Seat reupolstered by Iron Paddock

The seat was destroyed. Years and years of neglect and exposure had ate away and left it in tatters.

I (John) have a close friend that went to school for upholstery and came back to Ukiah and opened up his own shop called Iron Paddock. So I took the tattered seat to him and asked his opinion on what to do. Drew said that he would be happy to repair the seat, but it wouldn't look exactly like the original. There was too much damage to do an exact replica. Since we were going to be changing the look a bit anyway we decided to add red stitching and the Eagle Fire Co logo to it.

A few weeks went by and Drew kept me up to date with how the seat was coming along. Everytime I saw the progress I was blown away at how great it looked and the attention to detail that he was putting into the project. Drew has been interested in the entire project and was excited to hear that we were attempting to get the engine started and down for the local car show. Since he knew that we were aiming to unveil the project at the car show he made our seat a priority to be finished to be on the engine at the show.

The new seat got delivered just in time for the car show.

I have to say that the seat exceeded all of our expectations. It is a beautiful piece and something that everyone in the department is proud to have on top of the engine. It has also given us a glimpse at what we can turn this project into if we put the time and effort into restoring it.

Drew Wallace and the seat on 1R.

Upon delivery Drew broke the news to us that he was donating the seat to the project. This was a great gift to us as we were expecting to pay for the work that he put into it and our budget is extremely limited after getting the radiator repaired.

We are hoping that others will be as interested (and hopefully as generous) as Drew was with 1R. It's going to take lots of resources, hands and luck to get this ol' gal back in shape to dance again.


(Iron Paddock is located at 116 Orr Springs Rd. and Drew Wallace can be contacted at (707) 489-3868.)