while I've been waiting for parts I needed a project so I finally got into the seats which I've been wanting to do for a few years.
This was the interior before, clean but just black.
I've been wanting to add some lighter tones to the interior. I picked up on an old Recaro fabric they offered in the 80's which was a grey gradation. I bought fabric ages ago and finally put it to use.
The front seats were refurbished with new OE Recaro foam. I also had a torn lower bolster replaced with one made from the fabric left over from the seat centers, and the centers got the gradation fabric.
For the rear seat I had been casually looking at different rear seats I might be able to swap into the car. Partially because I hadn't found one I liked and partially out of boredom I decided to just play with the stock seat. Hackster did something similar and it was a good motivator for me to try it.
I wanted to try and add some shape to the rear seat so it didn't look like a padded park bench (stock 240 seats are abysmal no one can convince me otherwise). I stripped off the corduroy covers and drew a pattern for bolsters on the foam.
then I scored the area I wanted to remove in a cross pattern, I had a razor blade with a mark on it so all of the lines were at the same depth. This way I could slice off the rows of squares (which looked like croutons) and have the base pretty much level.
to smooth it out and shape it I used a scotch brite disc on a die grinder and just sanded through it, messy but worked out really well.
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The outer lines are where I wanted to cut in a bevel to blend the bolster. I used a serrated bread knife to cut a 45? then blended it by hand with the scotch brite. This is the result all shaped.
I brought everything to my upholstery guy and he used the stock covers to make patterns. The back seat got a black Ford fabric which is a pretty good match to the black Recaro fabric (good enough for a back seat, buying Recaro fabric was out of the question $$$). Also did a red top stitching to match the fronts. I'm really excited with the results, it looks way better than the old cover and I think the shape did a lot for the looks of the seat.
It should make the interior a lot more 'finished' looking, and help break up all that black. Can't wait to get them in the car. I think I'd like to make door panels next, and incorporate a little bit of the Recaro fabric there to tie it all together. I bought a huge sheet of ABS plastic to make custom panels and replace the cardboard. Have a vision to get rid of the door flimsy door lever and replace it with a GT3 RS style fabric door pull.. Will probably put that off for a little bit because I have a fair amount of engine work to get done now.