Leather type

erhayes

Contributor
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2022CX5 PP
MAZDA talks about three types of leather. I am curious about the "leather called Parchment" Is Mazda referring to the color or type of leather? If it is the type of leather, it normally comes from sheep and can be parchment skin ( like for recording) or just thin hide leather. Just coureous.. Ed
 
I thought parchment was something they made old maps from. It is scraped very thin and is translucent. Parchment for modern graphic arts might not be leather at all. I got a pizza once with parchment to cook it on. I don't know what it was made from.
 
I believe they refer to the colour only. The leather is kind of a light beige/grey. I am not sure what type of leather it is exactly but that is how I understand it.
 
Yes, "Parchment" is the color.

  • Sport comes with Black cloth.
  • Standard Touring comes with Black or Beige leatherette.
  • Carbon Edition can be had with either Red or Black standard leather
  • In Touring w/ Preferred Pkg, GT & GTR trims you have a choice of either Black or Parchment colored standard leather.
  • The Signature model upgrades to Caturra Brown Nappa leather.
 
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In past cars, and these were much older cars, Parchment and Ivory are a b**** to keep clean. Over time, micro cracks develop in the leather and turn black, so the leather may be physically clean, but the black cracks make it look dirty. It may be that processes have improved over time, but for that reason, we have always gone to a very dark leather. Even blue or gray leather suffers from the same problem.

Not sure if this is true, but a buddy told me all leather seating surfaces have thin vinyl like coating over it to protect it, which why leather oils and conditioners don't seem to work, or soak in. This is for sort of non-luxury cars. Not sure about Maserati and so forth.
 
Yes as mentioned it refers to the color of the seats.
Often times its a dye and then coated on top to protect it.

in regards to leather, no leather seats nowadays are actually fully real leather from sheep or some other animal on the 'regular' cars :)
Its synthetic mix with vynil like for most of the seating.
I think Mazda mentions that only the seat perforated part is some form of leather. Plus it is coated to protect and thats why leather oils or sprays dont always work as expected or are useless.
Even bmw and mercedes have moved to this.
May be Rolse Royce or other super luxury branda is different.

Its like home sofas. Most shops 'say/imply' leather type sofa for 500-800$ because people like it cheap but a real leather couch costs many thousands of dollars.
 
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In my youth, leather for seats, belts and bags was split cow hide. Some were made softer by an extra special conditioning. Parchament was a very thin leather , most often gotten from sheep and mostly used for lamp shades, gloves and decoration. ed
 
I would prefer something other than jet black. It's pitch dark at night.
Even the engine stuff is all black.

I guess it was Henry Ford s favorite.
 
I would prefer something other than jet black. It's pitch dark at night.
Even the engine stuff is all black.

I guess it was Henry Ford s favorite.
While I don't disagree, we have not had much luck with other colors, ivory/parchment, mid grey/blue. I guess you could go for the Caturra Brown leather in the Signature (just kidding)
 
While back, I started to wonder what exactly Nappa was. Hard to get a clear answer, as it isn't really defined from what I saw online. It's not like it's from a particular type of cow, or geographic region, etc. It's just really nice leather, apparently.

I do notice now, even quite pricey German cars have the fake stuff. Not sure many can even tell. I don't feel the Nappa in Mazdas is of any significant difference to my CRV's plain old leather.

Before the CRV I had a CX7, both with black leather. I chose black to hide dirt but it backfired. My wife is fair skinned so is a big sunblock user. That is much more noticeable on black than any other dirt we would bring in the car. I wanted beige for my CX9 to make for a perfect sunblock camouflage but availability had end up in the Signature with Auburn. Sunblock doesn't show as bad as on black, but still a bit.
 
While back, I started to wonder what exactly Nappa was. Hard to get a clear answer, as it isn't really defined from what I saw online. It's not like it's from a particular type of cow, or geographic region, etc. It's just really nice leather, apparently.

I do notice now, even quite pricey German cars have the fake stuff. Not sure many can even tell. I don't feel the Nappa in Mazdas is of any significant difference to my CRV's plain old leather.

Before the CRV I had a CX7, both with black leather. I chose black to hide dirt but it backfired. My wife is fair skinned so is a big sunblock user. That is much more noticeable on black than any other dirt we would bring in the car. I wanted beige for my CX9 to make for a perfect sunblock camouflage but availability had end up in the Signature with Auburn. Sunblock doesn't show as bad as on black, but still a bit.
True statement as that titanium oxide is hard to get rid of. For me, less on the seats as on the armrests etc.

She uses a seat cover like this when she slathers up for certain outdoor activities, but it does not help the armrests

https://www.amazon.com/dp/ (commissions earned)
 
I guess it was Henry Ford s favorite.
Mr. Ford only allowed black color to speed up production because, at that time, black paint dried faster than other colors. (So I learned from a video of history review on Ford Motor.)
 
Parchment. Great for baking cookies! Not so much for seats.

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