S-A Design® - Automotive Upholstery and Interior Restoration

Develop the skills to give your vehicle's worn-out interior new life!

Starting with a list of necessary tools, author Fred Mattson guides you through all the required tasks, including seat restoration; door panel removal, patterning, assembly, and installation; headliner removal and installation; carpet cutting; and even convertible top restoration. The easy-to-follow, step-by-step presentation allows for a thorough understanding of all the processes. Every photo provides a hands-on approach that shows you how to repair and restore a car's interior to concours, show-quality specifications.

After disassembling and gutting your car, it is easy to feel that you're in over your head when it comes to the upholstery. This is why so many do-it-yourself restorers outsource the work, at considerable expense, to an experienced upholstery shop. Taking the time to acquire the skills for upholstery restoration may feel like a daunting task, but what if an experienced upholsterer presented every skill you needed to restore upholstery yourself?

Other restoration books may show you beautifully restored interiors, but they don't show you how to produce them. This book helps you learn the skills needed with instruction from a professional upholsterer, saving you thousands of dollars over outsourcing the restoration. If you are interested in saving money, doing a complete restoration yourself, or simply want to know how it's done, this book is a handy addition to your automotive library.

Fred Mattson
Fred Mattson began working on car interiors as a teenager in the 1970s by hand-stitching inserts into his own 1969 Oldsmobile and working on the cars of several friends in his neighborhood.

Soon after opening a full-time upholstery business in 1980, Fred's auto trimming career expanded to sewing car interiors for many prestigious upholstery shops and restoration specialists in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, metropolitan area. Having earned the nickname Fearless, Fred works his magic on hopeless projects, restoring them to factory condition by fabricating missing parts and reconditioning the potentially hopeless. Fred now restores vintage American cars. His clients have won numerous awards and trophies and credit their wins to the high quality and correctness of detail of their interiors and convertible tops. Fred's other titles with CarTech Books include Automotive Upholstery & Interior Restoration and Convertible Top Restoration and Installation.