Custom auto upholstery in a 1934 Chevrolet Coupe.
This car has a LONG history and is one of some RAREST cars these days! This popular vintage auto is a hot rod choice of many car enthusiasts and a perfect example of the street rod style.
This 1934 Chevy Coupe expresses the owner’s vision and personal taste. The black exterior makes this car look daring while red leather interior makes the inside both elegant and comfortable.
However, it was not always like that…
When we first received this classic car at our shop, all it had was fiberglass exterior and a bench frame which had a cushion not suitable for auto upholstery (will tell you more about that later). With the trunk open you could see the backside of the bench. This car required a LOT of work!
Arnold (the customer) wanted us to create a custom auto upholstery for his cherished Chevrolet Coupe. With the auto interior missing from his car. This project did not just involve a new auto upholstery but had to extend to us designing trunk and door panels, creating new headliner and installing new carpet.
If you look at the pictures, you will see how round the trunk/fiberglass frame really is. We were facing a choice, go the easy route, install the new carpet right on the frame itself, as many car upholstery shops do, or hard route, try to even out the trunk by creating wood floor and panels.
Striving to provide Arnold with the car interior that he can be proud of, we went the hard route and leveled the floor prior to installing carpet in the trunk.
This project began with us creating wood floor and panels for the trunk. The idea was to separate the trunk from the rest of the car’s interior and level the floor at the same time.
Just this single step involved a lot of back-and-forth work because the trunk contained many pieces. Since the frame of this car is made of fiberglass, we could not drill or mount anything to it. This challenged us to create panels that would support one another and fall into places like building blocks. We had to measure and cut everything 100s of times. Though once the desired result was achieved, we could proceed further.
First, we installed carpet in the trunk, followed by, designing custom upholstery for the panels. At that point, things began to move a little faster. Once we were done with the carpet and upholstery for the panels, we finished the trunk by creating a “skirt”- made of genuine Alcantara for the metal rod that opens and supports the trunk lid.
Upon finishing our work with the trunk, we started moving towards the rest of the car’s interior. We began by installing soundproof on the floor, followed by the carpet. Once the floor of this 1934 Chevy couple was finished, we moved to create a new headliner.
We went through 2 different headliners on this project. The car has wooden pieces going across the top (you can see it in the “before” pictures). At first, we have tried to attach the leather to the wood and make the headliner this way. Once the job has been completed, we realized that this is not exactly the results we were trying to achieve, so we redid the headliner.
This time we created a panel which we wrapped in leather and mounted to the wooden pieces. The concept is like nowadays fiberglass headliners wrapped in fabric.
The next step in this project was to create custom upholstery for the bench. This step was not without issues either. The foam that Arnold bought for his bench was not dense enough for auto upholstery. The leather cover would have easily squished the foam, making the upholstery look saggy.
At first, we have tried to build up the cushion by using our high-density foam. Though we quickly realized that it will not work. We have told Arnold about this issue and suggested that we use a higher density foam from a newer vehicle. He liked our suggestion and gave us the green light to proceed further.
We have found and used back seat foam of a Loth doors and wrap them in leather. We have made door panels match designs of the bench and trunk.
Once the interior in this 1934 Chevrolet Coupe was complete and fully assembled. We added the final touches by creating custom floor mats for the entire vehicle.
This was a fun, yet challenging project, which made us “step up our game”. We are greatly honored and thankful that Arnold chose our shop to design his custom auto upholstery. It brought us a great deal of joy to present the finished project to him and hear that he loves his car’s interior.
For the entire interior of this vehicle, we have used the finest and softest 100% natural leather from Relicate. Mats were created using highly durable synthetic eco-leather.
If you are looking for a shop that can create a custom auto upholstery for you. Please contact us or come to our shop. It would be our honor to serve you too!
If a custom auto upholstery is not something you are looking for, but perhaps, you just need a car seat repair or headliner replacement, we would be happy to help!
