1960 Chevrolet Bel Air
Our client, the third-generation owner brought their 1960 Bel Air in for a full interior restoration. The 1960 Bel Air has been in our client’s family since day dot and had a price tag of £3,500 which was just over half the price of the average house in the 60s.
The original exterior paint colour was black, but our client’s grandfather painted it white as there was another Ford in the town and he wanted his to be different.
The overall goal was to restore the whole vehicle. By the time it was in our workshop, the exterior paint was returned to an original jet-black shade for originality. Our client had decided on a houndstooth fabric for the design that they presented our team. Inspired by a two door 1960 American Impala which had much higher specifications, our team had to accommodate for new features such as the carpets, door panels, front, and rear seats (with pleats), speaker installation, shifter cover, parcel shelf, front, and rear seat belts, fitting of new windows supplied by the client, window channels, boot panel, interior rooflining, sun visors, and sound proofing of the whole vehicle.
One feature in particular that was included in the American model but not the New Zealand model, was the speaker grill in the back seat. This was an added decorative feature that our team had to source and fit as a part of the clients request as well as the houndstooth on the seats and door cards.
1960 Morris 1000
Sometimes, here at Napier Auto Upholstery our job requires us to make it look like we haven't done any work on our clients vehicles. This is exactly what our team achieved on our clients 1960 Morris 1000 "Pearl."
The carpets were all replaced, the from parcel tray was remade and recovered, and the front seats were repaired and remade also.
1969 Volkswagen Kombi Van Restoration
For the past few months Malcolm, Bobbi, and Tessa have been working away on a 1969 Volkswagen Kombi Van. As you can see from the video, our team have carried out work such as stripping the interior, to patterning, cutting, and sewing trim panels, pleats, seat bases and covers, mats, carpets, as well as fitting new seatbelts.
They even fit all speaker wires and hand stitched the back of the seats where our sewing machine couldn’t get too!
As you can see from the before and after videos, a lot of hard work and effort went into this restoration. We were beyond stoked to have been able to reunite this beauty of a job back with its owners.
1972 Holden Belmont Bench Seat
Here at Napier Auto Upholstery, we are very familiar with jobs that come in where they only need “a quick tidy up.” We love them of course, because seeing the customers reaction when we present them with their finished job is what makes our
work worth it.
Here is a very recent job that our team spent many hours on. This bench seat belongs to a 1972 Holden Belmont, which was in desperate need of our help. Thanks to our team’s hard work, reuniting this seat with its owner was 100% worth it.
Napier Auto Upholstery Helps Out a Local Student
In October 2021, Napier Auto Upholstery had the opportunity to work with a local student from EIT. Ingrid Savill is a year 7 design student at IDEA School who is studying furniture design and approached our team to help assist her with the making of her fabric shelf that she will have on display at her upcoming exhibition in November.
Ingrid chose to use a vegan leather made from 100% Polyester called ‘Eastwood Tan,’ from a company called Warwick Fabric. Ingrid’s fabric shelf sits on two wooden dowels and is joined in the centre with some plain stitching. The idea of the wooden dowel in the centre is that it is a decorative feature only that serves no function.
Ingrid came in with her seat and back cushions already made, with the intention that our team could match the stitching on the fabric shelf, in order for her piece to look complete. The idea of the fabric shelf is to be used for storage like blankets or scatter cushions.
Fast forward to November, Ingrid attended the EIT exhibition and received plenty of positive feedback about her bench sofa. We are thrilled that we were able to help out a student and wish her all the best in her future endeavours.