COLOURLOCK Original Leather Colours (Sample-Based)

COLOURLOCK original leather colours hit the factory shade of your car brand

What are the COLOURLOCK original leather colours? Leather colours mixed to the car maker's own colour sample instead of a general palette — for 34 car brands, in five lines that run from a refresh through the solid repair colour all the way to suede. Every shade is mixed per order.

COLOURLOCK original leather colours are brand-specific leather colours for car interiors. The shade doesn't come off a general colour chart, it comes out of the colour database COLOURLOCK has built up over decades from original leather samples supplied by the car makers — sample-based is what the trade calls it. You pick your car brand, then the colour name your factory gave it: Audi Alabasterweiß, BMW Alaskagrau, Mercedes-Benz Aerograu, Volvo Atacama. Every bottle is mixed per order, which is why nothing here sits on a shelf.

• The shade comes off the factory sample, not off the colour chart. A general palette gets you close to the original; a sample-based mix sits on the same recipe as the factory colour. You never see the difference on the lid — you see it at the border with the untouched panel next to it, which is exactly where a repair either shouts or disappears.
• Five lines, one shade, 34 brands. The same colour runs as a nourishing leather care colour, as a solid standard leather colour, as a tinted repair filler for cracks, as suede care for Alcantara and velour, and as a matched set. From Ford, Opel and Skoda to Ferrari, Bentley and Rolls Royce, all 34 brands get the same set of building blocks.
• Mixed per order instead of held in stock. Brand times shade times bottle size runs to more combinations than any warehouse can carry, so every bottle gets mixed once you order it. For you that means: build the mixing time into your plan, and grab the bigger bottle once rather than reordering halfway through the job.

Day-to-day from Detailing1: We regularly get messages from customers who ordered by the colour name in their vehicle papers and then spot one patch on the seat glowing brighter than the rest. The name was right, the leather isn't any more. Between delivery day and today sit years of sun, skin oil and denim rub, and leather drifts in a direction while that happens: greys pull towards blue under UV, light shades pick up a brown cast from dirt and skin oil. So two jobs before you order. First, clean it properly and let it dry right through — part of that supposed colour loss is grime and disappears on its own. Second, find a reference patch that has never seen daylight: the underside of the seat, the area under the headrest, the strip behind the belt loop. That patch shows the factory shade you're ordering. The rest of the seat shows how far you've drifted from it.

The factory shade lives in a colour database, not on a shelf

Sample-based means every one of these colours started life as a real piece of leather out of car production, not as a dot on a colour chart.

Lederzentrum GmbH set up in 1995 in Rosdorf near Göttingen and has supplied trimmers, detailers and smart-repair outfits ever since — places where the customer isn't after “roughly black”, they want their seat back. The colour database behind it was built the slow way: physical samples out of dealerships, from trimmers and from customer cars, measured with a spectrophotometer and translated into mixing ratios you can repeat. A colour meter splits the light bouncing off the sample into its spectral parts and works the pigment mix back out of that. What that gets you: the shade isn't an impression of the original, it's a measurement of it.

Since Koch-Chemie took the line over in autumn 2023 it has sat in Unna and runs in our shop as Koch-Chemie × COLOURLOCK. What visibly changed is the bottle, not the formula — and the custom colour-mixing service is exactly the part that was deliberately kept.

The breadth is what this category is really about. Alongside the volume brands Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, VW, Skoda, Opel, Ford, Peugeot, Renault, Citroën, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Honda, Kia, Mitsubishi, Fiat, Volvo and Saab you get Jaguar, Land Rover, Range Rover, Porsche, Cadillac, Chevrolet and Chrysler — and with Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo the small-series cars that hardly ever have a replacement colour out there. Getting a shade for a 30-year-old Jaguar that isn't guesswork is the exception on the open market.

You pay for that breadth in logistics. Brand times shade times bottle size runs to a spread of combinations nobody stocks sensibly — which is why these colours are made-to-order and only get mixed once your order lands. Day-to-day at Detailing1 this is the point that comes up most before people buy, and the honest answer is: you wait longer than you would on shelf stock, and in return you get the shade the pro detailers work with. If you're planning a full set of seats, order the litre once rather than the small bottle twice.

Five lines share the same shade

The shade is identical across all five lines. What changes is the pigment load and what the binder underneath has to cope with.

COLOURLOCK "Leather Fresh" is the leather care colour and the default on any interior job: conditioning and colour refresh in one pass. The pigment load is deliberately low and the binder stays soft — the panel evens out again without a solid coat clogging up the grain. It comes as 100 ml for a steering wheel rim, a sill edge or a single seat bolster, and as 1000 ml / 1 litre for a full set of seats.

