No "suede material in the center" of my '05 Shinka seats. It's all the same smooth leather.

 

^ yup the the sand beige whatever is really sexy

 

That's interesting. The '06 Shinka I was looking at when I bought mine definitely had suede center sections in all the seats. One year only, I'm guessing, since your '05 ddoesn't have it. I was leary of it since suede is so hard to clean. Grippier than regular leather, though.

 

I think the "suede" is actually artificial suede-like Alcantara. You can read about it on wiki. I think they tend to use this stuff in cars nowadays as it probably cleans and wears better than the real thing.

 

The 05 shinka has smooth leather in all parts of the seat. The 06 shinka has alacantra (fake suade) in the center inserts. You really need to use the search here and see the pics I and others have posted on the interiors. 05 is smooth, 06 is alacantra...the OP pic looks like an 05 seat in a stock interior. I'm not going to say that others may not have gotten that look from some odd offering but for the US that is how it has been overall.

For a quick look at one thread that goes into what a Shinka has or doesn't have check here... https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...ghlight=shinka