Refurbish stock seats?

The seats in the XJR are rough. They are still comfortable but look like hell. Anyone have any suggestions or links on how to cheaply make this seat look better?

Crispy leather? Stained cloth? Craptastic 80's GM style pillowtop velour? Tears? fading? Stinks of previous owner farts?

Come on man we need a bit more info here? 

This is the drivers seat of my new to me 95 Jaguar XJR-6. The seats are a nice bolstered unit that is Recaro like. I was thinking some sort of vinyl patching but I have never done anything like this before. Anything that will get it looking good without standing out horribly would be great

Recover them.  I've done my RN Truck, the Esprit (RIP), 2 motorcycles.  Just takes time and a couple hundred dollars worth of leather.

In reply to Dr. Hess :

 So the next question would be "how do you go about doing this"? I've searched around and I can't really find any DIY write ups on the Internet about recovering seats. 

Here's what I do:

Buy some leather of the color you want.  I've used "garment" leather, which I think is "3 oz" or so, and easy to work with, and heavier (4-5 oz) leather because that's all they had in black at the place I bought leather from.  I don't think they survived the depression, or are not selling leather anymore.  Anyway, there's plenty on ebay.  Depending on your seats, you will probably need 1 to 2 full hides for 2 front seats.  The Esprit took one full hide and I use everything, including the brand.  It was real tight.  My motorcycle seats, I did in goat (kid) skin, bought on ebay.  Here's the chopper:

Before and after on my dresser:

I think I took the Esprit (RIP) seat pics down.  Too painful.  Anyway, after sourcing your leather, pull the seats out, take the covers off, split every single seam, take the pieces, lay on the leather, mark, cut out, sew new pieces together, (I use my grandmother's hand crank Singer sewing machine, a denim needle and "upholstery thread,") and put the covers back on the way they came off.  It's not really hard, just time consuming.

On my LX470, I used LSeat.com.  If they have a pattern for your car, that is the way to go.  I couldn't buy the leather for what they charge for complete covers.  Here's their Jag section:

LSEAT.COM

I still had to fix a few of their screwups, but you can't beat the overall set for the price.  I would try them first for anything before making my own covers again.  Here is their covers installed on the ZAV:

It was still 3 days work, but I saved maybe 1-2 weeks of sewing for an hour or two in the evenings.

Get some hog ring pliers and some real upholstery hog rings off amazon for the installation.

Here's a good reference

Anyone ever pay someone else to do the work?

In reply to RossD :

At least once a month. Here locally is a company I can entrust with vintage Ferrari stuff and it is EXPENSIVE. There is a guy who can't sew a straight line for more than two inches who is ridiculously cheap but still not worth it. I am still looking for a middle ground. 

Edit for more info:

The expensive and talented shop is always swamped with insurance work, Lear jet repair work, our type of restoration work and oddly enough restaurant booths. It can be tough to get in on a decent schedule.

The cheap shop is always very busy with RV's and the Harley crowd doing fringe seats and saddlebags. His work is appalling. But at his prices he is turning away jobs because he can't get to them.

And then there are the repair guys who travel from used car lot to lot working out of the back of their van. They can do a pretty amazing transformation on a worn interior for a couple of hundred bucks or less. Gluing up and hiding tears and scratches, redying, blending colors. It might be worth finding your locals who do this.  They do not advertise, you will have to ask people in the upholstery industry or used car lot fields.

BTW if anyone knows a good upholstery guy who wants to relocate to the PNW, we are looking to bring it in house and are hiring.

RossD said:

Anyone ever pay someone else to do the work?

I had a quote on my Supra seats for 600$, at that price I'll try it myself. 

How can lseat.com NOT have NAs?

Contacted lseat.com. They don't make covers for the XJR. However, they requested that I send me my stock covers to make a pattern and I would get both front seats for $150! Sold! Guess I am giving up on making the $1008 challenge group. 

That's a bargain. 

In reply to singleslammer :

That's awesome! Let us know how it goes.

Color Glow is one of the companies that goes from dealership to dealership.

Having rebuilt my 1970 Mach1 seats...  I've done it... but not sure I'd do it again.....