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Adding Leather Seats

Leather seats were an option for the entire AC/AY lineup, however many different leather seats existed for the AC/AYs.

You had the basic leather seats used on the Dynasty optionally (as well as some of the New Yorkers). These seats consisted of a "bar" style pattern in the seat and were availble as normal leather seats, or Mark Cross Leather seats on some 80s New Yorkers.

The 5th Ave had a Mark Cross leather package which consisted of a more "pillowed" seat.

Lastly the Imperial had its own Mark Cross leather package which was yet a different sewing pattern in the seat, as well as mahogoney woodgrain trim on the side of the seat.

Generally speaking all leather seats in these cars came as powered seats, but one does not have to convert to power seats to use leather seats.

In my Dynasty I wanted unpowered leather seats, so I found a set of red leather seats (Mark Cross) from a 1988 Chrysler New Yorker.

Now you are probably wondering by now "what Mark Cross is". Mark Cross is a company that makes alot of leather purses, brief cases and other such things and was used as a leather supplier by Chrysler in the 80s and early 90s. These are italian leather seats made by *the* Mark Cross company and are fairly good quality if taken care of. If you neglect your seats the leather will dry out and crack.

I do not know if the "normal" leather seats were also supplied by Mark Cross, since those came with or without the mark cross logo.

At any rate, the "normal" leather seats use the mechanical "seat tilt lever" for adjusting the seat, even when powered. The other leather seats used a switch for a motor that did the same thing- thus if you grab a set of leather seats from an Imperial or 5th Ave- you will have to send +12 volts and a ground to the seats so they can tilt the back of the seat using this switch.

To have unpowered seats you must unbolt the seat from the seat rails. These are 4 bolts per seat, one in each corner. You can then unbolt the seat rails from the floorboards using an other set of 4 bolts.

To have unpowered seats, reuse your car's unpowered seat rails. For powered seats, use the powered seat rails (which have the motor attached to them).

Fairly simple, and a mod I have never regretted.

Note that if you want the leather door pannels to go with your seats, you pretty much have to pull them from a New Yorker- NOT a 5th Ave or Imperial, because those two cars have rear doors which are larger than the Dynasty and thus their door pannels will not interchange.

I did not grab the interior door pannels for my Dynasty, nor do I want them- but that was my call on my specific car.