Presently, leather is the undisputed preference of “premium” upholstery used in cars today. But in the years of the Great Brougham Epoch, velour often proved just as popular, if not more so.
Although not the first example of a velour interior, the 1972 Oldsmobile famously introduced button-tufted loose-pillow velour seats in its 1972 Ninety-Eight Regency, bringing both velour and loose-pillow seating to the masses. Other brands would hastily follow, taking part in a trend that would last the next two decades.
As the years went on, velour simply fell out of favor. The increasing popularity of German and Japanese luxury cars played a large part in this, as their less-adorned and business-like interiors generally favored leather in top models. Velour or any other cloth, if offered, was usually reserved for lower-spec models, leading to its image of inferiority. Today it’s a virtually obsolete material in cars, except in some Asian markets where it is still preferred.
Personally, I’ve never been a fan of velour. I don’t find it particularly comfortable, and like leather, it still gets hot. Also, in comparison to velour, leather is easier to clean and does not absorb odors as easily. But what do you think? Should velour make a comeback? Or do you think leather is the only choice when it comes to premium auto upholstery?
Do you have to ask? Velour or cloth! I wouldn’t even consider a car with leather or “pleather”. That said, my s/o got a new car this year, and she just had to have leather (real or imaginary). I hate it for the usual temperature reasons, and it isn’t as compliant as cloth so my aging body lets me know it. Sure would’ve been happier with the base model with cloth and no bang your head moonroof, but it’s her car. And in 8 years it will look like excrement while the interior in her old car will still look almost new.
In fact, I detest leather so much that I almost bought a nearly new 1992 Corvette with cloth interior because that was the last year cloth was available and it was sooooo comfy.
I much prefer a top quality cloth interior as it will last the test of time. Most leathers do not last the test of time. They crack and I personally find them to be hard to keep clean once dirt is engrained into the surface.I also find leather to be to slippery. I remember the leather seats in my father’s 1974 450 SL quite clearly. Every time I hit the brakes I slid forward in the seat.
There is actually only one thing I like in leather and that is my Navy G-1 Leather Flight jacket.
Wow Brendan for the cloth “choices” you show the all-time best velour, the one in the Cadillac D’Elegance. And then the classic flat-woven in the Mercedes.
Except for stand-outs like that I would take leather for its long life and easy cleaning. I have the same leather in my Fleetwood Brougham that you showed in the second pic. Still looks like new after almost 30 years.
In terms of appearance and comfort it’s a wash, though a slight edge goes to the leather for its smell.
Best described by Jeremy Clarkson as “vulgalour.”
High quality velour, definitely. Says “top luxury” to me.
http://i.imgur.com/W2bIr.jpg
Preferably not of the “crushed” variety, though, because for the most part it looks just as if the seat have been poorly upholstered. IMHO, leather is only good if you have small children, or a dog. It may be a more practical choice, but I never liked either the look, or the feel. I also like wool cloth interiors, which look mostly like velour –
http://antiqcar.ru/d/81154/d/4_14.jpg
– but that’s something you don’t see in modern cars any more.
What sort of car is that first one with the Persian rug on the floor? Looks great!
A GAZ Chaika M14 limousine from the late 70s.
Cloth. Besides all the detriments already mentioned of leather, the one that’s the most irritating is it isn’t even really leather at all but that ‘bonded’ leather crap which is a synthetically manufactured covering more akin to vinyl and only uses a fraction of the leather in, say, split-grain leather.
This also explains the odd, chemical smell of any new car with a so-called ‘leather’ interior. Although they try to duplicate the true leather aroma, it simply doesn’t smell like real leather.
in AZ, cloth hands down. leather gets ridiculously hot in the summer here. no black cars, no leather.
I’ve never been a fan of velour — I don’t like the way it looks and I don’t think it’s that comfortable either. As for leather, both real hide and the plastic equivalent are no fun at all in very hot or very cold weather. I’d rather have a decent grade of cloth upholstery (no mouse fur, please).
Good quality velour- my old Citroen had a nice black and grey striped fabric like a broad stripe corduroy. Grippy and soft and didn’t burn your bum in summer.
Older Mercedes had some very nice velours too.
A buddy of mine had a ’82 Buick Regal with velour seats. Best car for long trips.
Way better than the leather seats in my 2012 Ford.
The crappy Rover SD1 Jeremy Clarkson brought to one of the Top Gear challenges had “plum-coloured vulgarlour upholstery”. Whether it’s vulgar or not I’m not sure of, but I do find velour to feel dirty very quickly. Icky. I prefer cloth.
