Hi fellow spider lovers....always wanted to say that...the girlfriend is terrified of the crawly ones...but I digress..

Okay, my dilemma. I am looking to refurb the interior once I get my mechanicals in order and it appears there are several sets of options out there for switching back to tan (PO painted the tan black and it's flaking) in my '76 spider. The car is red and I like the combo look plus I think it will stay cooler.

I like the seat replacment covers from Vick's and see they have the front door panels in tan, but no rear panels in tan and suggest we paint them to match. Do any of you have experience with matching paint for this exercise? Since I will be spending quite a bit of time and money and will be getting a tan boot cover to match the tan rear seat I really want to have a good match.

Thanks for any helpful advice or additional sources for these parts.

Great forum so far!!! I have a Miata too and that community is quite helpful, good to see the spirit extends to these classic machines!!

I've only used the black vinyl paint from Autozone, it worked alright on my side/rear panels, and the console, not so well on the seats (as are yours). I heard everyone who used it says that it stays well on seats, I may have not prepped them properly (and could be the case with yours as well). I'm not sure exactly how well tan would cover black, but it's almost just like spray paint so it should cover in a few coats. There is a recommended brand out there, I don't remember the name but someone is sure to chime in with it, that you can get online that supposedly works better.

As far as matching the colour, I don't know about the possibilities of that. Perhaps you could try the spray on stuff, it's pretty cheap, and then if it doesn't look right look into a matched one?

Mar-Hyde brand chemicals will get you the closest to original tan as you'll ever find. It's available in a spray can.

SEM buckskin was reccomended by the manufacturer for touch up of my console cap, although I've noticed that all replacement interor parts may not match. Vinyl dye isn't ideal for high wear items such as seats, it will wear thru.

Opps

Only contemplating this for the rear panels, and maybe the center console per original post. I'm getting seats redone by a pro, door covers too. Thanks for the notes though, I figured it would wear off seats eventually.

I've actually used rattle can vinyl paints a lot. SEM is the best quality, I used in on my seats last week and they turned out great. I used the light buckskin in the leather inserts, and the Palomino in the vinyl bits. These werent a perfect factory match, but awful close.

Note: if you think tans in interiors are actually built to match, you'll drive yourself nuts....you need to go look at some cars. They use "complimentary shades" to achieve a unified look, rather than exact matches. Upper dashes in Tan interiored spiders dont match the consoles (where both are shaeds of tan, like on my 84). If you look, the consoles match the seat inserts and the vinyl seat parts match the dash and the doorcards and interior panels.

Duplicolor satin trim paint is also good. You have to be careful to clean surfaces thoroughly and use a good was and grease remover before you spray, and all of this is best done out of the car. A carpet kit and a couple of cans of SEM can work miracles on a faded interior. This stuff is so good that you can buy balck or blue interior parts and spray them tan, and as long as you stick to light coats and do good prep, you'd never know they didnt start out that way.

Black interiors are a no-brainer for this stuff, again providing you prep well and do a nice job spraying. Most dry in minutes, and if you really want to get exact, buy a pint of custom mixed interior paint ( add flex additive for seats) and put it in a PreVal ( aerosol) sprayer, or use an airbrush or detail gun (if so equipped).

Here's the match from SEM vinyl paint. I got mine from World Upholstery http://www.worlduph.com. The seats are the vinyl replacement seat covers I got from them in tan. The console which was black, and the door panels and arm rests which were a different tan were all repainted with SEM vinyl paint. It is only about a year old and looks great! The paint is WAY too soft in my opinion for the hard plastic of the shift lever and console. It scratches extremely easily. It hasn't been a problem on the soft vinyl components.