Originally Posted by BruceTheQuail

Gooday. I do quite a bit of work for a leather furniture guy who gets quite passionate about his craft. Anyway from what he told me, if it is corrected grain leather (i.e. not the top of the hide where the pores are, an analine or semi analine) the leather is covered by paint so nothing penetrates it. So soap and water is just as good on that although it will get softer with use.

You probably know this but when they get a hide they soak it and then split it into a number of sheets.. The top is where the follicles are and it breathes, so that is top grain or analine. The underside is suede. Then everything else is corrected grain, with a grain printed on in paint.

You can sometimes tell by stretching the leather - if the grain disappears it is probably real, if it stays it is probably just a shape in the paint over one of the under layers in the hide.

I have what looks to be semi analine in the XKR (top grain with a light coating over it), and the taurus in the XE. I thought that the taurus was pretty good, for a corrected grain. I've seen plenty worse, that's for sure.

Not a lecture, just pretty fascinating stuff. I hope I got it all right, it has been a few years since he told me.

Originally Posted by SinF

I was today at the dealer, and they had two F-types sitting side by side. R and Base. I looked at the leather, and absolutely certain that R had different, better leather.