Velour.
My ’75 Olds 98 Regency has medium blue, clean velour. It has barely any signs of wear. It is durable, and in my view rather elegant. To me, “vulgar” describes the paisley patterns offered on same-era Cadillacs; but the Regency velour is nice, university club style furniture in a classic color. It’s thick, yet floury soft to the touch, and has a huge amount of foam inside. You hold position and you don’t slide around. Passengers unfamiliar with the interior have called it “plush” or said it seemed “velvety”. It has a scent of its own which I find pleasant. Certainly the most living room like interior I’ve experienced.
I’ve owned cars in velour, leather, and cloth. Cloth is okay but most cars with it present it as the cheap option, and support and durability are accordingly low. I love the old leather interiors in 70/80s Cadillacs, a wonderful smell and comfortable…but no thanks on a cold morning or hot afternoon, or to the sensation of the seatbelts being all that prevent you from sliding across the car on a turn. The leather in today’s cars feels cheaper than that old Caddy leather though maybe a bit less slippery. But it’s become so commonplace it feels pedestrian.
Orrin, my ’84 Olds 98 was the velour that was coming to my mind as one of the good ones. The one in my father’s 78 Continental Town Coupe was another. Oldsmobile had a long run of really, really nice velour seats. You remind me though that in a really big car like your Olds, the slide in-slide out operation can be a bit of a chore.
Velour, Ninety Eight style
Leather is great… on the steering wheel, where I touch it with bare skin. I hate leather seats and decided to wait over 2 months to get my 2014 VW CC with fabric seats instead of taking the one with leather standing at the dealer…
+1 and in the winter a heated leather steering wheel is wonderful
However I do not find leather seats that cold in winter (but then both the front and rear seats can be heated in my car). The vinyl seats (naugahyde) in my 71 Riviera were cold in winter and hot in summer, as well as sticky on long trips in warm weather.
My ’79 Mk V Collectors Series is ALL velour, similar to the Fleetwood Talisman and is very, very luxurious. Oddly, the console, seat backs and dash pad are leather, so obviously, the late ‘ 70s were the last vestige of the “cloth is for the rich”. I think that the Cadillac 75 limousine had cloth in back and leather in front through ’76, also.
It just doesn’t wear or tear as easy. No leather unless never exposed to sun or constantly garaged will age as well…
Simple- cloth on any of the older Brougham type cars and leather on today’s stuff to escape that horrible fake harsh sandpaper rough stuff they pass off as cloth.
Bedford cloth or West of England cloth because it wears like iron and is what Rolls Royce used in the 50s.
The velours inside of my car makes me feel like inside a swimming pool ! 😉
I really like your Senator, inside and out !
Here’s a comparable 1987 W126. With a 3.0 liter inline-6.
thanks Johannes.
The cloth interior of the W126 looks really classy and was very common on 280 and 300 SE´s. It was not as durable as velours though….
I think that top grade leather (as used in older Volvos, Jaguars, and Rolls-Royce) is awesome. I think that too grade clothes, such as West Of England, is also awesome. Regular velour a, or the grade of leather found in most passenger cars these days are both awful.
Give me a thick, high grade vinyl (MBtex for instance) and I’m happy. It wears like iron, is effortless to clean, and retains no odors.
It really depends on the car, the style of the seats, and even the type of cloth/fabric/leather/vinyl that is used. I love the mid 80’s Cadillac d’Elegance velour seats, with the millions of buttons and tufted goodness. Same for a late 70’s – early 80’s 98 Regency or a Delta 88 Royale Brougham. They were ultra comfortable in the velour cloth. What about a Buick Park Avenue? Another ultra comfy velour mobile. Now if I think back to my Mom’s ’79 Riviera, she had oyster white leather in that car and those seats were ultra comfortable too. Yet my sister’s ’77 Seville wasn’t as cushy as the Riviera was. Her leather was stiffer than the Riviera’s, and as a result the seats weren’t as comfortable. Dad’s ’82 Country Squire had the luxury interior group with vinyl seats and they were ultra comfortable and soft, too. So I think the material used makes a great difference. I can’t picture any cars of today with velour, as it just wouldn’t seem right.
My 1999 Accord has a very nice cloth interior, not really a true velour but very comfortable and durable to boot. It’s almost as good as my ’93 Accord wagon. That car had the best cloth interior you could ever ask for. It had a fabric that was so durable and comfortable, it must have cost Honda a lot extra to put that cloth interior in its Accords back then. You could tell it was high quality, and even after hitting 250k miles it still looked like new.
