The Art of Refurbishment

[Mark Wilson]

Really interesting thread. After aganizing for four years about my self imposed responsibility to restore Annie to like new condition, I was finally able to break through that mindset and move forward to make her a dependable and usable car, but not to worry too much about making her new again. She got a very good, but not perfect repaint, cleaned at the engine, but didn't rebuild or replate anything(at least yet), and am now replacing missing or broken parts under the car - not replating or replacing tatty but functional parts. Coming to these decisions has been really freeing!

Now, the seats....Hmmmm

[Richardnew]

Tony at Autobahn restored one of my seats with old material he had in the shop.



He took the old material he had and created a new panel for the seat. The old material matched my 1973 material perfectly. Tony is great at understanding what we're trying to do here.

He has my rear seat cushions right now. He can't replace the horse hair that Porsche used but he's going to take the original material and use foam and burlap. That way I won't have to vacuum up the dried out horse hair every month.

The trick is to refurbish without making it new.

Richard Newton

[jaudette3]

He can't replace the horse hair that Porsche used but he's going to take the original material and use foam and burlap. That way I won't have to vacuum up the dried out horse hair every month.

Horsehair or Coconut Shell Fibers?

This one has remained a bit of a mystery to me for over 25 years. Horsehair or coconut shell fiber? Many in the 356 world swear it's coconut "hair". Porsche was so frugal back in the day that it's easy to picture them buying piles of discarded coconut shells for next to nothing. Does anyone have definitive information? Maybe Tony could buy a pile of coconut shells.

The whole idea of the frugal use of materials leads to a more general point which is closer to the level of discussion in this thread - it's really easy to over restore these cars. I plead guilty to at least one infraction. I spent over 8 years striving to restore a 356 Roadster to as original a state as possible: all refurbished or NOS parts all the way down to nuts and bolts. With one glaring exception - I did the interior in leather. The Kardex was vinyl but at least at that time even the most hardcore originalistas found leather acceptable. Seems odd now.

John