Family firm to fix up 'Elvis' car
19/11/2009
A small family-run company specialising in automotive leather restoration has won a contract to restore the upholstery in a white Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado that may once have belonged to Elvis Presley.
Newcastle-based Northumbrian Leather has been handed the job of restoring the car's seats by its new owner, a UK-based collector who insists the car once formed part of the singer's extensive Cadillac collection.
However, the company's co-owner, Max Tait, has told the BBC that the vehicle's leather upholstery has come in for some harsh treatment since Elvis died in 1977. He said: "Somebody down the line has thought it was a good idea, in the name of restoration, to slap a few coats of thick white paint across the seats. It is not that the car has been re-sprayed and the seats have changed colour, they have just been repainted and repainted and repainted probably every year, for years, to keep them white. Now they feel horrible."
He said he hoped to be able to restore the car's original soft leather upholstery and then apply a proper finish to it, but before that, he said he would spend between two and three weeks removing the paint with wire wool.
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