The specialist: Moore’s Classic Car Interiors

By Charlie Calderwood

| 14 Aug 2026

Classic & Sports Car – The specialist: Moore’s Classic Car Interiors

“We try to do it as close to the old methods as possible,” says Paul Moore.

He’s in the workshop of Moore’s Classic Car Interiors, gesturing at a pair of seats from a Jaguar E-type, describing how a ‘tuck and roll’ is done properly (pockets sewn first, filling pushed in with a rod).

“Many people just sew straight down on to foam,” he continues. “I can tell it a mile off.”

The point is made even more clearly by the 19th-century stagecoach behind – an unusual job that has photographs of old stitching patterns strewn around it.

Moore’s Classic Car Interiors is restoring this 1820s mail coach, the Norfolk firm’s oldest job yet

Before Paul went anywhere near a sewing machine or a hide, classic cars were in the blood.

His dad led the East Anglia Ford Owners’ Club for a time and his mother, a seamstress, was often asked to reupholster pieces for club members.

The stage was set, but Paul spent the start of his working life as a book binder until increasing frustration led him to join the dots when his mother made the throwaway remark: “If I get any busier, I’ll set it up as a business.”

Recently refurbished Jaguar E-type seats are a demonstration of a job done properly

Paul’s parents showed him the basics, while residential courses with a master trimmer taught him how to reupholster seats, plus to make and fit a bespoke hood.

Moore’s Classic Car Interiors started in Paul’s spare room, fitting work in around his shifts, and when he made the leap to go full-time in 2006 he moved into a shed.

Paul operated there for a decade before gaining his first commercial premises.

Today, the firm is in its second industrial unit and looking to expand.

This MGA has a bespoke hood, made and fitted by Moore’s Classic Car Interiors

A 1927 Austin Seven Chummy and an ’85 Toyota MR2 he found rusting in a client’s garden are just two of Paul’s cars, while his wife Katherine, who joined as an extra pair of sewing hands several years ago, owns a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle.

Paul’s mother Gwen comes in two days a week, while daughter Lily dips in and out, having sewed her first headlining at the age of 15.

Nick Kirby, the sole employee from outside the family, has been with the firm for 10 years.

Space is always at a premium: Paul insists he should be the last stop in the restoration process, making hold-ups and schedule clashes inevitable.

Katherine Moore works on a new fabric roof for a pre-war Bentley

He says: “Woven fabrics are the worst, but the fine dust from filler will make its way into seams and even into the grain of the leather – it’s very hard to ever get it out again.”

A good relationship with nearby restoration firm Toad Hall Workshops simplifies this to some extent, with the restorer keeping a continuous booking on one of the spots in his workshop.

The horse-drawn mail coach is the latest project to come over from Toad Hall.

Paul visited its only known surviving contemporary in Nottingham to study how it was stitched together, and Lily is doing the hand-stitching: it takes three times as long as a machine, but is more period-correct.

Moore’s Classic Car Interiors is (mostly) a family concern with, from left to right, Nick Kirby, Paul Moore, daughter Lily and wife Katherine

In the corner is a MiG welder Paul uses in the refurbishment of seats – he’s able to operate as a one-stop shop for worn-out chairs, working on their runners and frames, too.

It’s when seats started using large amounts of plastic, and not long after incorporating airbags, that Paul draws one of the few lines marking what he won’t work on: roughly, cars of less than 30 years old.

“They use thread which is designed to burst from force around the airbag, and I can’t get that,” he says, “but the main thing about modern seats is that they are so heavy.”

The odd job of a bolster repair or seat-squab replacement for more youthful cars fills in small spaces in the schedule nonetheless, but Paul admits that his team does not have much interest in moderns.

“That is probably the most important thing,” he says. “You have to have passion for your job.”

Images: Jack Harrison