COLOURLOCK "Leather Colour" is the standard leather colour and it covers where Leather Fresh only blends. Higher pigment load, tougher film, usually laid down with a spray gun in cross passes — this is the step for worn-through bolsters, wheel rims rubbed bare and genuine colour changes. Available as 250 ml and 1000 ml / 1 litre. If you want the same build without the brand shade, you'll find it with the generic leather colours from COLOURLOCK.

COLOURLOCK "Fluid Leather" is the leather repair colour and works as a tinted, permanently flexible filler: it closes cracks, deep wear and missing material, and brings the shade along with it. This is exactly where you see why the five lines belong together — once cured, the filler leaves a smooth, slightly glossy surface that stands out against the leather around it. You hide that with Leather Fresh in the same factory shade. The 20 ml bottle sounds small and isn't: crack work is millimetre work, not panel work.

COLOURLOCK "Nubuk Fresh" is the suede care for anything with a buffed surface: Alcantara, velour, nubuck, rough-out leather. Different rules apply here than on smooth leather — the tint soaks in instead of building a film, so the pile stays loose and velvet doesn't end up feeling like plastic. Sizes: 250 ml and 1000 ml / 1 litre.

And the COLOURLOCK "Leather Care Sets" bundle the whole run into one box — cleaner, colour in the factory shade, sponges, brush and cloths. They come as Set XS and Set XL as well as the Colour & Protect Set and the Complete Repair Set. Their value is less about saving money than about staying inside one system: pull the building blocks together yourself and it's easy to grab a silicone-based conditioner off a DIY-store shelf — and silicone blocks the cross-linking of the water-based polymers every single time.

Young cars tell you their colour, old leather shows it

Up to about three to five years the colour name from the vehicle papers is enough. After that, a physical sample decides whether the shade lands.

You start at the type plate and the option code; in a lot of cases only a VIN lookup at the dealer hands you the exact trim colour code. What matters is telling the leather type apart from the colour: BMW Dakota, Vernasca and Merino, Mercedes-Benz Nappa and Artico, Audi Valcona, VW Vienna describe the hide — the shade next to it is called Alaskagrau, Aerograu, Achat or Bluemetal. You order by the shade, not by the type.

With aged leather the logic flips. The name describes the state on delivery day, not today's. After ten years the seat cushions and the driver's side regularly sit a long way off the rear bench of the same car, and beige, sand and light grey trims drift furthest. Colour a single spot in the factory shade at that point and you've swapped a dark patch for a light one. So you pull a sample first: a piece about one to two centimetres across from somewhere hidden — the underside of the seat, behind a trim panel, the spare material at the belt loop. A removable headrest or a sun visor does the job too.

From the questions we field every week comes the one thing that decides the colour match more often than any order number: judge the colour in daylight, not at dusk and not under LED. Two shades that look identical under artificial light can visibly split apart in the sun — metamerism is the name for it, it comes out of different pigment mixes that only match under one kind of light, and it hits greys hardest. Hold the sample out through the open door into the daylight and compare there, before you touch a whole set of seats.

And one detail plenty of people skip: clean before you compare. A good chunk of the supposed colour loss on a wheel rim and a sill edge is skin oil and a film of grime. Whatever is still missing after cleaning is real colour loss — and that's the only part you need colour for.

Degrease first, colour second, Top Coat last

Colour is the fourth beat in a fixed sequence. Make it the first and you're working against your own prep.

The run is the same right across COLOURLOCK, whether the shade comes off the general palette or out of the brand database: clean, degrease with a degreaser, then primer & adhesion promoter where the substrate is awkward or old colour could bleed through. Then fill where material is missing, then colour — and last, Top Coat & finish as abrasion protection. The additives & aids are how you dial the result in: cross-linker for mechanical durability, thickener for brushable edge work, matting agent for the gloss level.

You lay it down in wafer-thin coats. The colour goes onto the sponge, never straight onto the leather, and gets dabbed in — a steering wheel rim typically takes three to four coats, a badly yellowed bolster four to six. Dry briefly with a hairdryer between coats, and here sits the temperature limit hardly anyone has on their radar: modern chrome-tanned car leather takes about 90 to 100 degrees, older vegetable-tanned leather only around 70. Above that the fibre shrinks, and there's no getting that back. A hairdryer on full blast held close to the nozzle is over that line fast.

