Aftermarket or reupholster seats

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EvanS

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Hi, I'm trying to decide whether to buy aftermarket or reupholster the seats in my 68 valiant. The bucket seats are in pretty poor shape, and I am trying to keep this rebuild as low as possible. So please post pics of your seats and share costs if you don't mind. Thank you.

All feedback appreciated. Thank you.
 
You need to be more clear. Do you mean that as opposed to paying an upholsterer to strip and cover your seats you would buy aftermarket seats or that you would buy aftermarket seat covers? If you meant aftermarket seat covers, then I believe your choices are PUI or Legendary. PUI is the cheaper of the two, but then the quality is less also. Legendary is the best, but will also cost the most. I had never done any interior work before and was able to easily strip the covers off my seats and install the Legendary covers. In Legendary, front bucket seat covers for my 69 Barracuda are currently about $400, while the back seat is about $275. Bucket seat foam is about $225. If you want door cards, four door cards for a 2 door car will run about $500. If you can find a better deal than that with a local upholsterer, go for it.
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harrisonm said:
You need to be more clear. Do you mean that as opposed to paying an upholsterer to strip and cover your seats you would buy aftermarket seats or that you would buy aftermarket seat covers? View attachment 1715169283
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Sorry. I meant aftermarket seats not covers. I would not like to do any recovering of seats myself. The frames are pretty rusted out. Would need foam and cover.
 
I've yet to see (or sit in) an aftermarket seat that didn't look like **** and/or was uncomfortable. I would either re-upholster or buy factory seats to replace yours. If you re-upholster you can explore options with recovering the seats.

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Legendary is top notch. I have a friend that does award winning custom interiors. He gets stock replacement upholstery from Legendary.
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toolmanmike said:
Legendary is top notch. I have a friend that does award winning custom interiors. He gets stock replacement upholstery from Legendary. View attachment 1715169309 View attachment 1715169310
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I had custom covers made for my stock bucket seats, the covers are nice but the work on the seat was terrible as far as bringing them back to life. " Vannessa`s in Tulsa " did the shitty work. I had to tear them down and rebuild the them , then put the custom covers back on. They are pretty nice looking, and comfortable too. I paid $450 for the shitty work and nice covers, $ 150 for new seat foam, don`t remember how much the burlap was, wasn`t much at Attwoods. You`ll be lucky to get out for less than $500 if u do the work urself ! YOU CAN DO IT !!!
 
I feel aftermarket seats reduce the cars value many times, just as a "custom" paint job does not always appeal to a buyer. I know, you will never sell the car!! Upholstry and repop door panels are expensive, but they make or break your car.
 
Pull your old stuff of, have your frames sandblasted, painted and DIY.
It's not rocket surgery.
I've done it.
I've also used Legendary a couple of times.
They are starting to act like they have cornered the market.
Oh wait, I think they have.
 
I've always gone factory but I may try modern factory next

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Depends on the look and use you are going for.

Aftermarket will be a lot more comfortable that’s for sure.

I used scat lumbar elite in my dart. Oh man we’re they nice.
 
abodyjoe said:
Depends on the look and use you are going for.

Aftermarket will be a lot more comfortable that’s for sure.

I used scat lumbar elite in my dart. Oh man we’re they nice.
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And the older I get the more I would appreciate the comfort! LOL
 
After I move my projects around sitting on a 5 gal. bucket, I really appreciate the feel of woreout 60's seat!!!!!! lol

Yes Legendary has great products, yes they have had the market cornered for decades!
 
I don't think there is a cheep way out on upholstery. It's one of the few parts of my build I couldn't completely do myself. Believe me-if I had the sewing machine, I would have tried. LOL I would have gotten them from Legendary and put on myself, but they wanted over 2 times the $ for my color! ?? So, I found a local upholstery guy to sew it. I still had to do rust cleanup and paint on the bottom of the frame. He was just going to make it from the old one I removed and I would put it on myself. He got it half done and asked me to bring the seat over to see how it would lay, then ended up doing most of the install. I still had to make cuts through for seat belts, and rework part of it cause the seat back was binding. Also I did the headrests with SEM and installed them. I bought the material and small welt cord online after weeks of back and forth with samples. Final cost of $500 for the front bench (back is original)That's 325 to the upholstery guy and 150 in materials plus tax.
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I agree a good upholstery man that works for " affordable wages" can do a perfect job and way cheaper. Finding those kind of guys is hard nodays !! I know a guy that does body paint., NO insurance work, old cars only, he bought a sewing machine 2-3 years ago, taught himself how, does great affordable, work, BUT now I have moved to Tx, he is 550 mi North!!! His prices might have risen since too!???/
 
