any ideas on who makes the best interior kit for restoration
Suffolk interior kits are expensive and well worth it. Superb leather and finish work, great materials too.
Classic Jaguar in Austin is the US supplier.
Regards,
Allen
bought mine on sale excellent quality
You’ll have to contact me offline to find out what I think of BAS Canada (NOT BAS UK!).
Cheers,
LLynn
However , I purchased a BAS UK kit and highly recommend it.
Marco
Opie,
I’ve used K&H European Auto Interiors kit for my car (a '63 FHC) and I have installed a BAS kit for another client ('67 FHC). They were equal in quality and both have little issues that I had to work around but that’s the norm. Excellent looking when completed and will wear well over time in my opinion.
I love the look of Suffolk & Turley. Someday maybe.
http://classicjaguar.com/cjparts/cjinteriors.php
–Drew
thanks for the information
What John Carey failed to mention is that the K+H interior kits were about 30 to 40 percent cheaper than all the others .
Mine is an K+H kit.
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Here’s the BAS UK kit , like John said basically the same . Not sure about the cost of a K+H kit but mine ran around $3100 for everything : all leather where required as per factory ,doors panels with new cards and plastic pockets , seat foams (yep, the hard ones) horse hair back rest, rubber diaphragms ,all correct hardware , hardura , ambla , vinyls, precut sills, …everything except the jute backing for the rear bulkhead which they forgot to ship. I was able to procure some of the real stuff from a restorer in Florida…
Do your home work of the seat foams , specially if your tall because at 5’8" I was touching the bow of my hood and had to remove the diaphragms to improve my "fit’. Search the archives on this topic.
I installed everything myself except the seats and console which I sent to OSJI , they are great to work with and do very good work.
Good luck.
Marco,
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I haven’t seen other kits, but without naming anyone I can make some comments. If you pick a kit from a supplier in another country, who has no dealer support in your customs and language area, you may have issues. Say something is missing - to match the color (I have a somewhat unusual “French Blue”) you need to go back ‘overseas’ and deal with all that entails. Also the pieces are often hand cut (oversize, of course) and you need to trim them. Well, if they aren’t well cut symmetrically it makes measure and cutting a bit harder - not a big deal, but irritating, in one case there was nearly not enough material. Also there are some production changes which a non Jaguar expert may foul up. My car needed “fuzzy” material on the FHC hinge and lock covers AND they are covered on the INSIDES. Well, not enough material for the rather long style lock cover, vinyl instead of moquette and nowhere near enough material. If your perimeter brace around the roof is welded by the factory with some tight gaps then too thick a foam on the headliner can be an issue.
Some time ago guys mentioned that foam can be too stiff, especially on series I seats.
Bottom line - maybe the most expensive kits are expensive for a capitalist reason, they are better. There are certain to be good deals on quality items, but in my case I wish I spent more. I’m happy enough, but not having enough vinyl to cover the cubby lid just pi**es me off.
Larry,
I believe my interior is that unusual “French Blue” and I think BAS did a good job matching it, maybe a shade lighter but if you factor in “age progression”…
To your point , having extra material to match makes sense . BAS managed to ship extra vinyl to recover both sills 2X but …no extra leather 
). All hardura was trimmed and fit well.
Marco
I used John Skinner. Excellent.
I’m currently doing the complete interior of my 67 2+2 with a kit from OSJI. It’s not cheap but the quality is first rate. Everything is supplied including all new clips and fasteners. The car is currently in the paint shop so I’ve just done the seats, console and some other bits that I can do now. The rear seat cushion cover was about 2” too big. I sent them my original cover and they remade it using mine as a template. That’s the only problem so far and they were super quick to correct it.
Care to share with us an approx cost for the kit?
Sure Les,
The OSJI kit for my ser 1 2+2 was
$4361 U.S.
John
Jeff,
It was back when I purchased mine, but I have heard their prices are more in line with the others at this time. Anyone shopping for an interior kit would be smart to at least get prices and detailed lists of what is included with each supplier’s kit. Some include clips and screws and other small details and some do not… I found one that included a new dash cover! which explained some of the higher price for their kit. Because of the complexity of these kits, I created an Excel spreadsheet to list the contents of all the kits I could when purchasing mine and from that I was able to learn which was the best deal in spite of the need to purchase some parts separately. My data is too old to be of help today but the idea is worth stealing if you like I can send the list of that I had without pricing and you can seek to fill it in with today’s prices. Just PM me for that…
Makes sense. One more thing to factor in is the quality and specs of the materials supplied.
Thickness, grain and patterns vary…
I asked for samples from all vendors, good to see what to expect before purchasing and as a reference if they don’t.
Marco
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Thick isn’t always what you want. On FHC’s the cant rails must compress several layers of vinyl and foam. Too thick and you need to ask the screws to pull in against quite a stack of stuff. My original vinyl was much thinner than the replacement.
Larry,
Exactly, that’s why I mentioned: " quality and specs of the materials supplied. Thickness (not thicker) , grain, patters vary"…
A sample from the supplier will allow you to inspect what they use in their kits before prior to purchasing.
Marco