What, exactly, is Corinthian leather?

Factual Questions
1

I’m too lazy to google and too short on time today.

But my mind wandered back to Ricardo Maltoban and his sales pitch for Chrysler years ago citing the seats in the car had " rich Corinthian Leather."

Why would this be a big deal and has any other car had Corinthian Leather or is it a come on?

Are there different grades or processing styles of leather?

2

Meaningless. The leather wasn’t from Corinth, and neither the ancient Greek city nor any of its modern day namesakes in places like MS lend their name to any particular means of processing or grading leather. It was made up by the advertisers because they thought “leather” just sounded too plain. Interestingly, you can find bibles, briefcases, etc covered with “Corinthian leather” solely because of the credibility Ricardo Montalban’s commercials created.

3

As a materials testing engineer, I’ve come across car seats that are covered with “Corinthian Vinyl.” I guess the Corinthian Leather gimmick is a successful one.

4

By the way, Ricardo Montalban played the Grandfather in the movie “Spy Kids 3D, Game Over.”
One of his lines was “And don’t touch the wheelchair. It’s genuine Corinthian leather.”
I was almost rolling in the aisle. Stopped only by the realization that I was the only one laughing.

5

Acid that is almost enough to make me go out and rent Spykids.

( I will one day, but the kidlets are not at that target demographic as of yet)

Yabob do you have a cite for this:

6

Better yet, wanna buy one?:

http://www.booksofthebible.com/p3633.html

I’ll let you do the googling on ‘corinthian vinyl’; I already did it, but the hits are too numerous to list.

7
      • Close: it was made up on the set by Ricardo Montalban, who insisted that simply saying “rich leather” wasn’t enough to emphasize. After the fact the car company looked into the matter and found that they could use the name–so they did. This factoid appears in one of William Poundstone’s Big Secrets books, and Ricardo has answered this question in at least two different interviews he has given.
        ~