The Saga of the Seats Part 1

So as I said in my previous entry, the next step in the build is going to be to select and get a set of FIA racing seats to fit into the rather cramped cockpit of the Corvette.

I had my head in all of the catalogues for a few days and came to the conclusion that the perfect seat was going to be the Racer Pro by COBRA Seats. They seemed to be the most compact seats available in terms of external dimensions and were even relatively well priced.

But a little warning voice in the back of my mind said I should see them for myself first....

It was a lucky thing I did because once I (tried) to sit in them I found out that not only (to coin a phrase) did my bum look big in this, but it wouldn't fit in no matter how hard I wriggled and pushed, my hip bones were hard against the seat shell and neither were going any where! I promise you, my consumption of Christmas Turkey and New Year Curry had no impact on this, it is entirely a skeletal issue!

So, it was over to plan B and a re-check of the dimensions inside the Corvette Cockpit. The big problem seems to be the width across the 'wings' of the seat at shoulder height so I went back to the car and the catalogues to see what else could fit. The result was that I needed to go and try another COBRA seat, this time the Monaco Pro which as a bonus is actually cheaper, though a bit heavier as it is a steel frame seat rather than a composite shell.



On this occasion, I went to MSAR and saw Malcom Sanders http://www.msar-safety.com/default.asp. To my relief, my arse felt nicely supported within the seat this time! Whilst there, I took the opportunity to look at harnesses as well and settled on a set of excellent Schroth 6 point belts in red.

Having picked the seat, my thoughts then turned to the aesthetics...

The colour was easy, Red to match the rest of the interior. I also quickly decided that vinyl would be a better look than fabric (and Marc Pigeon at COBRA recommended a great leather grain vinyl). What was worrying me though was having a Corvette with a huge COBRA written on the seats. So after a bit of a chat, it was decided to have a custom embroidered seat with the words "Corvette by COBRA" on the headrest. It then turned out to be incredibly hard to find the script for the Corvette lettering. In the end, a lot of searching on the Internet found a font that was close and then I had to modify in Paint to make a near perfect match.

So the order was placed (and COBRA offered to do the embroidery for free!) Now all I have to do is sit back (sorry for the pun) and wait for them to be made and delivered!