The Lotus Grand Tourers

Does anybody know where lotus sourced thier tweed fabric trim, or know of a supplier. Ive tried the usual suspects with no gain. I just need enough to get a trimmer to do the drivers bolster, or, has anyone got a seat they dont want, or any form of trim in tweed that they dont need thats got a bit of tweed. My cars got red half leather and the grey tweed trim, but any colour of leather would do if its got some tweed I could salvage. Ive tried finding the stuff on line and its sending my eyes batty.

Bash

How patient are you? I have a plan forming to reupholster all my seats (new cloth, re-use existing leather), so when I do there will be a cars-worth of used grey tweed cloth lying around. Some brittle with age and UV, some stained, some worn, but there must be some good patches in there somewhere.

Whether the cloth will be the same as yours, I don't know. How soon this will happen, also unknown, but hopefully I'll get at least one done in then next couple of months (probably the rears first). Front passenger seat might be your best bet, I don't know how asymmetric they are, but that seat will have the best combination of lack of wear / stain / age-brittling. If you're interested, I could be persuaded to adjust my priorities.

For another approach, LotusBits have a whole shipping container full of old seats. When you get in there it's remarkable how many variations there are in shape and style as well as colour! Of course they will also include Esprit, Elite/Eclat and who knows what else. I searched in vain for one identical to my car ('90 Excel SE in grey leather / grey cloth), but at least found one the same shape that I could switch frames with (my drivers seat had a broken frame). I'm sure you'd be welcome to have a dig, I wouldn't want to guarantee success.

I'd say the chances of anyone stocking identical new fabric to what's on you car is probably very low. But I'll be very happy to be proven wrong, it would help my reupholstery project!

Sounds good. The interior of my car is generally very good.... apart from where the drivers bolster has worn thro so I would be very interested in your kind offer. I went to Mikes and had a root around and failed to find what I needed.... and more importantly kept my wallet shut when he was showing me his new billet cylinder head otherwise I would have ended up rebuilding the Lotus engine instead of enjoying the V8, although I did buy a few other bits and enjoyed the visit. Let me know what you have left and perhaps I can give you a visit.... if you can afford the biscuits.

Bash