Dr.Jeff
True Classic
So Andrew, your saying you are a real A$$ ?
I've modified seats before; welding on attachments, cutting off unwanted areas, recontouring the foam, adding things like folding armrests, swapping mounts, etc. Definitely doable. And the upholstery shop can cover any mods you make easily; they often need to make patterns from scratch due to the original pieces not being in good enough shape. The cost difference isn't much if anything really. But it is a bunch of work and you need to have a fairly good understanding of what you are doing in order to make it safe and durable. I've seen several "show cars" with modified seats there were not road worthy (although that is often not the goal with a show car).
For my project X's I found aftermarket seats very inexpensively. The more comfortable pair (for the street car) is a set I bought used from a young builder that could not figure out how to mount them. I paid $75 for the pair, which were roughly $600 new. The other seat (singular) for the "track car" is a race seat I had left over from another older project. All of these aftermarket seats weigh FAR less than the stock ones. And I also find them more comfortable (but I'm a thin frame so it might not be the same for the 'average' sized American), and better looking (in my opinion). Plus they don't need to be recovered, so I'm actually saving a large sum overall. However I will admit they are more work to get in and out of like Carl said.
