Actually Sam, I got them for Duane. Problem with getting the leather in a certain color is that you had to order 3 hides in the color you need. Red, orange, white and black. A hide is usually around 60 sq feet. I’ve got lots of red left over.
sam the last time we communicrad you said you still had the wood engraved plak we gave u ans ma whrn you had some eng prolems woth the x and were tryin to get back to see Davy,i think we were just heading noth goin home,i have so many memoreis from20 or more years of bowing green i just keep rememboring them,my favs were when the holidome was sill a neat place
Yeah, To get the leather vat dyed you need to have a 3-hide minimum per color. That was too much $ for me to buy, so Brad bought the leather from my supplier. Brad’s car was built to be a “Show Car” and was never meant to be used as a regular car, so when they made the interior they used leather that was close in color, and then sprayed it the color they wanted. Then they sewed everything up. Generally interiors done this way never last too long and show wear quickly, but his interior stayed together pretty good. When we tried to take his seat covers apart the painted leather had glued itself together, so we had to “peal” apart the seat pieces by gently cutting them apart with a razor knife. Again this was a time consuming thing. You also cannot make patterns off leather like you can off vinyl, so that was also a concern. The above things were two of the reasons we opted to sew up a set of vinyl covers to install on the seat frames. We needed to check our patterns for fit before we started cutting leather. Duane
This thread turned from meh... To excellent! I love hearing the stories behind the builds, keep going don't mind me
Well the X-Camino is another whole story entirely. I figured “How hard could it be to build? It’s not like I was trying to restore it!” I did a thread about it and I just brought it to the top for you. Duane
Actually, 180 square feet of each color. Not for the faint of heart, I can assure you. 60 square feet per hide, 3 hides per color. Lots of cows paid the ultimate price to keep us all happy.
Yeah, That's 3 hides of Red, Orange, Black, and Pearl White. Twelve cows in total. When you look at Brads interior it looks like the rear seat has buckets, but they aren't. What they did was cut the seat springs. Then they hand carved pieces of Maple (I think), covered them with black leather and put them down the center. Then they made completely different seat foams, and put the covers on to make the seat LOOK like buckets. The rear shelf goes straight across the back, like the regular production pieces do, but has a long center tongue that goes all the way down to the bottom of the rear seat top. This finishes up the bucket seat look. I am not even going to go into how they made the front buckets, that was just crazy, but will say this. They look like high backs but they aren't. Then to top it off the seat covers were not installed onto the seats by the regular methods. There are very few hog rings holding the covers to the frames. Whoever designed this interior must have made design sketches of how he/she wanted it to look. Then some poor guy/guys had to take that idea and make it into reality. They were some pretty smart people, although the bucket seat look, for the rear seats, was often done on the show cars, so this was probably not their first rodeo. We had a hard enough time trying to replicate it and figure out how everything was installed. It's a good thing I had Alan Wance working for me. He is the guy that sewed up all my hard to do seat covers, and did furniture upholstery on the side. (I let him do it in my shop.) Without his knowledge these could not have been made. Sadly he has passed, but his work lives on. I have a few upholstered pieces of Antique furniture in my house that he did. I think about him all the time. The door panels were another deal entirely, with the front armrests being unique 1-off pieces, and the "GSX" emblems were held on by the smallest all-thread rod I have ever seen, with the smallest nuts on the end. The term "Mouse nuts" would not even apply. They were so small you could probably call them "Cricket nuts". (When I took them off I put them in a box, and then in a bigger box, so I would not loose them.) Just a crazy interior, and after I was done Kleiner had to figure out how to put it all back in the car. Fun days. Duane
I have one funny story about Brad's interior. While it was in my shop I was worried all the time that something would happen to it. I & my people never told anyone we had it until after everything was gone. We kept it all together in a pile, and kept it covered up. Anyway, once a guy came in to drop off some car seats and we had the cover off at the time because we were looking at it. He sees it and says "God what an ugly interior." I of course came out with something like, "Yeah it's amazing what some people will do." He never knew what he was looking at. Duane
Here's a story...I met Brad in 1983 during my college days in Columbus, Ohio. There was a Muscle Car day at National Trail Raceway. I didn't have gas money so I rode my 10 speed bike out to the show. Met a guy in the stands with a GS shirt on so started chatting with him. After the show he offered me a ride back. We put my 10 speed in the trunk of the GSX prototype and drove back to the storage place where I had my recently bought blue 66 GS to check it out. Then he drove me back to my apartment complex where my wise ass buddy told Brad 'Nice Chevelle' (he knew the difference). I recall Brad saying this (first) resto cost him about $6k. It sure was quite an experience getting a ride in such a great car, and with a cool fellow GS owner.
Here is a quick story about my buddy Alan Wance, who did Brad’s interior. He was working on an antique sofa for a woman customer, and while he was taking it apart he found a diamond engagement ring. It had a pretty good size rock in it and he was wondering what to do. I mean it could have been in that sofa for 50 to 100 years. Once the couch was finished and the lady came to pick it up, Alan asked her if she ever lost anything expensive near it. She told him she had lost her engagement ring years ago and could never find it. Alan just handed it back to her. You should have seen that woman and her daughter cry. Duane
Great stories!!! Brad a couple of questions about the Prototype: Did you know it was a Buick show car or the GSX Prototype when you bought it off the car lot or did you think it was some guys 70s crazy interior/body work GS like Ryan's "3rd Times a Charm" customized GS 350? Was that 1983 $6K just paint and body work? That still a lot of cash back then for a high school/college kid.