The exception to the hairdryer rule is the filler. Fluid Leather needs roughly one to two hours per layer at room temperature and must not be rushed — dry on the outside, soft underneath is exactly the state new cracks grow out of later. And after the last coat of colour comes the awkward part: about 24 hours of off-gassing before anyone gets in or any conditioner goes on. Most of the follow-up questions we get land right here, because the car is needed again the next morning — and if you don't give it that time, you rub yesterday's work straight back off.

Two rules at the end that separate clean from obvious. Contrast stitching and neighbouring plastic parts get masked off, otherwise sponge overspill colours the stitching with it, and you won't get that back out. And no Top Coat goes on Alcantara, velour or nubuck: any closed protective layer glues the pile together. Suede gets brushed once it's dry, not sealed.

Airbag seams and sun-bleached leather are the hard limits

Sample-based means close to factory, not lab-exact on the individual batch. Know that up front and you won't be disappointed afterwards.

The first limit is safety-critical and not up for discussion. Seats with a side airbag have a calculated tear seam that has to split in an exactly defined way when it fires. Fill it with repair compound, glue it shut with heavy colour or have it restitched by an uncertified outfit, and the tear behaviour changes — the airbag can fire late, not at all, or in the wrong direction. Certified airbag seams have tested parameters out of deployment trials; that work belongs with a correspondingly certified trim or master craftsman business. Colour around the seat, yes. On the seam itself, no.

The second limit is the colour match. On a young interior with an intact top layer the factory shade sits very close to the original. On a 20-year-old, sun-tanned trim there is no longer “the one” shade, only a compromise that has to blend in — the reference object changed, the colour didn't. So on special hides, light shades and old cars: put a test patch somewhere hidden first, let it dry, compare it in daylight. That quarter of an hour is the cheapest insurance in the whole job.

The third limit is the gloss level, and it's the one most often underrated. Aged leather has been polished up by skin and clothing contact; it has that greasy shine. Lay a matt-set colour on top of that and what you see afterwards isn't the wrong shade, it's a matt patch in glossy surroundings. From what we see, more repairs fall over on gloss than on colour — which is why the call between matt, satin or gloss comes before the first coat, not after it.

Three more material limits in short form. Perforated leather over seat heating and seat ventilation takes no filler and only very dry colour passes, otherwise the holes seal up for good. Alcantara with tears or burn holes can't be filled — once the microfibre structure is destroyed, only swapping the panel helps. And when a whole panel is uneven, you colour seam to seam instead of patch to patch: the seam is the only edge where a transition stays invisible. Last, the supply limit — made-to-order means a reorder halfway through costs the same mixing time as the first one. Work the area out realistically before you start.

Which line suits your leather

Two quick moves on the damaged spot sort the choice faster than any product description: run a fingernail across it once, and set a drop of water on it once.

If the drop beads up and the nail catches nowhere, your panel is pigmented smooth leather in sound condition. If it only looks flat and tired, COLOURLOCK "Leather Fresh" in your brand's factory shade is enough. If the colour layer on a bolster, a wheel rim or a sill is genuinely rubbed through, COLOURLOCK "Leather Colour" is the solid step. If the nail catches in a real break edge, COLOURLOCK "Fluid Leather" comes first — fill and tint in one step, then blend in with Leather Fresh.

If the drop soaks in and darkens the spot, it's open-pored. On Alcantara, velour and nubuck the route runs through COLOURLOCK "Nubuk Fresh", no Top Coat and a brush at the end. If you're starting from zero and don't want to pick the building blocks one by one, grab one of the COLOURLOCK "Leather Care Sets" in your brand. Everything else in the range is under everything from COLOURLOCK.

Sort it by the age of the car and it gets simpler still. The three-to-five-year lease return shows colour wear on the driver's side bolster and shine on the wheel rim — a Leather Fresh case, usually through a set. The six-to-twelve-year used car has cracks in the seat cushion, tired armrests and a seatbelt rub mark — that gets filled, then blended. On a classic from fifteen years up you're looking at large-area fading, and that runs through the solid Leather Colour. And if your panel is fine on colour and only shines unevenly, you don't need pigment, you need gloss level — that's what the pigment-free colour refreshers are for.

And the point that carries this whole category and is printed in bold in no manual anywhere: new leather leaves the factory with a dirt-repellent seal on it. A freshly trimmed replacement panel or a new steering wheel needs degreasing and keying just as thoroughly as a twenty-year-old seat cushion — leave the factory seal intact and the best colour in the world slides straight back off. The factory shade out of the database takes one of two unknowns off your plate. The second one stays with you, and its name is prep.