@Meade posted:Anyone know a seat replacement for my Beck Speedster? My wife won’t ride because of “the Ride”.
meade
Meade,
You've got a Beck, which has a nice wide area for the seat base. This opens up an enormous amount of possibility.
I recently put a pair of EMPI race-trim seats, marketed as being for '56- '70 Beetles in my car. These are Scat Pro-car copies. They're built like a normal seat, with a frame and springs under the foam. If she's not comfortable with that, she's probably just uncomfortable with the car in general.
If a guy has a pan-based car with the normal CMC/Vintage-style subframe, I don't think they'll fit. They would fit in your car.
My wife loves them. They recline nicely, and the head rests are actually usable. They come with quite a bit of lumbar support built into the seat-back (which I hate, and she loves). They don't grab and hold (side to side) like Speedster seats, but they're nice if your hips or butt are wider than a 17 year old from 1980 (as opposed to a 17 year old from today). Car seats for kids fit better as well.
I cut the driver's side down extensively and completely remade the seat base to get super-low in the car, and did all kinds of reshaping to the seat back to remove most of the lumbar support. But I did this because I'm me, and my theory is that you have to be comfortable in a car to want to drive it.
If you are not shaped like an ape, and are not ridiculously picky about "custom fit", you'll like them just fine just as they come. I'd mount them directly to the floor with normal seat sliders. You may need to shim up the front to pitch the seat base back a bit, but that's how we both like seats set up generally. That's how hers is, and I sit no higher in her seat than I do with 99% of the other speedsters I've sat in.
I'm deeply committed to these seats in my car. After spending almost the entire winter remaking the driver's seat, I took both seats and a ceramic seat-heater kit to an upholstery guy to be re-covered in leather. I'd hate to think what I have in time and material in doing this. You wouldn't need to do any of that-- the vinyl is really not that bad looking.
The seats are sold all over. I think I spent less than $250 each, shipped to my door. You may not like the look (I'm "getting used to it"), but the comfort is undeniable.