Need Advice on how to spend Money

[Kevin_B]

I have a 90 sport and the interior is getting very rough. I got a quote on a couple skins from Christine's and it seemed a little steep for my wallet. I have a friend who has a friend type of situation and they know a couple sewers that do interior work at a Malibu factory. He had his 89 tristar redone and it looks fantastic. He went with neutral colors, an off white with black piping.

He got all new vinyl, everywhere, and new carpet, all malibu quality material for $1500.00. I don't think my rate will be as good but if I can, will I be making a huge mistake putting that in my boat?

[Kevin_B]

One thing I forgot to mention, I'm going to need new foam for the bow seat bottoms. Any ideas where I can get this made? Nautique skins?

[Rick]

Use the old vinyl as patterns

I don't see a problem if you can get the colors you need and they use the old skins as templates. It may not be prefect but you aren't going to show the boat.

[Excel94]

hey Kevin,

Another option is copycatcovers.com There was a thread on here about them and mst thought they were very good. One person claimed they were 1/4 the price of Christine's. I got mine from Christine's and was very pleased with the quality but they were not cheap!

[Chopper]

Do Christines really have a 6 week lead time from date of order as stated on their web site.? Seems really slow.?

[Excel94]

I think I got mine back from Christine's in 2-3 weeks. George was great to work with, he kept me in the loop regarding delivery.

[Chexi]

Lead time at Christine's varies quite a bit. Mine were 6 weeks plus, others have gotten them faster. The benefit of Christine's versus copycatcovers is that typically you don't have to send your skins in, so you can continue to use your boat while they make them. Copycat covers requires you to send your skins in, so you probably would not want to do that until the winter.

[Chexi]

BTW, I like the Malibu vinyl better than the 90's Nautique vinyl. The only way I see you taking a hit if you go that route would be if you deviated from the factory pattern or did not have them embroider the logos. Ask if they will do that for you. Whenever I see a Nautique for sale that was reupholstered using non-factory pattern and/or missing logos, I sigh and discount it in my mind by several thousands of dollars (i.e., the price of doing the job right).

[Kevin_B]

Great advice guys, i will look into copy cat. Chexi thanks for the thoughts, I was absolutely going to go with a non-stock pattern and neutral colors to save money, but if thats going to hurt me in the back end I will sure think twice.

[shag]

I know Christines is expensive - but I saw a buddies older Super sport that had the entire interior re-done by them - and it literally looked like a factory new boat.......

[NCH2oSki]

Give Jim a call at Viper customs on 411 hwy. He does great work, be sure to ask him about what he can do for the logo's.

[Chexi]

http://www.planetnautique.com/vb3/album.php?albumid=18

Here are some pictures of my boat after I re-did the vinyl using Christine's skins. I still need to take more pictures of some of the other areas, but this will give you an idea.

And yes, I absolutely would recommend going with the factory pattern. If you see other Nautique factory colors (or even all white with a colored piping) that go with your gelcoat, you could consider those. The pattern and Nautique colors are what is important (but not necessarily the same colors you currently have, so long as the colors you pick go with the gelcoat, and the easiest way to be sure of that is to either go with all Silver Cloud (Nautique white) or by going with colors that CC used with your gelcoat). I have seen Nautiques that used the same pattern, but non-Nautique colors, and I could tell immediately. They just didn't quite look right.