After disassembling and gutting your car, it is easy to feel that you’re
in way over your head when it comes to the upholstery. This is why so
many do-it-yourself restorers outsource the work, at considerable
expense, to an experienced upholstery shop. Taking the time to acquire
the skills for upholstery restoration may feel like a daunting task, but
what if an experienced upholsterer presented every skill you needed to
restore upholstery yourself?
Starting with a list of necessary tools, author Fred Mattson guides you
through all the required tasks, including seat restoration; door panel
removal, patterning, assembly, and installation; headliner removal and
installation; carpet cutting; and even convertible top restoration. The
easy-to-follow stepby- step presentation allows for a thorough
understanding of all the processes. Every photo in this book provides a
handson approach that shows you how to repair and restore a car’s
interior to concours, show-quality specifications.
Other restoration books may show you beautifully restored interiors, but
they don’t show you how to produce them. This book helps you develop the
skills needed with instruction from a professional upholsterer, saving
you thousands of dollars over outsourcing the restoration. If you are
interested in saving money, doing a complete restoration yourself, or
simply want to know how it’s done, this book is a handy addition to your
automotive library.
• Automotive interior restoration is one of the most outsourced projects
in a vehicle restoration
• No other book chronicles the step-by-step process in interior
restoration with this much detail
• A hands-on approach shows you how each task is accomplished
About the Author
Fred Mattson began working on car interiors as a teenager in the 1970s
by hand stitching inserts into his own 1969 Oldsmobile and working on
several friend’s cars in his neighborhood. Soon after opening a
full-time upholstery business in 1980, Fred’s auto trimming career
expanded to sewing car interiors for many prestigious upholstery shops
and restoration specialists in the metropolitan area of the Twin Cities,
in Minnesota.
