Wow, Harry Metcalfe and his Espada here also! I really love reading your contributions in various magazines, in particuler EVO. And this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl6UYDLW1WU , I just had a look at it over the full length once again, absolutely great and so positively different from some other presenters. And rarely can one see an Espada driven along Italian road with squeeling tires! You indeed are my all time great in motor journalism! Äh, one point. You apparently do not need your interior rear view mirror (see e.g. about at 9:00 in the video). If you at some time consider throwing it out of the window, please tell me where, so that I can catch it . Mine is unfortunately non-original, in contrast to yours .... . Your interior looks really nice. If mine had been that nice, I would have left it as it is. But I was sitting in a cloud of yellow dust every time I touched a leathered panel .... Cheers, Bernhard
Congrats for the nice interior, looks great with silver body. And my admiration for doing It yourself!
After reading your last messages yesterday i have been downstairs taking a few pictures for you regarding a few things. I start with the globebox. You are right, it is open by the top. This is what mine looks like . It is the way she left the factory 44 years ago. Not bad for not being a RR... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Regarding the wholes in the back of the seats, i do not think you should do them after drinking wine. At least mine are perfectly in line one with the other. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Since i was taking pictures, just a few more. Do not tell me anything regardig the window elevator of fiat 131 interruptor, i have the originals ready to be installed. Here you can see also the right door without yellow dust illnes (cross my fingers), my "copilot" seat, the glove box in the middle of the front seats, the original back seats and a couple more details which i cannot name. How do you see the leather, i am concern with the front seats, the rear are almost new. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Hi Bernard, thanks for your kind comments, the videos I do are just a way of sharing some of the crazy experiences I enjoyed in my cars over the past few years. The Espada remains a bit of a favourite in the collection, it's one of those cars that always proves better to drive than I ever expect it to be and has also proved to be turn-key reliable over the four some years I've owned it. I wonder if I should be writing that.. Ferrarichat is one of the very few forums I regularly dip into, what I love is the remarkable depth of knowledge you find on here. I'm learning all the time and continue to be amazed by some of the rebuilds some members undertake, like your interior rebuild on your Espada. Hope you get to enjoy the car again soon!
Take some more photos of your front seats, preferably with a camera that has a zoom lens so that you can compose the shots better. I'm not replacing all the leather in mine but I did so with both front seats because they were beyond the "patina" stage. Same with the arm rests and one rear seat bottom cushion. The rest is getting re-dyed. Black must be the easiest of all re-dye jobs.
Looking at all those pictures you guys post of 'intimate details' of your cars, and considering the price they sold for when new (for instance, in 1978 an Espada cost more than a Merc 450 SEL 6.9, the brand's top model in that era) you sometimes wonder how on earth they got away with it. Sometimes
@Alberto Many thanks for all these detail photos. Looking at your interior, if mine had been like that, I would have left it as it is. I like this slight patina of use actually more than the totally new look. But mine, unfortunately was far beyond. Not only the yellow dust issue everywhere, but plenty of seams rubbed through also, some "restitched" in an awful manner. 20 years on, the interior will hopefully have this desired kind of "patina" like yours. Your front seats should actually be treatable by a profeesional, without the need for making them new. Having just the seats redone with new leather would presumably not make you happy at all, because they will look so different from the rest of the interior. I am amazed about the neat alignment your holes in the backside of the front seats. Maybe next weekend I will make a photo of mine for your comparison and entertainment . Cheers, Bernhard
Harry, this is even more tru with a well sorted Jarama (I own one since more than two decades). The shorter wheelbase and the engine positioned some 10 cm further back makes it amazingly sporty. Yes, a well looked after classic Lamborghini is typically turn-key reliable, just my experience with the Jarama as welland hopefully with the Espada now as well. But first, typically, one needs repair nearly everything which others previously avoided due to costs. My repair list of the Espada is about three pages long, one line for each job only. Until just a few years ago, these cars often were more worth in parts than as a complete car ... It is indeed amazing how nice the Espada looks in red. I would not have imagined that prior to looking at your video. Cheers, Bernhard
Well, I have been looking again and again into my various books featuring Espadas in the last months for obvious reasons. Most of them are from the 80s and 90s, so that the chances for photos of unmodified interiors is higher than in more recent books showing off mainly restored cars. One interesting comment in the text was that apparently the factory finish of the interior was so bad that some customers brought their brand new Espada directly to their trimmer for redoing... . I do not know whether this is true for the series III, but with respect to the first two series, I in the meanwhile understand this comment. One might now discuss the aspects "over-restauration", "correct/not correct" etc. . I am not sure whether I want an Espada just like it left the factory .... . Cheers, Bernhard
That was the rap on Italian cars back then and for a very long time afterwards. But you were buying a very exclusive low volume car so some things about these cars simply cannot compete with volume manufacturers where much more engineering can be invested. Sometimes the very design being as wild as it is can lead to wear issues you just won't see in a more mundane design. Fit and finish should have been much better regardless. Speaking of 6.9s ... I have a friend who had two of them a his and hers. He was fanatical about taking care of his cars. He's owned a Cord Sportsman in HS, a Gullwing (new) and a slew of other unique high end cars. He had to get one of the 6.9s with silver paint repainted as the paint failed. It did that back then. His power window motors and tracks failed as well and they looked to built like a tank. So no one is perfect.
