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Those were the days.... As I am cleaning up around here I came across a box of upholstery that I used in restoring my 1929 Standard Coupe back in 1980.
In it was the receipt. The product was from Le Barron Bonney from December 1980. It was 2 yards of Plain Brown Cloth used for the door panels, quarters, back, seat back, roof rails, windshield header, and package tray. Very nice quality. The cost at the time was $14.00/yard. I wonder what that same material is valued at today? Pluck |
Re: Those were the days.... The dollar is worth a tenth of what it was back in the 70s so you would have to put it in today's money I guess. When the Model A was new the money was backed by gold and silver, that is why coins would get worn down, they were constantly circulated because they had lots of value back then, now they just get thrown in a jar and have no wear.
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Re: Those were the days.... Pi not round.. Pi r square..! I couldn't resist. kb
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Those were the days.... Mac’s sells its Cartouche Victoria upholstery kit for $2150.95.
https://www.macsautoparts.com/ford_m...-material.html And that obviously does not include labor. What makes the fabric so expensive? I see the kit includes interior panels (cardboard and fiberboard are not that expensive), some padding, some felt, hog rings, etc. $2150 just seems a tad steep for what it would likely cost to produce. Maybe I’m missing something. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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I didn’t miss the labor part. It was in my post. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
Re: Those were the days.... The price in dollars is irrelevant. What matters is how many hours you had/have to work to buy it.
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Kinda the same thing as to why a top of the line Harley is close to $50k!!!! a whole let less goes into one of them than a full size car/suv that you can get for the same price. |
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Good point! (often overlooked) |
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Lived the life (engineer) for 43 years. "An engineer is a person who will do for one dollar - what any fool would do for two." This can be taken two ways. Joe K |
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To manufacture the kit ! |
Re: Those were the days.... In that same vein (with a slight detour), I have regretted not buying an interior kit from Le Barron Bonney while I could. Is there other 'A' supplies/services that should be taken advantage of 'while we still can'? We all have our favorite 'carburetor guy', 'shock guy', etc, so I'm thinking more of material/parts/tools that we still have access to before we're forced to buy (at a much lesser quality) overseas.
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YOUR labor is added to that to put it on the car. Fearless |
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Since you mentioned interior panels, let's use a door panel on your Victoria as an example. So a piece of good panelboard is about $11.00 delivered but it comes in 32"x48" size. I cannot order it in a Ford 190A Victoria size from my supplier. Therefore someone must cut it to the proper size and shape. The next issue is that it is one solid piece that has no provision for the door handle nor the window regulator handle. So not only do we need to cut the panelboard to the proper shape and make the edges follow the contour of the door, we now must cut two openings for the handles in the correct locations. No big deal until you miss the centerline of those holes by 1/16th of an inch! :eek: Also, be shoddy with the craftsmanship of the cutting, and you will either have a panel that extends past the door and rubs on the jamb area, --or it is cut too short and you see the inside of the door. Either way is unacceptable in my view. So now we also need to modify the panelboard to accept the door clips which will provide the blind attachment clips a place to position too. How do you propose to get all those holes into the panelboard? Personally we use a scale to measure for locations and a special hole punch to insert the hole in the panel board, but again haste will make waste. I would need to verify on the print but I am guessing around 20 holes must be placed for the typical 190A door panel. Now we need to do the layout for the recessed door pocket. So all time totaled thus far, here we are a couple of hours into this one panel before we are even ready to install some padding or covering. Now go count the amount of panels it will take to cover everything from the two cowl kick panels all the way around the rear of the cabin. Next, ...if you want an eye-opener, go count-up the pieces it takes to manufacture just once seat cover (correctly). You will need 6 for a 190A bodystyle. It takes time to layout the piece goods in the proper bias or graining direction, make sure the patterns are properly nested onto the roll, make all the cuts are correctly sized to avoid puckers or tight areas, pin the pieces together and then stitch the pieces together without wrinkles or shortages. Of all the disciplines that we do in-house at my shop (-and think you have physically seen that we pretty much do them all here), I can tell you that us learning how to correctly do the Upholstery & Trim work has by far been the toughest area to learn and master. |
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Re: Those were the days.... So I went to the Cartouche website to see just what the material sold for today.
In 1980 it was $14.00 per yard...Today, that same material is $44.95 per yard. KATY Got it right! Pluck |
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Yup. Ekler’s ownes a bunch of unrelated car sites. The link is broken now, but it worked when I posted it. Here is a link from another vendor that has the same price. https://www.mikes-afordable.com/prod...31-UA11N3.html Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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Brent, If *each* upholstery kit is a custom cut, I would agree with your point. Certainly, I see in your shop there is a ton of your shop’s labor involved in painstakingly making sure that every part fits properly on a customer’s car, as it should be, to turn out a high quality product. However, the kits that I have seen online I’m thinking are standardized copies made from templates that the manufacturer’s already has in stock. I would think that the labor required to cut the fabric would not be that expensive presumably because the resulting manufactured product would be essentially just a “trace” (for lack of a better term) of the preexisting templates. One thing for sure that I did not consider is the amount that vendors likely mark up the wholesale manufactured product for retail sales. From what I understand, 100% markups can be common for certain retail products, and I understand everyone has to make a profit to stay in business. I don’t know if 100% markups are common in upholstery kits or not. I’ve been told that sometimes upholstered furniture can be marked up 300%. All I know for sure is folks will charge what the market will bear. So, $2,150 must be the “bearable” price. Customers wouldn’t pay it if they didn’t think the product was worth it. As I understand it, that $2,150 does not appear to include any custom labor that would be required to tailor the standardized kit to the customer’s car. A while back, someone indicated that additional installation labor could cost another $2,000 or so. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk kit |
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