Velour/ good cloth all the way. Its amazing to see a comparable car after a few years how the leather has worn messed up look vs the cloth still looking almost like the day it was built. In the late 80 early 90’s the Japanese luxury LS400 and semi luxury Maxima had some of the best velour seats in the market, very good quality and feel! Today the only Japanese cars with any luxury pretensions that still offer cloth is the Maxima and Avalon and hope they continue to offer it!
There has to be something other than leather…because now you can get leather seats in economy cars – the exclusivity is gone. Not only that, the color choices are extremely limited – black, beige or grey. They have to find something else that is better than leather….maybe ostrich leather?
I like cloth if it is a high quality product. My ’90 Honda Civic SI had dark charcoal cloth “Recaro” type seats and those were great, especially w/o A/C. My ’96 Mustang GT has sport seats with the tweed like cloth and these are comfy and holding up well. My ’94 Seville had all black leather, looked terrific, but stiff and hot as hell after sitting in the sun for awhile. My ’96 Chrysler Town and Country van had very soft and comfortable semi gathered leather seats, just great. My ’77 Cadillac CDV had nice firm, yellow leather seats. Nice, but I covered them with quality sheepskins. make all the cracks about the 80s you want, but I prefer sitting on sheepskins over anything else. Just buy the good ones. the cheap ones are embarrassing. I don’t like velour.
Nobody’s mentioned leasing yet, but I wonder if the expectation that a high percentage of luxury cars will be leased and take an inevitable second run through the dealer has led to the elimination of cloth options. Good cloth can wear like iron but a permanent just-gotta-live-with-it stain is always a possibility, and a justified dealbreaker when spending well over new-econobox money on a CPO luxo model.
I wonder what percentge get re-retailed through the same dealer as CPO or just pre owned cars, and how many the manufacturer wholesales through dealer auctions, etc..I have seen some really awful looking leather on relatively low mileage cars…surely dark colored cloth with scotchbrite or something would wear better and be easy to clean.
Yesterday evening I shampooed the front seats of an 02 Mazda Protege which will be my winter car. Since day one the original owners took good car of the car. It has rust in the usual places of this model.
The interior is in very good condition and the amount of dirty water from the front buckets was far less than I expected to see. I’ll do the rear seat tomorrow. In only two places have I seen a slight tear in the fabric. If this car had a so-called leather interior I would expect the driver’s seat would have been in poor condition by now as the average person knows next to nothing about caring for leather seats.
I suspect that very few people even try to maintain their leather. The newer stuff has so much finish on it, I doubt that conditioner would even penetrate and do any good anyway.
Maybe some fabrics like London Transport uses will be fashionable for car seats some day.
After 134,000 miles and 37 years, have a look at the front seats in my ’78 Continental. Still in pristine condition. Superbly comfortable.
I’ve had leather in several cars before. I’d just as soon never have it again.
Al W those seats are beautiful. Love the color.
I’ll take a nice rich velour any day. Leather is not luxurious to me, it reminds me too much of the old vinyl seats, smooth, slippery and burns your legs in shorts. Leather is too temperature sensitive, and contains lots of cheap vinyl trim in most models, not to mention it cracks and looks awful with age. I love cloth, but the cloths today are mostly rough and scratchy, and getting worse. I had a 2003 Impala with a very nice plush velour interior, I currently own a 2009 Impala, and the cloth is rough and cheap feeling by comparison. My parents have a 2014 Impala, and the cloth is even worse, I’m convinced it is just textured plastic and all the trim is vinyl -yuck!
Cloth all day. Just don’t smoke or eat in the car. Since I don’t do either, I’ll take cloth and enjoy sliding into a pleasantly warm, non-sticky seat on a 94 degree day 😉
Velour is really hit or miss with me. It could be done well, like the Turbo Coupe / XR7 articulated buckets in the 80s. Then again, it could be awful, too.
My 1998 Dodge RAM has Velour upholstery ………. it’s spectacular, wears perfectly to date and is warm and comfortably soft.
In Australia, most cars have vile polyester or so-called leather which is really vinyl. Neither is to my liking. I prefer velour or alcantara. Honda was the last to use these. The velour in my 8yo Civic is still as new, despite the intense summer sun we have.
Velour has an extra layer of protection and at least in earth tone colors, hides dirt better. Simple cloth starts to look dirty and worn pretty quickly, especially if you eat in your car or do any kind of mechanical work. Sure, you can keep it clean with a wet vacuum, but that wears it out even faster. Leather is my favorite choice, but I’d consider velour preferable to cloth.