on..... check out the 32 ford I did here, its some color of purple and it looked good in all tan.
check out the "before and after" pics...........lol

heres some green seats I did from an olds delta 88....... door panels, carpet and headliner were all green, the buttons added a cool touch

[S10xGN]

Do you know of any companies that make factory-fit replacement "skins" for renewing seats? I'm looking around right after getting off the forum this am...

Russ

[DanTwoLakes]

You are going to be a victim of supply and demand. If you had a Corvette, Camaro, Nova, Chevelle, or Mustang, you would have your pick of places to buy pre-made seat covers for your car. My only suggestion would be to call SMS auto fabrics, they may be able to help you, but it will be a long shot.

[S10xGN]

Originally Posted by DanTwoLakes

You are going to be a victim of supply and demand. If you had a Corvette, Camaro, Nova, Chevelle, or Mustang, you would have your pick of places to buy pre-made seat covers for your car. My only suggestion would be to call SMS auto fabrics, they may be able to help you, but it will be a long shot.

Dan,

Have you ever seen anything from "Lebaron-Bonney"? They can make custom covers for about anything in many styles and colors. The only thing I see "different" is their covers go over the existing upholstery instead of replacing it...

Russ

[DanTwoLakes]

Yes, but LeBaron Bonney specializes in model "T" and model "A" Fords. Their sister company, Hampton Coach, specializes in early Chevies. I doubt they would have patterns to make seat covers for a Rambler American.

[matt167]

Ledgendary Auto Interiors is the only place I know that does anything with AMC interiors, but they only list Rambler Rogues and S/C Ramblers, which are bucket seat cars, so you are SOL if you have a front bench. They still may be able to help

Legendary Auto Interiors - The Interior Specialists Since 1985

[S10xGN]

Once again, my car is a "Rambler" in name only. The interior is being replaced with late model bucket seats. Lebaron-Bonney has a section in their online catalog called "EZ Boy Custom Seat Upholstery" that claims to have patterns for over 6,000 seats. Was just wondering if anyone has seen their product in person or could otherwise vouch for the quality...

Russ

[DanTwoLakes]

If you're going to re-do late model bucket seats, why not get them done locally?

[S10xGN]

Originally Posted by DanTwoLakes

If you're going to re-do late model bucket seats, why not get them done locally?

That's on my list of things to check out. Last time I had a seat recovered here, it took a couple months to get it back. There are a few new (but untested) local businesses though...


One question on carpeting: My tunnel will need to be widened and raised, can a pre-molded carpet be altered to fit? I had someone come in and patch a square in my home carpet and you can't tell where the seams are, does this method apply to auto carpeting as well?

Russ

[DanTwoLakes]

It would depend on how big of a change there is to the tunnel. You might have to order some cut yardage (one yard will do) to go along with the pre-molded carpet. Worse case scenario, you have to cut out the tunnel part on the pre-molded carpet and do the tunnel separately. It should blend in just fine.

[S10xGN]

I kinda figured I'd have to buy a pre-molded carpet and some extra to seam in after cutting out the tunnel area. Went junkyarding today and got these seats from an 01 Mitsu Mirage coupe. They are all manual and heavier than I thought they'd be at 35# & 31#...

Russ

[farna]

I've used Autocraft seat covers a couple times -- they are made by Lebarron-Bonney. All fit good. If using for replacement upholstery and removing the original you will need a thin foam or quilting padding (1/4") to go over the original foam for a tight fit (instructions say so!). I used one without the original covering for a bottom cushion on a Rambler bench seat. I had to get some similar color vinyl and lay under the cover around the reclining seat hinges because the stitched "notch" for the hinge was a bit generous, but other than that I had no complaints with any of them.

The little Ramblers typically had grey seat covers in all the base model cars because it went well with any interior color. A dark grey may be your best bet.

[Bradley01]

Originally Posted by S10xGN

I kinda figured I'd have to buy a pre-molded carpet and some extra to seam in after cutting out the tunnel area. Went junkyarding today and got these seats from an 01 Mitsu Mirage coupe. They are all manual and heavier than I thought they'd be at 35# & 31#...

Russ

hmm I love this interior design, because its looking very nice, specially the dash board and the controls on the das are looking very nice.. The steering wheel and seats fabrication is also very good. Thanks for sharing the photo.

[Bonneville462]

Scat makes a nice looking retro-bucket seat in black... I'm like you, so I did my interior in dark blue.. I'd do everything in black...

Love those old Ramblers...

http://procarbyscat.com/seats/Pro-90-Lowback