1974 - At Last The Upholstery

I think we are getting up to around 1974 now, and at last I am almost ready for upholstery. I had little or no idea of what to do, so at the time one of the committee of the VDC was Gill Taylor, an absolute expert on 28 Chevs. I had previously gone down to Werribee to see Gill as once I cracked the fitting of the top of the vac tank, thinking it was the end of the world, rang Gill, he says come on down, had it fixed in 15 minutes and I was on my way back to Melbourne. I noticed at the time that Gill was just finishing a 28 Chev Tourer which later won the VDC concourse, a beautiful car. The next time I saw Gill was when I had no windscreen frame, just uprights, and in those days before eBay, things like this were almost impossible to find unless you knew someone. Luckily for me Gill had a NOS surround he was going to put on his 28, so he gave me his old rusty one, which I can proudly say that with a lot of bronzing by Les Francis and a fair chunk of filler by me is still serving me well and is only now 35 years later showing its age.

Getting back on track I mentioned to Gill that I was ready for the upholstery, did he know anyone. Did he indeed. His concourse upholstery was done by a couple of very old guys out at Maidstone, called Dove and Carmichael. But before you do that said Gill, you better come down to my place and do a template of the side curtains. I said what, Gill said you need steel frames for the upholsterers to make the side curtains. So it was off to Werribee again with lots of paper and pencils. Took a sample of the four side curtains, came home and made the frames. Next problem was in those days no one was making the fitting pins or brackets that hold the curtain to the door. Several weeks of fabrication, welding, bending, lots of hand filing, and then chrome plated.

In the meantime I had purchased the hood bows from a dealer in Sydney, only to find on arrival they were slightly under bent. So it was a bath tub full of boiling water, each bow soaked until it started to unbend, and the forced into a jig with the right profile.

So at last the car is on a Tandem trailer ready for the trip from Boronia to Maidstone, the side curtain frames are held in, and the hood bows are fitted and held up by rope. I arrive at Dove and Carmichael's, unload the car, and start to talk to both the guys wondering how they could still be doing such tedious work in their advanced years. Anyway all I had to do was say "I want my upholstery, side curtains, hood and carpets just like what you did for Gill Taylor". End of story, did not have to explain anything else. Would you believe that either one or the both of them were on the production line in Adelaide at General Motors Holden, doing 28 Chevs, when they were new. As a comparison to modern prices, for the whole job, seats, hood, carpets and side curtains, the grand total was approx $850. A lot of money then, but now very cheap. The only sour point was the car was delivered to them with no windscreen, and motor not running. It seems that when they finished it was left outside during a very heavy rain storm. They had the sense to remove the front carpet, but when I got home I found the front door inner trim panels were severely buckled and warped. So after calling a few wise heads the suggestion was to soak in a bath of boiling water (sound familiar ?) then place under a very heavy flat weight. By this time my wife was used to my stupid antics and probably thought, here he goes again. All was well that ended well, and the upholstery was finished.

That's about all I can think of in relation to the upholstery, and the next posting will be on the final assembly and getting the beast ready for registration.