I may have buyers remorse. On second thought I do have buyers remorse. Yep, I pulled the trigger. These were advertised as 1949, '50 and 1951 seat covers for Tudors and Coupes. I'm a ****er for real period stuff. I jumped on it since they were blue. I thought they may be FoMoCo... but I'm not sure they could be aftermarket. Since they were striped, I thought they may be legit. Looking at the Ford optional vinyl, the pattern looks different. The FoMoCo universal seat covers look to be an awful plaid that matches....nothing. These look truer to the style.....Again though, I don't know if these covers are legit Ford covers. The thing is, I really don't like vinyl seats. Again I'm a ****er for old crusty stuff. Some back story.... My seats do need some help. I may just cover the bottoms but I could not resist this set. Un***led by Travis Brown, on Flickr Mack's has the Cartouche line but apparently they do not offer just the seat covers. A complete upholstery set for the '51 was knocking on the door at 4 grand. I'm sure it's worth it but it's just too much for me to swing. So, I talked to a local auto Upholstery Shop that has been in business for decades. I asked if he could cover two seats for me. He asked, "What car?" When I told him a 1951 Ford Custom Coupe, He looked like a slapped him in the face. Immediately the guy turned into Captain Quigg. He did everything but pull two ball bearings out of his pocket. "Fifty...One...Ford", then the guy says..... " No" then a pause and "Look".... You know it's never good when somebody starts a sentence with ...Look. "Look" he says.... "I just got done with a 50 Sedan last year. I had that car over a year. I charged that guy $2000 just for seats. I should have charged about twice that." "It'll be months before I could get to something like that. When I say months, I mean November December." I could tell he had no interest but he was old fashioned enough not to plainly turn down work. That's the thing with these cars. If you need anything done to them, you pretty much have to learn to do it yourself. Shops, they just don't have the time. The ones that do have the time, probably lack the skill. If I did not get scammed, the covers should be here later this week. Hopefully They'll clean up and I hope they are pliable enough. I have covered a F1 seat. That seemed to work out OK.....It's an adventure. I know it's good for them to sit out in the sun. Feel free to give an opinion on what these are.
They sure look aftermarket to me, the kind they used to sell at JC Whitney. I think they are cool as hell and if they fit your car, by all means put them on. I may be wrong but I think they go over top of the orig covers. Hell,,, clean em, put em out in the sun and go for it, has to be a large improvement over a giant hole in the **** of the drivers seat.... I know a few guys that liked that vintage plaid look so well that the bought a pile of those covers and cut em apart and had their cars upholstered with it, looked really cool
My brother did just as Moriarity said and cut up some old covers to use as upholstery in his '32 sedan. Super vintage and pretty cheap too.
Sold and installed similar in the early '50s. The going thing. Mostly over new or almost new seats. Ben
I was 5 when my parents bought a brand new '50 Merc. The first thing they did was have a set of seat covers installed. Even with 4 kids beating on them, they were still good when I learned to drive in that car.
Hey F, Last year, I remembered a story about plastic seat covers that I posted. I went to school with the daughters of the people that ran the Howard Zink Corporation that made seat covers from the 40s into the late 60s. The daughters were down to earth teens and the family business was great. The company was named Sure-Fit. At the time of being a teenager, they had shops all over. The Howard Zink Corp., Sure Fit Seat Covers, the world's largest manufacturer of auto tops and seat covers… Jnaki We knew of our own Sure fit seat cover store near our high school in Long Beach. But, there were others all over So Cal and the western states. When my brother purchased his first set of clear plastic seat covers for his 1951 Oldsmobile sedan, he was the laughing stock of his friends. But, the clear seat covers protected the seat upholstery through countless dirty Levis over the years of car ownership. When he bought his 58 Impala, those clear seat covers were again purchased and custom fit to the Impala seats. By the time I was the main driver and owner of the 58 Impala, I had one other set put on, due to wear and tear. In 1964, I had a set for the 65 El Camino that lasted 8 years. Our neighbors did go into the local Long Beach store and had some plaid ones put on their Chevy 4 door sedan. They were similar to the stock ones, but a different color pattern. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...nto-your-hot-rod.1185473/page-2#post-13468353
I have a nearly identical set in my '57 Chevy. Ignore the boxes stacked on the seat, I'm heading to the post office this afternoon. This is the second year they've been on there and they're holding up surprisingly well. They are meant to go over the old upholstery, but my seats didn't have any upholstery left, so I cut new foam and then wrapped the seats in a blanket material before these went on. Seems to work well. They are aftermarket, the box was really neat so I cut out the top and taped it to my shop door.
Now here's the really important part. My set did not have any channels sewn into the bottom edges to put rods through, it was just extra long, and the directions told me to bunch up the edges and install with hog rings. But it's near impossible to get them stretched tight without channels with rods, so a friend of mine (who has my sewing machine) folded over the bottom edges and sewed in some channels that I could put rods into. I ended up re-using a few of the original rods and the rest I just made new ones out of coat hangers (they're coated so they won't get rusty). It was so much easier to pull them tight and also to keep them extra straight with those channels in there. I would think with just hog rings they'd tear or come loose or get bunched up. Maybe yours will have those channels already in them (kinda looks like they might) but if they don't, or if they're flimsy, it's well worth the time to sew some in. Beyond that, I'm very happy with what I've got. My set was semi-universal, it did not list 1957 Chevy as an option but it did list 1957 Pontiac, with some clever foam positioning (and reasonable expectations) they turned out pretty good.
