After oohing and ahhing at the JCW leather interior bits, then doing the same over the price, I decided to have a go at making some leather covered downtubes. A couple of other people here have done it sucessfully, so I figured it couldn't be too hard..

So, a quick trip to eBay netted be a half hide of automotive quality leather for $35. I dissasembled the interior, cut some leather, sewed, glued, unglued, recut, resewed etc, until I arrived at the following:

The downtubes are leather, as are both center consoles. The shift boot is leather also. Obviously the handbrake boot is missing.. I ran out of leather, so that'll have to wait until the next bit of leather arrives!
Here's a couple more shots:


I'm not 100% satisfied yet. Looks rough in places, and I was clearly still learning while making some pieces. I'm hoping to pick up some proper leather working tools at the weekend so I can do a better job. I'm thinking of tearing all this stuff out and redoing it to (hopefully) a higher standard, with some hand stitching and more patience.
(Unless someone wants to trade this set of pieces for their console parts!)
I'm really hoping to hit Ferrari quality next time!

 

From here it looks great! Wish I had the talent to do something like that!

 

looks fantastic. For a first attempt, you really attacked some seriously contoured surfaces and suceeded. Congrats.

Which type of glue did you use?

 

Wow I agree with RallyMINI and cooperminis....your handy work is great!!!

 

How about doing the full dash including the top in leather???
I think you did fine with the downtubes. Where does it end though?!?!?!

Then the doors could be next- cover up the plastic stuff. Leather is nice and smells great. A great luxury item and very dressy. Fancy stitching adds to the look. Yours is visible with a contrasting color as accent and understated- nicely done. Double stitching and other colors would change the look as would multiple color leather panels.

Overall- Excellent idea and pics!

In the end you also have to take care of that leather to keep it good- tint your windows, do monthly cleaning and conditioning, use a car cover and garage your car, don't allow food in your car, etc.

 

I think it looks terriffic!

 

Looks perfect to me! Nice job!

 

Nice!

I wish I could recover the door panels in tan leather to match my seats. The plastic is a tad on the cheap side considering how much I dropped on the car. But alas, my talents don't include sewing - I've tried and I can assure folks that there is real skill involved.

 

Wow, that's very impressive! Great Job!

 

Very impressive! I really like the downtubes. Excellent job!

 

Good job. It looks very good for the first attempt.

I ordered JCW Leather Dash and Tubes and looking for a place that can make a similar trim for the dash cover and doors in very high quality. If you guys know a good place around LA let me know, please.

 

Wow, thanks for all the positive feedback! I was kind of on the fence about the work I'd done, being a bit of a perfectionist. This really gives me a boost!

So, to answer some of the questions..

I used a can of Super 77 spray glue for most of the work, along with some 3M double sided tape. However, I wouldn't recommend this way of doing things as it gets a little messy... I'm hoping to pick up some liquid cement this weekend from Tandy Leather . I'll report back on what I get and what works. Definitely be aware that the Super 77 will go everywhere though, and you'll end up coated in spray glue (I was! )

Sewing was a whole new thing for me too, but my wife very patiently tried to explain how the machine worked and between us managed to get some good looking seams. Next time I'm going to try hand sewing though. From what I've read, it might actually be easier as it's actually just threading. You need to punch holes in the leather with a special tool, then just feel the needle through the holes. You can make it even easier and pre-glue the leather sections together. I haven't tried this yet though, so it may be a lot harder than it sounds. Everything else about this has been.

As for covering other parts of the interior. Well, I'm thinking of the doing the driver's knee bolster and the glove compartment door. The doors are a possibility too, but that's a huge area to do at one time. Damn expensive to replace if it gets f'd up. Still, maybe I'll get adventurorous one day.
I'd love to do the dash top, but I have a 2006 and the airbag is built into it. It can be done, but I don't even wanna try messing with it.

If you want someone professional to do work like this for you, I can recommend MyMINI Parts. They already sell custom door panels and I believe they're coming out with more bits soon. Check em out.

 

I'd like to order this exact shift boot with matching E-brake boot. Where do I send the cash?

