What is Classic car leather?
Real leather is the skin of an animal.
The skin is different per kind of animal and consists of different parts.
Inspection of the leather by the old Connolly Leather Ltd.
In the early Connolly hides the spine was sometimes visible, so the upholsterer had to start cutting from the center to the sides. An original tanned skin was more elastic from the back to the belly than from the head to the tail, so one had to cut stretchy patterns from the back to the belly.
Leather with an antiquing finish could sometimes show the starting color from before the antiquing at the edges of a hide.
Classic leather was always supple at the place where the legs of an animal were.
The early leather factory supplied a map that shows hallmarks of which imperfections could be expected on natural leather.
HVL tries to avoid all hallmarks by doing more intensive selections per hide. However, when using pure natural leather incidental slight hallmarks can show the beauty of a hide for real purist. Compare this to the modern cheap vinyl coated leather with a monotone surface that hides all hallmarks. This is not what real classic car leather should look like.
HVL Class Leather before treatment.
HVL tries to avoid most of the imperfections that are sometimes found in pure leather.
Selection takes place when hides are “wet” so imperfections can be found more easily.
Skins are ready to become the best classic quality leather ever.
All the drums are filled to create the best.
After tanning, the hides are placed on a rack to dry. They also get an extra check before getting the definitive color.
Skins are pure natural and hidden defects which are visible after the tanning procedure are selected out.
The hide is measured and the skins get one last check for antiquing imperfections on the edges and hidden spots are noted.
Many special order treated hides find their way to our customers. Every roll gets all information needed so that all customers will be convinced about classic originality.
Being a Ferrari specialized upholsterer since 1989, HVL uses the same leather skins to make the best classic Ferrari upholstery.
The results are a pleasure for the eye. We help create prize-winning cars and are always appreciated by the best companies and owners of the world.
When looking at the tail of the bull, the only thing left is the memory of a beautiful animal.