Some old school crap doesn't interest me at all. If I had to put leopard pattern interior in to be old school, I'll pass on old school. Too many other old school choices that are much more appealing.
I think a lot of the leopard print stuff is some Neo-traditional rockabilly nonsense. The punk rock influence on the old car scene of the last 30 years. That being said, animal print/hides are no stranger to custom interiors. On the Kopper Kart, Barris used unborn calf skin inserts in the seats. Here is a picture of the clone, which used 8 hides to cover the seat inserts and portions of the door panels.
Back in the early 60s there was this guy in my small home town that had a nice looking 34 Chevy 2 door with a Corvette mill in it according to people who knew him. He liked to show off and one day he lost control of it on our "cruise" boulevard and rolled it into a tractor trailer. A few months after that I was scouting the countryside for old cars when I saw it in his yard. Not really damaged all that bad, could be fixed, no engine or trans, but when I looked inside it was totally upholstered in leopard skin print...everywhere. Even for the $35 he wanted for it, I couldn't see myself owning it. Just over the top, even for this redneck.
My good friend here in the UK really wanted to do leopard print inserts on his '48 Plymouth vert, when he redid the interior on that about 15 years ago, but couldn't find a suitable upholstery grade fabric here in the UK to do it at the time. So, he had to settle on tan Bedford cord inserts with the dark red leather border rolls and edges.
In this thread I posted an article https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/hot-rods-are-doomed.1218509/ in which it states that in 53, the trend was going away from leopard prints and unborn calf to more conservative interiors. So depending on the era your are emulating it is as traditional as a you can get, for a hot rod, but sounds like not so much for a custom or "cool rod".
LOL,so wayback in 1960,I got $75 Henry J with a broken tranny, an raggy seats, first move was get a tranny from junkyard an stop by Western Auto to get one headlight n some tie over seat covers> Only thing they had that fit the bad seat in"J" was Leopard pattern!*$6.99 . Ok,maybe I can dye them later,so got those{ nope the dark blue dye,didn't really work,still showed spots ,but now ugly blue Leopard. Looked good at night/the headliner light didn't work,LOL . And 2 weeks later went back to junkyard an got a 1955 Chevy Nomad front seat/nice ,but I had to make costum seat side panels> it was too wide with the stock Chevy seat ends,but I could close the doors with out Chevy factory seat side ends.
Imagine if it was a “nude “ interior If it’s really offending some of you let me know and I’ll take it down but I guess leopard print can look good !
I was going to do the seats in my chopped, multi primered '31 Tudor in black leather with Cheetah print inserts. Unfortunately I sold it before I got around to the upholstery. I wanted it to be a little edgy but not a rat.
It's not for everybody. Only those of us who don't have to have the same thing everybody else has. Here's one I did for myself, and recently sold. So, there are other cool kids out there...
Early 70's I worked in Detroit. Regularly saw a 69-70 DeVille convertible with Leopard skin print top and interior to match on the north/northwest side of town.
I couldn't agree more. I don't think I would be able to pull it off fast enough.......................
Once upon a time I had a vision of doing a old hearse in Satin Black with a leopard print Vinyl roof. I was going to call it "The Killer" after Jerry Lee Lewis and his Black Jacket with the leopard print collar and lapels. Torchie