 

Hehe, are you serious? I'd be glad to sell the shift boot, but I feel I should point out that the flaw in the stitching - the two decorative seams get a little wider towards the top, which you can kind of see in this photo.
Also, I don't have an e-brake boot yet, as I ran out of leather.
If you really do want to shift boot I'm totally willing to sell it, along with an e-brake boot when I get more supplies. However I feel I should point out that Redline Goods will sell you a beautiful set of matching boots with stitching that looks like this for a very reasonable price!

 

Your shift boot looks a lot better than the ones pictured on the Redline site.

 

I was inspired by this thread and made my own shift boot. Very easy and I did the contrasting stitching. I do have the leather working tools so I did all the stitching by hand. Will post pics soon. Also did leather door handle grabs. Going to do the ebrake next and the downtubes.

 

Sounds great! I'd love to see some pics of what you've done.

Any tips on getting hand stitching to look neat? I bought quite the collection of leather working tools, but so far my attempts to get something professional looking without a machine have been unsuccessful.

 

Good job there! You do realize... this is how home-based businesses start, right?

 

Heh, it's nice of you to say that, but I'm a long way from being good enough to do professionally. Still, I can't say it hadn't crossed my mind.

Version 2 is taking shape right now. All I have right now are a few sketches, and some cool ideas. If only I had a proper machine shop to do all the things I can design. Having a new baby isn't exactly giving me oodles of free time either.

 

I have always loved the leather downtubes. All said and done you paid $35 for the same thing that other places sell for how much???? Aren't they $200 or something ridiculous like that? Great job!!!!

 

Yes, you take a ruler and an awl and pre-punch your holes at even distances (I did mine at 5 mm) and then run the thread with a needle. Looks as good as machine stitching, you just need to make sure you pull your thread to the same tension with each stitch.

Trust me, it looks better in person; had a hard time getting a good pic with the digi-camera and too much sun inside the car.

I also did padded leather door handle covers...


Definitely like mine better than the $30 ones on ebay; they're sewn onto the door, not velcroed, and I shaped them to match the handle base.

I'm in the process of doing the e-brake boot; have the leather cut and holes punched. Just need to stitch tonite.

 

It looks good to me! Nice work!

I can attest to the quality of the Redline Goods product. I've got a 2-tone, 4-panel shift boot with contrasting stitching (black and tan) with the all tan e-brake boot with black stitching... very nice feeling and adds a lot to the interior.

 

Sounds like the method I've been using apart from instead of measuring the holes with a ruler, I have a little spiked wheel (I forget the name) that makes indentations along the line. My problem is that the stitches never quite look perfect enough, even when I've punched all the holes as well as I can. It's a little frustrating to spend so much time just to make 12" worth of holes, only to discover that once you thread them, they look like they were done by a 5 year old.

Love to see some pics of your work, especially some in-progress ones.

Edit: Oops, you did post pics, I didn't look at the actual post.. Looks great, nice work! Can I get a couple of close ups on your stitching?

 

XrayDeltaOne,

You have awesome skills !! It is simply awesome!!

You should consider selling those. Especially the downtube leather things... It is awesome!! drooling...

 

Here is a pic of my contrast stitching that I'm doing for my e-brake boot...
One thing I do is I use a VERY sharp needle to punch precise pilot holes, and then I follow up with my large carpet needle (I have an awl but prefer the carpet needle for control) going through the holes again to enlarge them.

Practise, practise, practise....

For anyone else, to give you an idea of the savings, the total price I paid for this hide was $17.00 including shipping off ebay. It is 7 square feet, enough to do pretty much anything you want. Upholstery thread, $1.99 for a spool. I just bought some to match the "cool blue" mini colour. Needles...I've had mine a while but no more than $4-5.00 for a set of good heavy duty upholstery needles. Needles for a sewing machine are $4.99 for a set of 5.

This is vs. $200 for the JCW downtubes where you get a choice of black or blue stitching only. Or what, $40-60 for various boots?

Remove yours, use them as a template, cut and stitch. Simple.