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non sports car seats


david lewis

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hi all,

i would like to fit new front seats to my 13/60 saloon but everyone seems to mention mgf or mazda sport seats but i would prefer some thing like vw golf or ford focus type seats or pehaps peugot which would be easy to pick up from my local scrappy.

has anyone any ideas or experience about which might fit.

cheers

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Dont knownthe main constraints are width at the B post, which the saloon has the advantage of more space and will the runners sit along side the tunnel, my mgf on spacers still managed to slit the carpet

when slid rearwards, so slide width /height is a factor

 

but anthing with antisubmarine cushions and head rests has to be a good move

some use XJ seats

 

or like ugly Mini and Fiat 500 feed car on steroids to make space

 

Someone will have the answer

 

Pete

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Hi Dave

 

My advice is to be careful, because the options will be limited. Pete is right to point out the narrowness of the Herald floor pan, and the extra intrusion into the space in the convertible because of the wider B-post . We are, after all, talking about a car which is only five feet wide, which is miniscule by modern standards, and with a wide transmission tunnel as well. 

 

MX5 and MGF seats are popular because they fit, and are a simple bolt-in. Even so, the MGF is a tight fit in a convertible. The MX5 route is also much-travelled by TR owners for the same reason, of lack of available elbow room!

 

Of the other options, some owners have successfully fitted XJs seats, and if I remember correctly, Leon Guyot, who has been involved in the TSSC for many years and contributes to this forum, had Daimler seats in his concours Vitesse. (Leon: please confirm in case I am getting senile...) Richard Dredge, who writes for Practical Classics has (or had) a well-known black Vitesse into which he had fitted (I think) Rover Metro seats, and ended up doing a lot of re-engineering of the floor pan to make them work. I have also seen Dolomite seats used, but they look too wide for my taste.

 

As to costs, they are not as high as you might think.  I got my MX5 seats from an MX5 specialist breaker for £100 the pair, in excellent nick, with a few quid's worth of bar stock, an M8 tap and a bottle of Vanish fabric cleaner added on to that. I have kept the 13/60 seats I had previously in the loft in case I ever sell the car, but I certainly won't be re-fitting them in my ownership!

 

Good luck with whatever you choose

 

Regards

 

Steve

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Hi, I imagine that Ford Focus seats would be quite large and the high backs of most modern car seats will make them look even larger.  Golf might be a better bet because an older Golf will be smaller than the more modern generation of cars.  I think that the MGF seat is a good one because it is an unfussy design so can look almost original in one of our cars.  I had XJS seats in my car for a while and they are supremely comfortable, not to mention very well made (and consequently quite heavy), but have now elected MGF on grounds of the way they look.

 

Good luck and so please let us know what you decide.

 

Tom 

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Installed a set of MGF seats in to my Mk2 Vitesse CV; probably one of the best upgrades I have done.

 

Cannot fault them and having just done over 900 miles through France in the Vitesse it was a real test; of which the seats performed brilliantly. 

 

Good luck.

 

Richard.

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