Hi all,
Well here I am again, with another update on the car - albeit a small one but one that's helped to nicely finish off the interior re-trim.
When I purchased the car, it came with the factory Porsche carpet mats, which are a sort of Mid Grey: My car was originally specced with a Two-Tone (Extended) leather interior, Black over Platinum Grey (now with the Black/Silver Pepita seat inserts), Platinum deviated stitching on the dash/door cards and Platinum Grey carpets. After having the seat centres re-trimmed back in the Summer, the standard mats just seemed to be letting the side down - they were OK but nothing special and the Mid Grey didn't really tone-in with the new Pepita cloth.
Over the years, I've often favoured bespoke mats over OEM and have used Autostyle for maybe 30 years now (how time flies) - going all the way back to my gorgeous Lotus Excel SE. The mats have always been good quality and the service excellent, so I called them to get some samples of their Premier carpet in different colours (they also do a Diplomat grade carpet - which is closer to OEM but I wanted something a bit more luxurious).
The most relevant options for mine were: Carpets - Black, Silver Grey or Anthracite? Leatherette Edge Binding - Black, Silver Grey or Anthracite? Leatherette Edge Binding Thread Colour - from the Madeira threads range? Embroidered Text or a Bespoke Logo?
Bearing in mind, that my car has the Alcantara head-lining in Anthracite and a Black dash top, it seemed prudent to 'link' the upper and lower colours, to create a nice bold contrast to the light coloured Platinum carpet. Trying the various samples against the interior, suggested that approach would work and a Black edge binding would probably look best - as a contrast one just looked to fussy. A few more samples of thread shades were needed, to decide upon the closest one to the deviated stitching but once again Autostyle were helpful.
When I had the gauge faces re-printed, I commissioned some 'Exclusive' artwork for the job, so decided to use that for some one-off embroidery on the mats - using a Black background and the same Silver Grey thread shade used for the edge binding.
Following a few phone calls to Peter at Autostyle, to make sure everything was understood, the mats duly arrived about 10 days later.
Unfortunately, we had a problem with the rears, which were a different shape to the floorpan in my C4S and were a little too big to fit around the raised contours. To be honest, I could have made do but knew it would bug me.
OEM ones on top, new ones underneath:
Peter at Autostyle was equally baffled, as they had taken their pattern off a 991.1 and in the end, we could only conclude that the C4S differed slightly in the design of its rear floor - although in these days of increasing commonality, it was hard to fathom why. In any case, he offered to arrange collection of the bespoke mats and my OEM rears and get a fresh set made up. Thankfully, they fitted perfectly and so he now has two patterns available for the 991.1, so if anyone wants to create a bespoke mat set for their car, they can email a photo of their rear mats, just to be sure.
After two coats of stain protector, I fitted them to the car and feel they finish off the interior nicely!
Many thanks to Peter and his staff at Autostyle, for their work and for responding positively to the issue with the rear mats!
Just to be clear, I have no association with any of the companies involved in any of the projects undertaken on my car and get no kickback for mentioning their names!
Once again, thank you for reading!
Project 991 - The Story So Far
Bespoke Grille Badge: https://www.porscheclubgb.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=1076325
Pepita Seat Inserts: https://www.porscheclubgb.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=1066538
901 Style Green Gauge Faces: https://www.porscheclubgb.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=1066564
