The factory trim on this Eos just screamed "German saloon car." Various shades of grey and black... it was very functional and, to be honest, incredibly dull.
When they were looking to buy one of these cars, the owners had a fairly specific spec in mind: it had to be red, it had to be the TSi variant and it had to have heated leather seats. Unfortunately, they could either have a red TSi with non-heated cloth or they could have a different colour and trim level, but with heated leather. So they chose the first option and then came to see me!
Manufacturing techniques for cars have come a long way and one of the recent(ish) developments is the rise of injection moulded parts. Usually headrests, the cover is fitted to a jig, the posts are inserted and then the foam is injected into the cover so it forms the required shape and creates a finished headrest. The downside to this, from a trimmer's point of view, is that the cover is essentially bonded to the headrest itself and that makes a retrim much more difficult and time-consuming. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered that the complete rear seats on this Eos had been constructed in such a fashion!
That revelation presented a number of challenges but they were overcome with a lot of hard work. So the seats, doorcard and rear quarter inserts, armrest and gear gaiter are all made from Crest Shelly black leather hide and finished with a red topstitch. The steering wheel, gearknob and handbrake handle are the same, but hand-stitched instead. The steering wheel rim has also been thickened up a touch at the owners' request.
Beneath the front seat covers, a set of carbon fibre heating elements has been fitted. These have a 5 stage control and the switches have been very carefully mounted into blanks above the gearstick in the centre console.
The transformation is complete. Gone is the drab and uninspired factory interior, replaced by a very classy black leather cabin. There's just enough red stitching to make it interesting, without being overpowering. And it's nicely timed for some summer motoring too!
