Aftermarket seats
Like any other interior accessory in a car, like aftermarket gear knobs and steering wheels to seat covers or dashboard covers , the seats are also are upgrade able. The reasons why people change the front two seats it not just for its looks but these seats are infact light weight. The more weight you shed off from the car the better your car becomes in cornering and handling. Nowadays a lot of people have become used to this modification of aftermarket seats. But we should understand the difference between the categories.
As you go with aftermarket seats they are wider and provide better lumbar and back support and are sometimes comfortable than oem seats but it all depends on what type of seats you want.
Aftermarket seats come in all shapes and sizes and different brands such as Recaro, Sparco, Bride, Corbeau. These are sometimes called racing seats because most sports cars have them as factory fitted option and tuned and modified race cars have them to shed weight and provide stiffer support for the driver and passenger. Usually during cornering , the g fore causes the passenger and driver to move about in their seat and that makes the ride uncomfortable and the driver looses concentration and focus and doesn’t get the right confidence to handle the car. But this is only applicable to high end sports cars and spirited driving. So if you are one of those person then you should definitely go for such seats that keeps you attached nice and firm!
The picture below shows a semi bucket seat , which means its an aftermarket seat but it has a reclining option and u can move it back and forth along the railing and is much applicable for a city ride and not extreme race track use. Cars like Mitsubishi Evolutions and Nissan GTRs, Subaru WRX/STis have seats as such, sponsored by Recaro or Sparco
The brand in this Subaru WRX is Recaro. These seat makers have proven to be the best for these sports cars since they are meant to be driven that way! with the optimum comfort and as well as the sporty spirit. Also depending on the options you may be able to put in a 3 point or two point seat belt harness which we would talk about later.
The next picture shown here is of a bucket seat, its soley for race purpose and quite uncomfortable for daily drive city use. Because driving in the city is tiring and you need comfortable seats. But these seats are only meant for the race track where you would be driving all day. They provide more stiffer support than aftermarket OEM factory option sports seats like you will find in evos and wrxstis. And for these seats you need a harness, some are 3 point ( which means the belt will join the buckle in 3 places and some are 2 points. If you go for these seats you definitely need a racing harness to buckle you up to this seat! The brand is called BRIDE and if u notice, you can see that its not reclineable but you can still move the seat front and back on railing.
The next picture shows the FULL bucket seat. The reason why these are called bucket seats because they are like a bucket , if you sit on them , its hard to move about once you are in it and it grips your back tighter and doesn’t allow you to move about much which is very important in race cars considering the tight cornering and g force they have to go through during turns and also these seats save you if the car faces and accident. You can also see that it provides additional shoulder and neck support to save the drive from serious injury if the car crashes. Some of these seats are made out of carbon fiber and are very expensive.
In Bangladesh , aftermarket seats are now becoming popular but bucket seats are yet to be sold here since they are very expensive and are usually vehicle specific.
Image source: Recaro and Modifiedmag.com
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