Renaissance of fabric seats?
08/26/2019
Many people today believe that only leather upholstery is the right choice for car seats. And they like to refer to the tradition of British and Italian car manufacturers, who have been celebrating this for ages. However, this is only partly true. In fact, leather was used for car seats early on because it was easier to clean than fabric and also lasted longer. For this reason, there were quite a few upmarket saloons and convertibles that offered leather seats for the chauffeur, but fabric seats for the discerning passengers. After all, fabric is more comfortable in winter because it gets less cold, and in summer fabric upholstery heats up less than leather. Fabric seats are also less slippery than leather seats.
In fact, there seems to be a certain renaissance of fabric seats in modern cars too. The Porsche 911 GT3, for example, is delivered with fabric upholstery in the Touring version, as was the case with the 911 R.
Increasingly, a mixture is also being used, with the seat surface made of fabric and the seat carriages and headrests trimmed in leather or Alcantara.
Nowadays, fabric is often replaced by leather when restoring cars, partly because correct fabric samples from the past are often no longer available or difficult to find. But this is actually a shame, because in many cars it is the fabric seats that give the interior its real flair. The Lotus Esprit S1 with its checked pattern, which James Bond also sat on, is a good example of this.
