What is it about the sun? When you own it a convertible the sun is simultaneously your best friend and your worst enemy. Is the sun out today? Let’s drop the top and take a ride. But watch out, the fiery orb is in the sky. You can put sunscreen on your skin to protect it from burns, but you can’t really do that to the interior your car.

Over time, time, the sun can do a number on the leather and the plastic in the interior of your car. I’ve already described the way I found that some of the plastic in the interior of the Miata has gotten quite brittle when I removed the center console of the car to fix the cup holder lids, but I haven’t really detailed how much damage 17 years of UV rays has done to the leather seats. In fact, both seats have discolorations, cracks, and some outright rips in them. None of this is unusual for Miata owners and thankfully several options exist to fix this problem.




My goal for this car is to preserve the stock look while maintaining it and making small improvements here and there as needed. So when the seats started to come apart, my options were 2-fold: reskin them with replacement leather pieces cut to same shape as the OEM parts or put on seat covers. When it comes to sewing, anything more advanced that putting on a button is real challenge for me so reskinning a car seat seems like it is way, way, waaaaay above my skill level. In fact, didn’t Ed China once describe that as “fiddly work”? I looked into seat covers instead.

Seat cover options, however, are myriad. There are probably hundreds of different types to choose from with prices ranging from $50 to $600. In keeping with my desire to retain the stock look of the car, I went with the Premium Leatherette seat covers from CalTrend ($220 at Moss Miata). These come in two different colors for the NB Miata, black and tan.


New covers from CalTrend Photo : Robert Ristuccia

Old, worn-out-by-the-sun leather seats Photo : Robert Ristuccia


Installation is not too difficult once you give up on trying to put them on with the seats still inside the car. I found it best to simply unbolt the seats and then add the covers. The bottom section is held in place by three straps and a hook (indicated by red arrows in the image below) while the top simply slips over the seat. Both pieces fit like a second skin on the seat once you pull them tightly enough. Put the seats back in and you are good to go.

Anchor points on the bottom of the seat Photo : Robert Ristuccia


Inside the car, they add a nice plush feel to the seats and dramatically improve the overall look of the interior. They are also cooler to the touch than the OEM leather, which I think will be nice on hot sunny days. [Edit: Now that the weather has gotten warmer, I’ve noticed that they don’t breathe quite as well as the stock leather so you can get a bit sweaty after a while when the temperature climbs.] The tan doesn’t exactly match the color of the seats in my car, but the slightly lighter tone actually makes a nice contrast and so I have no complaints at all about how they match with the rest of the materials.



(Note that there are some wrinkles in the pictures above but those disappeared the first time I sat on the seat for more than a few minutes.)


Overall, I absolutely would buy these again. At $220, they look just as good as options costing $100 more. Installation is relatively simple and the feel is excellent.

