Sticky #3: Pantera Seats

Hi folk's, like Garvino, i'm looking for new seats for my pantera. As somebody ever fit NRG bucket racing seats or 3A Netami seats in their pantera (actually on sale on Ebay)...How they fit in the car, how much free space between the center console + the seat + door panel? are they comfortable? Needed to put drop floor pans?

Regards.

Serge

Thanks for all the comments and photos so far. If there are any other photos out there of other seats being utilized I would appreciate it. I also am considering the FJ seatbelt conversion that CAT7195 did. It looks pretty slick.

BTW – Mooso – I am out of Casper and am actually headed to Denver in the beginning of September. If there is anyway I could swing in real fast and sit in your Pantera that would be great. I think it would really help me out with the decision making process.

Thanks again everyone for your input.

quote:

Originally posted by Brutus:
Hi folk's, like Garvino, i'm looking for new seats for my pantera. As somebody ever fit NRG bucket racing seats or 3A Netami seats in their pantera (actually on sale on Ebay)...How they fit in the car, how much free space between the center console + the seat + door panel? are they comfortable? Needed to put drop floor pans?

Regards.

Serge

quote:

Originally posted by Brutus:
Hi folk's, like Garvino, i'm looking for new seats for my pantera. As somebody ever fit NRG bucket racing seats or 3A Netami seats in their pantera (actually on sale on Ebay)...How they fit in the car, how much free space between the center console + the seat + door panel? are they comfortable? Needed to put drop floor pans?

Regards.

Serge

pic2

quote:

Originally posted by Brutus:
Hi folk's, like Garvino, i'm looking for new seats for my pantera. As somebody ever fit NRG bucket racing seats or 3A Netami seats in their pantera (actually on sale on Ebay)...How they fit in the car, how much free space between the center console + the seat + door panel? are they comfortable? Needed to put drop floor pans?

Regards.

Serge

pic3

They are not the racing seats you named but they are sparco racing seats. I am 6 foot tall and fit very well in the seats. They do hold you in place when going around turns. My pantera has dropped floor pans. Also the front of the seat have a 1 inch spacer in the fronts to tilt the seat back.

Garvino, just e-mail me at mmooso@aol.com and we'll get together when you come through.

Later, Mooso.

Thank's Mark for your input and pics.

Serge.

Garvino,

As per your request, here are some photos of my seats. They are old (1970's) Recaro's that I had upholstered as you see in the photos. A fellow Pantera owner gave them to me because he has a factory Group 3 racing Pantera and wanted real racing buckets. The seats were a mess but after buying all new plastic parts from Recaro and having them upholstered, they look like new. They fit the Pantera like they were made for it and look like they belong in the car. More important than how they look is how they feel. They fit me like my favorite pair of jeans. I was lucky enough to get them with the Recaro Pantera tracks but adapting other tracks would be pretty easy. These seats were popular in the '70's and were even OE in some BMW's. I see them on eBay on a regular basis and they're always cheap ! Check out eBay auction number 230505808827 as an example.

David,

Thanks for the pics. Your seats look great. Do the Recaro seats recline and fold forward? Also how high do the seats stick up past the bulk head and protrude into the window area?

One seat I looked at would only have about one inch clearance between the roof of the car and the headrest top.

Thanks again.

Garvino,

Yes, the Recaro's recline and fold forward. You can either adjust them forward, a bit at a time, or "dump" them all the way forward. I can even remove the bulkhead without removing the seats. See the attached photo for the answer to your headrest clearance question. I do; however, have two modifications that you should take into consideration: I have the Amerisport bulkhead reduction kit as well as lowered floor pans. The bulkhead reduction kit doesn't affect the driver's seat at all. It allows the passenger seat to recline further back. My lowered floor pans were custom fabricated and only drop the floor by 1-1/2", so you can see in the photo that the seats would be fine without the drop.

quote:

