[Healeys] Original leather interior, what was leather, what was vinyl

Chris Dimmock austin.healey at gmail.com
Sat Nov 23 03:58:59 MST 2013


My BJ8 still had the original leather (Hide, as it is called on the
documentation) interior until 18 months ago. It still has the original leather
rear fold down rear seat/ parcel shelf.
As Steve said, it has the square embossed Vinyl rear side panels.
See the original body production windscreen card
 http://www.myaustinhealey.com/histintro.html


Sent from my iPhone

On 23/11/2013, at 8:30 AM, "BJ8 Healeys" <sbyers at ec.rr.com> wrote:

> Hi, Earl -
>
> A couple years ago I got an e-mail from Kaye Kovacs of Fourintune.  They
had
> received a car without upholstery for restoration that originally had been
> equipped with leather and were asking what the original BJ8 leather
interior
> configuration was.  I had not looked into that issue before, so I did a
> survey of all BJ8 owners in the registry with cars that still had the
> original factory leather interior.  As stated earlier, North American cars
> with leather were rare so most reponses came from Europe (I got one from
the
> USA).  Kaye specifically asked whether the rear side panels had the
squares,
> and the answer I provided from the survey was:  "Yes."  May I point out
that
> this is another example of why a complete and accurate registry is a useful
> tool for the Healey and BJ8 communities?
>
> Based on the survey responses, and photos that some sent, I replied as I
did
> to Jeff's question about the various items of upholstery in the cockpit.
> Under separate cover, I will send you the photo of an original
> leather-equipped car's back seat area.  As you can see, the rear side
panels
> (vinyl) have the typical square-embossed pattern.  If you want to see more
> photos, let me know.  It's true that the leather pleats are wider than the
> vinyl pleats.
>
> Steve Byers
> HBJ8L/36666
> BJ8 Registry
> Havelock, NC  USA
>
>
> Gentlemen:
>
> I recall many years ago seeing a BJ8 with the factory leather seat option.
> I seem to remember the seat 'flutes' being much wider than the normal ambla
> trimmed Bj8's - this was done on the rear seat pan inserts, as well as the
> front facing part of the seat back.  Can anyone comment on what the very
few
> factory leather equipped BJ8's looked like?
>
> Another point - something that I recently learned:  the leather equipped
> BJ8's had plain vinyl on the rear quarters, rather than the square
patterned
> material on the rear portion, which I assume was that way to match the
> smaller square pattern on the seat inserts / seat back on the ambla trimmed
> cars.  The gent that trimmed my recently restored BJ8 - in leather (using
> the narrow 'normal' inserts), used plain vinyl on the quarters.  He is a UK
> trained trimmer, and is certain that it was more correct without the
pattern
> on the quarters.
>
> Again, can anyone comment?
>
>
> Earl Kagna


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