With all the cool modification taking place
under the hood and on the outside of The Mistress, the interior was still
pretty bland! The inside of the car had pretty much be neglected
except for a few billet knobs. It was pretty ho-hum! It was time to turn my
attention to the interior! And who better to help me out than the
friendly folks at MRT!
(www.mrt-direct.com).
So once again I found myself talking with Scott Hoag, looking for his
advice! Scott pointed out that MRT was now carrying a whole line of
interior packages
(http://mrt-direct.com/2005/Pages/intpackage.php) and I should check
them out, especially the black with yellow insert ones! In keeping with the
"retro" feel of The Mistress I decided on the Mach 1 seats with yellow
inserts! Due to budget constraints I went with the less expensive
"Leather Look" option. Scott agreed with me.... Mach 1 seats with yellow
center would be WAY COOL!
The big day arrives and the new seat cover show up. It's off to MRT
to have the covers installed! As usual the guys did a fantastic job!
I snapped a few pictures as they worked on installing the covers. So
here is a brief overview of how the covers are installed.
Since these are actual REPLACEMENT seat covers the seats must be removed and
disassembled. These are not the inexpensive slip-over covers!
Rear seat removed
Drivers seat removed
The guys decided to work on the back seats first. The back seats actually
were pretty easy. They are easily removed from the car and the seat
covers are clipped on and have a couple of push pins.
The guys pull metal frame out of the top half of the rear seat
The cover is slipped over the foam
The metal frame is reinserted
The first piece is done!
1/2 way done with the rear seats!
Now the bottom 1/2
The rear seats are done!!!
Now it was time to tackle the front seats!
The front seats were definitely more involved, especially the drivers side.
The front seats needed to be taken apart to separate the top from the
bottom. This involved popping the side covers off the seats,
disconnecting the lumbar support in the drivers seat and removing the
plastic tubes that are for the headrests to slide into. The front
seats also used "hog ring" to attach the covers to the seats. Hog
rings are a specialized type of staple that is commonly used in upholstery.
If you were to do this install at home, a set of hog ring pliers might be
something you don't have laying around! Heck, I had never even heard of a
hog ring before!
With the seat back off, the guys remove the stock cover which is attached
with "hog rings"
The seat disassembled
The guys put the finishing touches on!
The finished seat! The yellow is very close to Screaming Yellow!
The drivers seat goes in!
The final results
Once again another outstanding job by MRT! I am completely satisfied with
the seat covers! They look great and they are incredibly comfortable!
They are a vast improvement over the stock Ford covers. These new covers
have definitely added the much needed Bling to the inside of The Mistress!
The yellow inserts really pop! You can't walk by the car now without
looking inside to check out the seats! So a big "Thank You" goes out
to Scott and the whole crew at MRT for helping me continue the evolution!
Thanks, guys!
SEAT UPDATE! I've gotten a few comments on how
loose and wrinkly the new seat covers look. They were right! The
reason is the above pictures were taken during the install when the seats
covers just came out of the box where they were all folded up! After a
couple days the wrinkles have disappeared and the seats look MUCH BETTER!!!
Check out the new pictures!
