Would Mine be the Only LeMans with Tartan?

With all this time NOT working on the LeMans, my mind is free to wander. Where did it go today? The Land of Tartan. The train of thought actually started, strangely enough, with thoughts of my next project – a track-worthy Corvair. Back in the day, Corvairs were referred to as the poor man’s Porsche, so why not incorporate some Porsche details into my modern day recreation of a period race car. Here are some interiors from Porsche. Then it hit me. Why not put some tartan in the LeMans’ interior?

Let me digress here and inform you, gentle reader, that I’ve tried my hand at trimming (the fancy way of saying upholstering). In fact, I bought a heavy-duty sewing machine. I’ve successfully sewn seat covers replacing rotted panels before. With YouTube’s help, I’m confident I could put together some acceptable seat covers for the LeMans.

As I wrote a few months back, I can’t find replacement front bench seat covers in parchment Morrokide. Making my own seat covers means I can go back to my front bench seat plan, which really has been my hope for many years. Coincidentally, during last weekend’s extraction of the LeMans from the garage, I finally decided to get rid of the front bench seat frame I’d been trying to get rid of, so now it’s lying out in the rain. Now, I may AGAIN decide to keep it. Argh!

The good thing about going with bench seats is that they do not require the expense of seat buns. Instead, you use some inexpensive padding between the springs and the upholstery. Also, it’s easier to hog-ring bench seat covers than it is buckets. Bucket seats require inboard hog-ringing to follow the contour of the bun and bolsters – been there, not fun.

So, I’ve got the sewing machine and a good source for the padding; all I need is material. To best go with the Pomegranate paint color and the parchment vinyl, I will be consulting with my artistic wife. I’m leaning towards this black, gray, and red plaid that was found on the first gen VW GTIs or one of the other Tartans I found online with the same colors. It’s still available by-the-yard from a number of online sources. Since stock parchment Morrokide (vinyl) is still the other material, SMS is THE source that’ll sell it to me by-the-yard. In searching their website FAQs, I found they’ll even be able to tell me how much I’ll need. I’ll be using some cheap vinyl and cloth to verify my patterns and sharpen my sewing skills. I’ll wait until Joanne’s has a sale.



Then there’s the question of the frames. The rear bottom and back are in good, solid shape, but the front sections need some help. I can buy some more zig-zag wires online and weld up any of the frame pieces that have rotted away. Then a good coat of Rusty Metal Primer followed by a top coat of whatever Rustoleum is lying around will be all that’s needed to get another fifty years of seating service out of the frames.

With the tartan inserts in the seats, I also want to do something with the door cards. Here’s a stock LeMans panel with an insert of tartan. I haven’t found the instructional that’ll teach me how to integrate cloth into a complete panel, but I’m sure that someone somewhere has created and posted a video or a how-to.

Bench or Buckets

Way, way back in the day, I had high hopes that the LeMans would be on the road before my daughters grew up. I thought, back then, that seating for six was an imperative, so I bought a bench seat and a steering column out of a mid-60s GM A-body (I think it was a '66 Buick Special - my memory is hazy on 20-year-old events). Well, time has flown by and the daughters have flown the coop, so it's just the lovely Loriann and me. Now that I’ve finally gotten serious about getting this car back on the road, I needed to do some online shopping for upholstery. Since it was my intention to still use the bench seat (so I could have the lovely Loriann snuggled up next to me during our rides together), I went shopping for a parchment (white) vinyl bench seat cover that matched the pattern my car came with.



Exhaustive searching ended up being more frustrating than fruitful. All I could find were the following images online without explanation as to whether it was original or reproduction. I had some hope that, since Pontiac made a front bench seat in vinyl, some vendor would reproduce it.



During my search I did unearth the following image from Pontiac’s Color and Interiors Brochure where they presented the offerings for ’65 A-bodies. This showed that only the LeMans and GTO got the top-of-the-line vinyl (Morrokide):




So, currently, the only ’65 front seat upholstery available being reproduced is for bucket seats. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since I imagine most, if not all, LeMans and GTOs were sold with the sporty buckets, so the demand for a replacement bench seat cover is probably pretty small.

From everything I've read and seen, at least '64 thru '66 used the same seat frames, so I  expanded my search and came up with another option. YearOne and Ames Performance sell '66 Tempest seat covers in black, red, metallic red, and gold vinyl that will fit my front bench and rear convertible seats. I'm thinking the following combination may work.

Does the pattern in the seat complement the pattern in the door panels? That is the deciding factor. I just sent a technical request to YearOne to confirm the same gold viny is used in both their '65 and '66 upholstery. We'll see.

In the end, is the best choice to stick with bucket seats?