Hi Bernhard, I own a totally original series 3 and I am impressed by the finish of the interior after 45 years. Mine was never restored but always maintained at a very high level. I especially love the little détails such as the stitching on the back windows handles, impressive, and surely quite expensive to re-do. I am pretty sure that some of the bad press this car has is due to the fact that they were not maintained right for a very long period of time as many owners were attracted by their low prices and didn't maintain them the way they deserve.
I have this picture here. My concern is the drivers seat left part. Sorry for those speakers of the 90´s Image Unavailable, Please Login
Your car looks similar to the condition of mine when I got it. My driver's seat was a bit worse of the top corner. So I went to the upholstery shop to discuss the idea of patching/replacing the damaged panels and that was about 1/2 the cost of full rebuilds of the front seats. I was hoping to retain some patina and save some money but the idea of sewing the old pieces of leather to the new ones left me uncomfortable about it's durability. I also had to completely rebuild one rear seat bottom cushion. So I went with totally new. It's still very hard to accurately determine how close your front seat is to either splitting a seam or a crack from that photo. If you think that's a possibility then just recover them. The good thing is that black is a lot easier to get right. You might want to consider extensive conditioning of the leather and then re-dying them black. Then see how that goes. It's not that expensive. I haven't gotten to the dye process as yet but there are numerous threads about this here on Fchat and many other places. I also queried a couple guys who recondition cars as a part of their restoration business. There are varying approaches. But you do need to get the oils back into the leather before you dye it. You also cannot have a lot of oil all over the surface or the dye won't won't stick or look right. Do some reading. Lots of it. Don't jump to conclusions early on in the learning process. Bernhardt's interior needed a lot of rebuilding, not just new leather. Good luck.
Thanks your advise staatsof. I will not do anything till i find the right people to do it. I do not want a "brand new " driver seat.
The biggest problem on an Espada re-dye job is all of that stitching on the center console, dash and arm rests. I redid my front seats and armrests not only because I had to but also because they'll get the most use again. BTW, here's what my driver's seat looked like. Not confidence inspiring for partial repairs ... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I have not read all the post but I just wanted to throw this out there. Leatherique is a great product. It did wonders on my leather. It was dry, cracked, dull. What it did with the cracks, and there were a lot, was to moisten them...almost puff them up, and made it blend in more with the color while not losing its character. So, the cracks are there but a lot less noticeable. I also think this process was a big factor in making the seat look refreshed. Though not the original color on the leather, it has solidified that I made the right decision in making sure I kept the leather. I am hoping to take care of my Countach leather this season. It is so easy to do yourself. Latex gloves, sunshine, brush, and rags, and half a day. The 1st photos are it with the product on, out in the sun. The 3rd is finished and as you can make out the cracks are there but the were worse before. Bob, them are some cracks! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
And that was after the leatherique prepping, several times! It softened everything up but the two front seats just needed replacement. The rest of the leather will be fine though. I think this guys black seats will color up very nice with a dye job as long as he doesn't have the sort cracks, seam spits and outright holes that my drivers seat did.
Looking at the first two photos, I believe I would have fainted over this glossy appearance . The final result looks very nice. Cheers, Bernhard
There's a cleaner, a rejuvenator and then dye to the leatherique system. Depending upon the age and condition of the finish on the leather it can remove color. It did a bit of that on mine but since I have committed to re-dying along with some replacement it didn't bother me. A lot of my leather was great but not those front seats (passenger was far better) nor the armrests and shift boot was wasted. The shiny appearance is the oil before it's been absorbed/evaporated. Leaving it the hot sun or in a black plastic bag in the sun helps.
The intermediate glossy appearance will probably be of particular appeal for any person with a latex fetish ... Cheers, Bernhard
I am considering to somewhat improve the rather boring appearance of the Espada interior. I love eBay, because if you seerch for "Lamborghini Espada", you find many amazing products, where the listing title says "Fits: Lamborghini Espada". For example I found this way the long term not available oxygen sensors for the exhaust system. I fitted two of them and cut the superfluous electric cables off. The car has really improved by this! Now today I find various parts, which I never knew as correct for the car and now am amazed to have such nice options of individualization. For example the following parts all are intended specifically (!!!) for the Espada. What do you think? Shall I take these and will these up to date unknown options make the value of my car going stratospheric? Cheers and have a nice weekend, Bernhard Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