toolmanmike said:
And the older I get the more I would appreciate the comfort! LOL
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The bench seat used to kill my back and make me stiff as hell by the time I finished the 2 hour drive to carlisle. With Those scat buckets I could easily drive the 3 hours to ocmd and I was fine. The difference was amazing. Just wish Jamie would have let me put them in her dart. Back to a freaking bench seat again. Lol
 
EvanS said:
Hi, I'm trying to decide whether to buy aftermarket or reupholster the seats in my 68 valiant. The bucket seats are in pretty poor shape, and I am trying to keep this rebuild as low as possible. So please post pics of your seats and share costs if you don't mind. Thank you.

All feedback appreciated. Thank you.
Click to expand...


I went the late model factory seat from a salvage yard. I had just recovered some 66 dart bucket seats and they were nice as all getout but sooooo uncomfortable on longer trips. so I put in 2003 sebring seats (nice heated leather ones on my hardtop that was a daily driver for 6 years) and 97 sebring cloth ones in the convertible. they are pretty comfortable and they were cheap. I paid 100.00 for the front AND rear for my convertible and 100 for the front leather for my hardtop. I was looking at some late model BMW seats that had all the added bolsters for tourimg driving but the were ripped up pretty bad. next car might get those seats if I can find a good set or some Audi's.
 
Hey wait a minute...OP says he has buckets in a 68 Valiant. Were buckets even an option in 1968 2 and 4 door sedan Valiants?
That might influence me due to the rarity but it comes down to what the owner desires.

Oh and almost every time i go to the big Summit store, I'll sit in the seats they have out.
 
KosmicKuda said:
Hey wait a minute...OP says he has buckets in a 68 Valiant. Were buckets even an option in 1968 2 and 4 door sedan Valiants?
That might influence me due to the rarity but it comes down to what the owner desires.
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Its a signet, with bucket seats and rallye dash.

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66Dvert said:
I went the late model factory seat from a salvage yard. I had just recovered some 66 dart bucket seats and they were nice as all getout but sooooo uncomfortable on longer trips. so I put in 2003 sebring seats (nice heated leather ones on my hardtop that was a daily driver for 6 years) and 97 sebring cloth ones in the convertible. they are pretty comfortable and they were cheap. I paid 100.00 for the front AND rear for my convertible and 100 for the front leather for my hardtop. I was looking at some late model BMW seats that had all the added bolsters for tourimg driving but the were ripped up pretty bad. next car might get those seats if I can find a good set or some Audi's.
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Do any of these seats bolt in pretty easily or need to be modded?
 
EvanS said:
Do any of these seats bolt in pretty easily or need to be modded?
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the front tabs on the seats can be heated and bent flat so they mount in the same holes or add angle iron and bolt through to the underbody and support plates like i did. for the fronts I made some angle iron to change how they mounted. about 1 inch on the inboard side of the seats and 1 inch to the outside on the outer mount locations.
on the rear seats I had to fab a raised panel and locate the hold downs for the seats
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here is the temp mock up of the locations before I drilled and bolted it to the floors and seat support plates
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passengers side clearance
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Drivers side clearance
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all in and mounted
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putting trim on and wiring seatbelts and power windows
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Have you considered going to a salvage yard or swap meet and buying a pair of buckets out of something else?
 
I got my 65 bucket seats redone (factory pattern, not the cheap embossed OE vinyl but more of a matching mini tuck and roll) for $175 a piece back 15 years ago by a local Mexican craftsman that did all my Dads bosses collector cars. I did all the brightwork and Dad split the cost for my birthday gift. They are a little bigger in the bun and more square but light years from what the old ones had become: hard slippery butt pokers that rained yellow crap when they were blown. (were still talking seats here, right?)
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