CSi Restoration from VSR1?

Jellobmw

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Driving through Richmond Vermont yesterday, I spied a CSi in the shop of Richmond Auto Upholstery, and had to stop and take a look. This is a small shop, but does auto upholstery for award winning cars, including at Pebble Beach.

The CSi was getting a $200k+++ (YIKES) "makeover" through VSR1, and had been sent to RAU for the interior. It had an M6 engine I believe, was Balkail blue, and was getting a completely custom cream-colored leather interior including 635csi rear seat headrests/speaker enclosures. A/C but no S/R. Beautiful!!!

Anybody know this car?

Mike Lemire the owner of RAU is a wicked nice guy, and owns a very nice agave CS that used to belong to Avery Hall.

 

craterface

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I don't know the car, but looks like a neat shop. The Pebble Beach cars look amazing. Insane Bugattis.
 

JFENG

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Will steaming eliminate stuff like this?
6DD6E2D4-FA32-41E0-990A-E3D6E0CBA616.jpeg
 

JFENG

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Absolutely..
(Pic is from their project gallery)

Ok so why didn’t they?

My main concern with reupholstering my Scheel seats is concerns over getting a tight/right fit over the many contours . Note in the pic that the seam on the driver seat-base bolster doesn’t even consistently follow the natural bolster edge. If this is Pebble Beach quality perhaps I should forget about leather and go with cloth.
 

tferrer

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(Pic is from their project gallery)

Ok so why didn’t they?

My main concern with reupholstering my Scheel seats is concerns over getting a tight/right fit over the many contours . Note in the pic that the seam on the driver seat-base bolster doesn’t even consistently follow the natural bolster edge. If this is Pebble Beach quality perhaps I should forget about leather and go with cloth.

Not sure. All I know is I watched them do a pair of my 911 seats that looked pretty awful and it worked like a charm. They were totally unconcerned with the wrinkles.

Perhaps they want the seat in the car. Plus, remember, those are light colored seats. They will show wrinkles more readily than black AND seats get used and the leather stretches so it's natural to have some of those types of wrinkles. It doesn't look that bad to me. Pebble Beach cars never get used...

RE Scheels, if you are planning on using the original type corduroy, then be prepared for heavily bagged out fabric. Every CSL I've ever seen with any usage looks pretty awful... Perhaps the new csl type fabric has more elasticity and the restoration process has changed, I don't know but I'll be finding out in the forseable future...
 

JFENG

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If I don’t do leather I won’t use the original Scheel fabric. My 36 year old Scheels have just a little looseness in the base cushion but the seat back is still like new. So I agree that it lacks a bit of elasticity.

Well, I’ve seen variable levels of quality from every upholstery shop I’ve considered. It probably depends a lot on the customer’s attention to detail and less on the shop’s ability to do outstanding work.
 

JFENG

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And a $200k restoration seems ok to me if an owner wants a top to bottom nut and bolt restoration and the starting point needs everything touched. I know of people who spent close to $300k restoring cars only worth maybe $100k in concours condition. If I were rich enough to go that route I would chose VSR1 over any other shop in the country, and I’ve had experience with places like the Werkshop.

People do this less for investment potential than for personal enrichment.
 
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