Date:         Tue, 12 Mar 2002 16:26:57 +1100
Reply-To:     Stephen Overmyer <s.overmyer@UWS.EDU.AU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Stephen Overmyer <s.overmyer@UWS.EDU.AU>
Subject:      Re: fitting other seats from different makes into the Vanagon
In-Reply-To:  <200203120507.g2C57I224170@cooper.uws.edu.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

At 00:00 12/03/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Subject: fitting other seats from different makes into the vanagon
>
>> What cars have front seats that will directly go into a Westy or
>> > >regular vanagon?
 what i would do is take a walk in a well-stocked import car
>junkyard, and try out some different seats..  none will just slide in, but
>some may have a flat base that the vanagon seats tracks can be bolted to
>(they do unbolt)..
>i have been thinking about some leather merkur seats, or maybe some audi
>seats.    i did see a fella who put some porsche 911 seats in his vanagon -
>it was a good fit, as the porsche has a flat floor pan..so he was able to
>adapt the seats without too much of a hassle..
>trouble you may run into is, that alot of the "nicer" seats out there are
>power.. which is a pain in the seatbottom (ie, pain in the ass :<) to
>retrofit..

Something else to consider when looking for other seats to fit in your
van is that a lot of other seats have nice looking comfy high sides on
the base part of the seat to keep you snugly seated without sliding
about.
An excellent idea for your van except that you have to haul yourself up
and over the higher seat lip now to seat yourself in the van.
This can be problematic especially if you're a little on the short side
and the fabric on the seat lip will now wear at an accelerated rate.

Also be careful of seats where the base is significantly thicker than
the original VW seat.These seats will have you sitting way too high
in the van reducing head room and can make it difficult to reach the
pedals...again especially if you (or your SO) is a little vertically
challenged.

I've seen these things happen on many occasions in attempted seat upgrades
in bay window vans when the original seats wore out...

My 2 cents worth FWIW...

Steve O
Blue Mountains NSW Aust.
'92 Transporter WBX Kombi
'76 Transporter Double Cab
'68 Beetle
'00 Transporter 5Cyl Double Cab (work truck)