Need upholstery source for 42 Mercury Town Sedan
 

Just acquired this 1942 Mercury Town Sedan and it needs all the upholstery including door cards, headliner, seat covers, etc. I've done the Google bit and came up empty. Any sources provided will be greatly appreciated. I'll start a thread with plenty of pics to show the condition and starting point for this car, but I know I need the complete interior material. We can install and all seats and original springs are present.
Thanks in advance.

Re: Need upholstery source for 42 Mercury Town Sedan
 

Not much out there, I’m going to try SMS for my headliner in the Spring.

https://smsautofabrics.com/?gad_sour...caAttREALw_wcB

Re: Need upholstery source for 42 Mercury Town Sedan
 

SMS seems to be the (only) place to go right now. Gird, brace yourself, self medicate and anything else you may do to stretch your patience when dealing with them.

Re: Need upholstery source for 42 Mercury Town Sedan
 

I live nr SMS and a walkin really helps. They are massive and buried with customers. Hampton Coach is the Chev and GM folks. Ford cars is the current problem area. Newc

Re: Need upholstery source for 42 Mercury Town Sedan
 

Just finished interior of a ‘46 Mercury and used SMS fabric. Was originally told 2 weeks and it took 8 months. Lots of excuses, but they had to make new fabric at their mill. Quality of product was excellent. Lots of other challenges getting everything right, but I had a fairly nice and complete original for patterns. Happy to help with any questions you might have, so PM me if you want. Not sure exactly how close ‘42s were to ‘46, but I’d be happy to share sources and solutions I came up with for all the bits and pieces.

Re: Need upholstery source for 42 Mercury Town Sedan
 

Bruce, will take you up on kind offer. My wife does all my canvas interiors on military vehicles and has the industrial sewing machines to work with and we have local upholstery auto shops for materials and this will not be a factory class restoration. We have the rods for the head liner but any fasteners, clips, trim, etc for the attachment will be unique to us. She is confident in sewing the tubes in the head liner for the rods to slip into, but other than that we could use some guideance. Town Sedan might have some unique interior features, but, again, more concerned about representing the species than getting it judged by the Mercury police. Goint to start restoration thread on her today.

Re: Need upholstery source for 42 Mercury Town Sedan
 

1942 or 29A was the root year for the body type that was used through 1948 but interior trim materials did vary from year to year. The body manuals should have trim information but I can only verify that for the mid century models from 1949 on. If they also used the faux leather book cloth material for things like the door panels, kick panels, and sun visors then that stuff can be replaced by a thicker vinyl material in most cases.

The head liner generally has metal strips with pierced claws on the inside to tuck the cloth up into where the claws hold it. They can rust away since they are pretty thin metal. They likely used some thin panel board for the B pillar coverings. The garnish moldings likely hold some of it down too if it has quarter windows.