Originally posted by David_Nunn:
Garvino,

Yes, the Recaro's recline and fold forward. You can either adjust them forward, a bit at a time, or "dump" them all the way forward. I can even remove the bulkhead without removing the seats. See the attached photo for the answer to your headrest clearance question. I do; however, have two modifications that you should take into consideration: I have the Amerisport bulkhead reduction kit as well as lowered floor pans. The bulkhead reduction kit doesn't affect the driver's seat at all. It allows the passenger seat to recline further back. My lowered floor pans were custom fabricated and only drop the floor by 1-1/2", so you can see in the photo that the seats would be fine without the drop.

Beautiful job on the seats David and definitely look like they belong there. How did you resolve the issue with the clearance of the passenger and the handbrake box?

LIV1S,

Thanks! With these Recaro's there is no issue with handbrake box clearance because they're quite thin. If you look at the photo in my first posting under this thread, you can see the handbrake in its original location.

Thanks David. Handbrake box clearance is an issue I had with the Fiero seats I installed. I've considered removing and narrowing the box so the passenger seats will roll all the way back but It'll have to wait until I get around to doing the bulkhead reduction that you did.

Bayani, easier than reworking the handbrake box is using a pair of metal strips between seat base and adjusting tracks to offset the seat base sideways toward the door. Not only does it fix the handbrake problem, it makes the firewall bulge less of an issue. Sure it twists the passenger a little on the seat, but thats not so much of an issue as with the driver who has to deal with pedals & a wheel. I did this to our '72 some 15 years ago when I had our stock seats rebuilt & modified. And since Judy & I trade off driving so I spend time in the passenger side, I can verify the offset does nothing serious to seating comfort.
I used 1/4" thick aluminum strips 3" wide & moved the seat 1-1/2" outboard; if I were to do it again, I would angle the seat on the strips rather than keep it perfectly parallel, aesthetics aside.

Brilliant solution Jack! This definitely comes under the heading of why didn't I think of that before? Beautifully simple.
I have a question - you suggest angling the seat and not worrying about making it parallel - do you suggest to use the original bolts/holes that anchor the front of the seat rails to the floor? Wouldn't that lead to a 'trapeizoide' effect on the rails that would affect how the seat slides, or don't you think the angle would be a problem.
Cheers, Tim.

quote:

Wouldn't that lead to a 'trapeizoide' effect on the rails that would affect how the seat slides, or don't you think the angle would be a problem.

Nope, the two sliders still remain parallel and slide as before.

Larry

quote:

Originally posted by Bosswrench:
Bayani, easier than reworking the handbrake box is using a pair of metal strips between seat base and adjusting tracks to offset the seat base sideways toward the door. Not only does it fix the handbrake problem, it makes the firewall bulge less of an issue. Sure it twists the passenger a little on the seat, but thats not so much of an issue as with the driver who has to deal with pedals & a wheel. I did this to our '72 some 15 years ago when I had our stock seats rebuilt & modified. And since Judy & I trade off driving so I spend time in the passenger side, I can verify the offset does nothing serious to seating comfort.
I used 1/4" thick aluminum strips 3" wide & moved the seat 1-1/2" outboard; if I were to do it again, I would angle the seat on the strips rather than keep it perfectly parallel, aesthetics aside.

Thanks Jack.... That is an alternative I will definitely consider. Probably easier to make offset studs to gain the clearance I need than to mod the handbrake box. I did try to offset the driver side to get a more central steering wheel position but it left a too big of a gap between the driver seat and the inner rocker panel hump so I decided against it. I still try consider aesthetics I'm afraid.

When I installed my Corvette seats I offset the passenger seat 3/4" toward the passenger door to clear the hand brake mount box.

http://www.panteraplace.com/page127.htm

I am going to have new leather seats constructed this winter. I would like to see as many pix as possible to help me determine what design to have built.

So far, I like the Ferrari 512BBi seats - pix below ...