The owner of this 997 Turbo Cabriolet parked his car for a few months to ride out late winter roads in February 2020, and then the pandemic started and he wasn’t driving anywhere for several months. When he finally went to pull it out of its slumber, he learned that the turbos needed replacement, and the car sat for a few more months. Fast forward to the summer of 2022 and the turbos have been replaced and the car is brought in to refresh the steering wheel and driver’s seat bolster. That’s when we found out something had been living in the rear seat and decided to dine on the lower seat cushion.
I’m pretty good at sourcing used parts. Chances of finding another Cocoa colored cushion were low, but I figured I could at least get the right part and dye it to match. I pull the part number and start to search. I’m used to having to pay the Porsche tax on parts, but always take comfort knowing that you can get almost any part for any Porsche ever made. A new one was almost $1400 and a used set was running in the $300 range. Remember this is a dinner plate sized piece of plastic with almost no cushioning, covered in leather. So the owner asked me to repair it as best as possible.
I trimmed back the gnawed areas to get a clean edge. Filled in with some cloth, and then started building up layers with liquid leather. This trailing edge of the seat is fairly hidden from view so I didn’t really try to match the leather grain, but just tried to get a uniform shading. The dents in the leather were from a box where the new turbos sat for a few months. They came mostly out with a heat gun. Pretty good for a couple of hours of work.