I remember those clear covers like in the ad posted.....damn those things were hot! My old man bought a new 67 Ford, best I remember he ordered those damn clear covers from Fingerhut. They looked good with the original seat showing through and fit well, but they would burn your *** in a car with no AC, and ours didn't have any! When he traded the car about 10 years later, the plastic covers were starting to crack and break, but the seats still looked new. I bought a slightly OT 66 Chevelle one time, was cleaning it out and noticed the seats actually had cloth coves on them, apparently they had been put on when the car was fairly new. They were pretty thin, so I pulled them off, the seats looked like new underneath.
I think they are cool as hell too. I saw them and I could not resist. It's one of those things....If I was looking for it, especially the right color, it would be near impossible to find. They popped up while I was looking for parts (actually shoebox rear axles) so I had to get them. You have to jump on this stuff when it comes up. I had to pounce on this 1950 Murray (Stetson Whippet copy) Un***led by Travis Brown, on Flickr Un***led by Travis Brown, on Flickr My wife and I after church. Yep, we are grandparents now. Where do you find something like a "new" 1950 hat that actually fits. Most of the time you don't. When stuff like this pops up, you better be ready.
That's really cool. There's nothing like the real stuff. I hope so. The F1 seat worked out. I had to take it down to the bare springs as some were broken. The coupe seats are in much better condition. That's really neat. I thought these may have been like that....accessory for a "new" car. I hope so. Even if they are a little stained, it's the real real deal. I like real stuff. I like real cool stuff even better. That's a cool story. I hope these are that tough. Thank you X-cpe As always, thanks Jnaki. When Jnaki posts stuff, you know it's going to be good. Thanks I'm honored. Those look wonderful. I love to see these cars in use. I like that you saved the box Lid. Stuff like this really precious in a way. Once it's gone, it's gone. Thank you. Again those covers look great in your car. I wonder if some heavy duty trimmer/ weedeater string would be good cord material. Thank you for sharing. Yep, my Chevelle in HS burned my **** on more than one occasion. Black vinyl...it would fry you. Now the old Ford did good in the midday heat. It stayed between 170-200. With that said I prefer to drive it in the morning after the work rush and in the evening after most of the home traffic. I try to avoid the midday heat, at least for a long trip.
You really want them to be fairly stiff metal rods. The seams in the upholstery will follow the rod, so if there's any flexibility there, the seams won't be straight. For the bottom of the seat, you really want a long rod in front and in back, and one on each side, with a gap of maybe a couple inches in the corners. It's really important to get the bottom pulled very tightly, if it's loose the fabric will pull or wear out quicker. I lay the cushions upside down and kneel on them to compress the springs while I'm pulling them tight. You want your cushions to have a bit of tension on them when they're done.
A buddy in high school had Sure Fit install a set of covers in his '55 Ford, and they looked and fit great! The trick they used to get them to look right was to cut the top bead of the piping off so just the sewn seam remained. This allowed the cover to lay flat in that area and therefor the cover fit much more like upholstery than a cover. Good score and good luck with the install.
That's crazy, made my nut sack hurt. Depending on material, and the condition of the frame, that's a $600, 3 day job.
I am using a set of NOS vintage seat covers on my 53 Ford mild custom project. Don’t remember the brand name, but they were supposed to be universal, from one of those stores like Western Auto. From what I have installed so far, I have to say my experience has not been that great. My main problem is that I only had bare springs. A pack rat had run off with the upholstery and all the padding years ago. Some pieces were a little too big and some were a bit too small. I’ll explain more when I get back to that part of the build.
Back in the day a set of these cushions were mandatory to keep from burning your **** in SoCal. https://www.amazon.com/Allison-39-3236-Arctic-Aircool-Cushion/dp/B0002JM69W
I bought a pair of the aftermarket seat covers for my 1961 Buick Le sabre two door post sedan. The car was formerly a doctor's car used for house calls. It had no radio, or heater. A real cheapy Buick, but, it was still a Buick. The original upholstery was dried up and cracking. The interior was brown, and I lucked out finding a set of brown seat covers to use. The seller must have been as happy to get rid of them as I was to get them. For $ 40.00 I covered both front and rear seats. They looked okay after installing them, and they settled down after a few hot days.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/traditional-air-conditioning.982191/page-2#post-13584761 Hello, Remember, most of those seat covers were not made with soft absorbing material like the fuzzy stuff we all have seen. So, despite what pattern you choose, the surface will get warm to hot in the warm days or hot summer days. @51504bat has the right answer for compensating for the lack of circulation of any kind or force of air inside the compartment. Those days of lowering the windows all around the sedans or full hardtops were good. But, with the addition of those wire loom accessory back cooling devices, it was air conditioning for the m***es without an actual A/C. We all knew the horsepower robbing belts and pulleys necessary to run a real A/C. So, every bit helps win in those cl***es at the drags and on the local streets. 1957 to 1964 The one thing that was necessary was the races required all windows to up rolled up, creating some hot interior situations. Even the floor kickplate vents had to be closed, so those wire coolers made it a little better for the next 14 seconds and lots of anxiety. Jnaki Go with your seat covers, but there is an alternate available and the cool thing is… it is definitely “period correct.” Those covered wire frame air circulation seat backs that were popular in all locations during the late 50s and definitely during the 60s. But, if you have real A/C, then it makes no difference what the material is that is covering the seats. You might not like the odor of old folded up seat covers, but that is another story.
In the late 50's early 60's when I lived on Bainbridge Island Wa the "older guys" would take their cars to Seattle and have Earl Scheib paint them and then run them over to Sure-Fit to have seat covers put on. The older married guys our folks ages then would take their new off the lot cars over to Sure-Fit to have clear plastic seat covers on them to protect the seats and allegedly keep the resale value up. My then stepfather told some guy who was bragging about them that it was like not banging your wife so she would be fresh and tight for her next hubby.
My Grandmother used to have some weird seat cover that looked like macramé beads in one of her cars. No idea where she got it from, but I didn't find it very comfortable to sit on.
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