Leather Restoration - 1971 Rolls Royce Corniche - Full leather interior restoration.

This beautiful Rolls Royce has been owned by the same family for the last 30 years. It has been well cared for mechanically and upgraded where required, however the interior was showing signs of the many years of use.

The family decided it was time to do something about the interior before an expensive reupholster with new leather was required. I met the family and inspected the interior. It was clear from the over spray on fixtures that the leather had been "painted over" at some point in its past.

The interior was in need of a full restoration. After explaining the restoration process, I provided a detailed estimate of the work required, including required extras: steam cleaning all the carpets, deep cleaning and resealing the cloth hood, etc.

The original leather colour had been changed and it was very important to the family that we get the interior back to a colour that was as near to the original, looked right and was liked.

My UK suppliers can produce leather colourant (British Standard wear tested) to any colour including original Rolls Royce colours. After preparing samples the final leather colour was agreed and the car booked in for restoration.

It's often said that a vintage Rolls Royce has 8 leather hides within it. Having restored a Rolls full interior before. I knew there would be over 50 individual leather covered pieces (inc seats).

Arrangements were made with D.E.W. Car Services (Oxford) to arrive with the car and to remove (and subsequently refit) all the interior. They were excellent to work with.

I then started repairing, restoring and recolouring each item. I updated the owner each week. A few additional pieces of work were agreed and approved along the way.

The holes in the seats and cigar burns were repaired, any loose trim was re-glued and previous over-spray was removed where possible. Every smallest detail was addressed. For example the scratched metal speaker grills on the door cards were sand blasted and repainted with a spectrometer colour matched custom paint.

The end result was simply stunning; the interior once again matched the condition of rest of the car. The work was completed as scheduled and to the agreed estimate.

I'm delighted the owners are very happy with the end result. The restored interior should provide many more years of service and happy memories to the family.

Testimonials

If you want a cheap blow-over, go somewhere else.

The interior of our Rolls-Royce Corniche Convertible, was suffering from 46 years of use and far too little care and eventually something had to be done. I looked at several restorers, none of whom gave me any confidence in their quality of their work or the care that they would take over the job. We did not want a cheap blow over. However, we then found Colin at Leather-Restoration. What a delight the whole process has been... Our 9 month Journey, from initial contact to completion of the project, has been a hugely rewarding experience and very good value too.

There was a first visit to Colin's amazing workshop (good coffee), the careful selection of the exact shade that we wanted, including Colin making up several samples. There was then a further visit to discuss exactly how and when the work would be done before introducing Colin to our engineers who would dismantle the car to Colin's requirements (and reassemble it afterwards). This was all to ensure that we all knew exactly what would happen and when it would happen.

The work itself took 6 weeks and Colin put his soul into the job. Nothing was too much trouble: from regular updates on progress with photos to sage advice on how to address the inevitable niggling issues which we had not known about before the work had begun.

The finished result was far far ahead of my already high expectations and I could not be more pleased. Really high quality craftsmen such as Colin are hard to find and I have no hesitation in saying that I would trust Colin with any vehicle including those a great deal more valuable than our old Rolls Royce.