Before I even rang the insurance company, I had stripped the carpets and underlay from the car; having been submerged in flood water the smell was awful. As soon as the damage had been agreed, I set about stripping the rest of the soft material from inside the car. Everything had absorbed the moisture and I didn’t want it to start rotting the metal behind.

It has to be said that my insurance company could not have been easier to deal with - an assessor was out within a week and a cheque to cover all the interior parts was in my hand a few days later. The difficult bit was trying to get the suppliers to send the correct parts, properly stitched together, from the US...

The order from VW Heritage consisted of seat covers & padding, door cards, headlining (all from TMI in the US) and carpets from Newton Commercial. I separately ordered a large quantity of felt underlay and contact adhesive from Woolies Trim.

The first stage of the re-trim, having touched up the paint where required, was to cut and glue the underlay for the headlining (the different colours are different thicknesses).

With the underlay in place the headlining started to go in - you only get one attempt with contact adhesive on ivory cloth! The material comes in very generously cut sections; once glued in place they need to be trimmed to fit. An 11” pair of wallpaper shears did the job very well.

Next up was the carpet set, again on half-inch felt underlay. For some sections, particularly around the rear luggage area, a cheap hairdryer was invaluable in helping to shape the carpet before gluing. As with the headlining, though to a lesser extent, the carpets require some trimming to fit.

The first job for the seats, having stripped them, was to separate the upper and lower frames and repaint them. I used Subaru Cream White (x81 I think) as it seemed a good match in the colour book! The springs were originally covered in a sisal cloth to protect the horsehair padding. I used an old thick-woven blanket to protect the new TMI foam padding. I chose to go for two tone covers, to match the door cards, this time around. They are off-white, with a 12-inch grey insert and off-white piping.

The covers are a bit of a pain to do, but it’s worth taking the time over to make sure the seams line up etc. They are held to the frame using spikes on the underside, after which a cord in the lower seam is pulled tight and tied off.

I used new clips and seals to install the door cards, and cleaned up the handle and winder rings with a brillo pad.

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