Seat Cover Details

[Clatter]

OK, so here we go forward with the quest...

Putting this out there in the hope we can suss out what is correct for our cars.

Here is a difference between aftermarket, and '67 factory OG seat covers; the number of heat seams.
My OG front seat covers have nine heat seams, and the reproductions have seven:

Does anybody know if this is also the case for any other years?

Looks like early cars only had seven seams:

And same for '66..

So,
It looks like Nine seams is a '67-only thing..
Can anyone confirm this for later cars?
How many seams did they put on high-backs (if any)?


Any help is appreciated here... Thanks in advance.
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[HenrikL]

What is the brand name of the aftermarket seat cover in the first picture?

[Tram]

The '68 owner's manual shows 9 heat seams too.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/archives/manuals/68owners/4.jpg
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[Clatter]

Thanks Tram!

Anybody out there got a pic of some OG late model seats??

Anyone?
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[KTPhil]

[Clatter]

Anything after 1967...
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[stonecoldcars]

My 68 fasty had 9 originally , my new have 7.
[img]

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My build thread(The desert Rat). http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=653395

[Donnie strickland]

1971 seats, also 9 seams:

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71 Elm Green FI A/T Squareback

[Mike Fisher]

This '68-'69 highback w/chrome trim has 9 seams.

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https://imgur.com/user/FisherSquareback/posts
69 FI/AT square Daily Driver
66 sunroof,67,70,71,71,71AT,72,72AT,73 Parts
two 57 oval ragtops sold
'68 Karmann Ghia sold

Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you end up with a lot of scum on the top! - Russ_Wolfe/Edward Abbey

[Clatter]

Thanks for the pics and info, guys..!

Hopefully, they might invest in tooling up to make the seat covers correct.

It's a money thing, as always;
It costs money to have prototype heat seaming dies made out of metal.

And many in this hobby don't even know or care what was correct!

Do any of you care if your covers are right, or not?

Would you avoid new covers knowing that the ones you can get aren't right?
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[Clatter]

[Erik G]

[stonecoldcars]

[Bobnotch]

[Clatter]

[Bobnotch]

[savannanotch]

My 69 euro Notch has original lowback seats with 9 seams .

[Erik G]

See how much nicer "correct" is?

I dint think TMI will do the partial upper seams either.
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Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

[Clatter]

MMMmmmm... Yes, very nice.
Euro late roll-over low-backs..

With nine lovely seams in all of their glory...!

Now,
For a few props where credit is deserved:

TMI does do the partial seams correctly, at least with regard to their length.
('66-only seven-seam style roll-over, with early two-tone added)

From this thread, where a custom set of early/late hybrid low-backs were made:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=568529&highlight=tmi

For the less initiated out there; low-backs were non-rollover until '66.
They also had only seven seams until '67, when low-backs went to eight seams.
Late-models from '68-up had nine seams, both high and low-back models.
(At least what I have learned so far)..


Speaking to people at TMI, they have been slowly making their parts more correct.
They started doing roll-overs a few years back, which is good(!).

They also just did the door panels more correctly, with the seams along the bottom being added.

The above custom set, with the two-tone is new, too.

So,
They are improving the product.
Obviously, they aren't getting rich by making VW anything.
It only costs them to make their products more correct.
I consider myself lucky that Mario was there to push the door panel project through.

What I am trying to accomplish here, is perhaps, getting them to make the tooling for the heat seams on later models correctly..

The custom two-tone set in the pics above doesn't represent a significant investment as far as the tooling goes.
If a customer can pay a little more to have different pieces of material stitched together, that doesn't cost a lot more.

My understanding is, that making another set of dies (from scratch - prototype machined) is required to change the pattern on heat seams.

So,
Adding another pair of heat seams is a totally different project than making covers out of two different materials.
You don't just 'add a couple of seams on'..

Any manufacturing business needs to recoup the investment (or at least most of it) made to tool up for a run.
They already tooled up for the roll-over seaming,
And also door panel seams.
It's unfortunate that those dag-blasted '66-only seven-seam roll-overs came to the party!
They mighta made the correct nine-seam tooling for all of the late models when they did it!

So,
Hoping that enough out there know and/or care that their aftermarket seat covers are correctly made.
If so,
there is a good chance that they might just tool up!

There are seven years' worth of cars that would benefit from this nine-seam tooling.
There are only two years that benefitted from their roll-over tooling,
So chances are pretty good!

But only if there are people out there who care.
And that doesn't seem to be the case.

So,
If you care,
Say so!
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[Bobnotch]