VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 seat fabric

I see on their web site that Hampton Coach no longer has the seat fabric for 50 Deluxe models and are using the Special material. Anybody know any other supplier? I see SMS has one that looks close. Any one familiar with it? It looks closer than the special design.

I ordered a sample from SMS for my '51 Styline Deluxe and both the top (solid) and lower (striped) were significantly different than the original material now on the car..
Jeff

I talked to Lebaron Bonney today and they quit using the seat material #15-79 because it was fading bad after a couple of weeks in the sun. They couldn't tell me the supplier. I have SMS sending me a sample of their material and I will do a fade test. Any members have an issue with fading with a Hampton Coach Kit? They will make you up one with your material if you want.

Over on the AACA forums someone had a Lebaron-Bonney Buick kit in which part of the fabric was a bad dye lot and faded from brown to green, in the box IIRC. It stretched out from January to October while the replacement fabric was ordered (and LB was waiting for it). I am not sure if it ever came, or if it did and was also defective. The Buick owner eventually had to use different fabric.

Thread is here, trouble starts on page 45, post 1124:
http://forums.aaca.org/topic/287685...page=45&tab=comments#comment-1713853

There is massive thread drift after this point, as a restoration thread that showed progress every day ground to a halt waiting on the new kit from LB, who were waiting on the fabric. If you go through a few pages you will see pictures of the fabric that faded to green next to the brown.

If LB thinks there is a big enough problem with the fabric you need that they wont sell it, I would tend to believe them.

The striped sample i got from SMS looked identical to to what is left of the original material in my "51 deluxe. I haven't ordered anything yet. I am interested in the results of the fade test and any other information about materials for these cars. Durability is a big factor in what I order since my car is a daily driver.

I received the fabric sample from SMS today and it looks just like the sample I received from Hampton Coach years ago. Looks good to me. Will try a fade test and post the results. I would think if it was an issue it would be posted here and elsewhere.