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Replacing the Upholstery: When I collected the Consul from Mr. Wingrove in 2001 he had solved problems with the upholstery by adding seat covers to cover up the suffering leather cloth. This made the seats usable but I was never very happy about keeping them this way especially as the seats were becoming increasingly poorly supported. Deciding to do something about them I phoned several local upholsterers who offered very high quality work from £1500 - £3500 which was more money than I had and more than the car is worth. Fortunately while ordering a new boot mat from Goldendays John mentioned he had a blue interior for a Consul and while I wasn't perfect he only wanted £100 for it. This got me thinking as this was a Vinyl interior instead of leather cloth and it didn't have the armrest mine had. However as I was increasingly sinking through the torn and worn leather I decided to give it a go. Its 300 miles from Morpeth to Norwich so I set off early in the morning to pick the seats up. After getting lost in the Fens several times (first time I have visited this part of the country!) I arrived at Easton, Nr. Norwich - by the time I arrived John was needing to get home so we threw the seats in the back of the van and I followed him home. After a very pleasant evening with John and his wife, and having used his drive to fit the seats (I didn't have space to take one set home) I was driving back up the country on some slightly torn but generally better seats. (Will come back to the tear later!) Fitting the seats: This was much easier than I had imagined as the back seat lifts up and the rear is only attached by two screws. The front seat is similarly easy as there are four bolts going through (or into) the floor and the seat can then be removed. The front and back of the front bench seat can also then be split by removing 2 screws from the bottom of the seat (where the curved metal bars attach) and then pulling the back away from the front (I needed to use a hammer for this). Heading back up the country on my second tank of LPG ever (first time trying this out) the heater hose broke the connection off the heater and I had to put the two heater pipes together. Having stayed rather late with John this was now 11pm and I decided to test out the seats in the lay-by where I enjoyed a much more comfortable night! A quiet drive home followed in the morning.
Repairing the Upholstery: 
As to the tear in the seats someone has sat down with a sharp object and punctured the front seat in a couple of places. Additionally holes exist in the back of the front bench seat created by a foot or some other sharp object. - So why are these better than the old seats? Well Woolies can supply 1 metre of replacement Vinyl for less than £15 and my local upholsterer (English's of Morpeth) will change those panels for £25 so long as I remove the seat cover first, which sounds considerably more affordable and not too difficult as the seat cover is only held on by a series of circular metal clips on the bottom, you need to remove the seat from the floor - but you don't need to split the top and bottom to do this job (although it might make the job easier!). 
Having stripped off the cover it became obvious that a couple of the springs had gone in the drivers side of the seat as well as the tear in the cover - this is another job I will be handing over to English's as they seemed quite happy to replace a couple of springs at a reasonable price. The seats are now happily back and refitted using plastic ties to replace the metal clips. The new back panel looks good and I will hopefully show it here soon.
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