I love my basic interior!

[rick3000]

I am not going to say the basic interior is better or worst than full leather, but I do not find my leather interior hard to care for. I clean/condition the leather every few months and it still looks like new. It's not hard to maintain at all, and looks great. Plus, leather is far more resilient than plastic. If I was ordering a new Porsche I would opt for the leather interior but wouldn't pay for leather wrapped air vents like the previous owner.

[CRCGuy]

For a moment I thought this was going to be a post about ripping out the interior!

I wonder if anyone here has done that and how much weight it saves.

I almost did that to my 95 Miata before I sold it--probably would have been louder but then, it's a drop top would have felt good to discard all that padding/cloth/vinyl and get it down to the basics! to improve fuel economy and save the planet of course.

[ekam]

Checked out my friend's V8 Vantage again last night... the whole interior is full of leather (Yes even inside the doors where you can't see when the doors are closed), roof is fully lined with suede. Now that's what I want if I got an AM.

You guys should see some Ferrari's old leather dash shrinking due to wear/age. Not fun.

[Kirk]

I gotta agree with ekam on this one. I've got a Boxster with the basic plastic dash and I've got a 996 C4S that came standard with full leather. Sure the leather is nice, but quite honestly I think the plastics in my Boxster S are good enough that it's really hard to tell the difference between the two of them (both are black). I don't think I would have paid extra for the leather any way. They stretch it so thin and give the plastic the same kind of texture such that you have to look really, really closely to tell the difference. In fact, I just got my C4S and still need to spend some time trying to figure out exactly what is leather and what is plastic so that I can treat them appropriately! Now I was also looking at buying a Maserati and in that car the dash leather was thicker and more supple and I definitely felt like it added some refinement to the car.

Kirk

[CRCGuy]

But doesn't the leather have stitching that sets it apart from plastic?

[BoxsterLewis]

My leather has Shrunk on my driver door and top of my dash Ive tried oil leather rejuvinator and all sorts of stuff but wont undo the srinkage. The dash doesnt look to bad but the door is not pretty. Happen to anyone else?

[Kirk]

Originally Posted by CRCGuy

But doesn't the leather have stitching that sets it apart from plastic?

In some places there is stitching so it's easy to tell apart. Other places it does not, so it's very difficult.

Kirk

[edevlin]

"Leather adds about 20 lb to the car."

Wow, I am suprised it adds that much weight, interesting,

Ed