I am at the point that I need to find a set of bucket seats for my 38 Chevy sedan. What seats will work the best. I was going to hit the local wercking yard and wanted to see what everyone has used in there car.
I used seats out of a Chevrolet Monza (late 70's) in my 38 Chevrolet Coupe back in the 80's, a friend reupholstered them, I thought they were extremely comfortable, but they may be a little hard to find now.
my buddy had '69 camaro buckets in his '38 chevy coupe. they fit in ok but just didnt look right. he went and got a small bench with the cut out from an '89 or so ranger/isuzu truck and had it reupholstered. looks great, fits nicely and has a cut out for the shifter
I had some 60's chevelle buckets in my 38 Coupe back in the 70's. Now I have an S-10 bench seat in it. I like the bench better.
Some of the newer Chevy suv stuff works great if you need comfort and seatbelts. I have a set of Monte Carlo ones for my 47.
I have 1 60s Econoline bucket you could buy, but you'd have to find another. They're simple and narrow
...here's a pic of my Honda seats in my 37 Chev coupe during mock-up,...bought these probly 15 years ago at a swapmeet, they fit nice and are very comfortable,.. the headrest do remove easily also. 37-8 Chevs aren't real wide so you need to look for smaller cars for seats. If you want a bench,I think S-10 or Ranger seats mite work well too, or the 3rd seat from an earlier Astro Van, as they don't have headrests.
Can I ask why you need to have buckets? I've never been fond of the headrest style bucket seat look in an old car or truck, they just look out of place unless you're doing an all-out modern build. A narrow bench upholstered in a period-looking pattern seems like the way to go. A friend of mine is pulling a '37 Chevy 2 door sedan out of the woods hopefully this weekend, it has individual front seats in it from the factory, those have the 1930's look to them.
I used seats from a early Mazda 626, the passanger seat automaticaly slides forward when you tilt the seatback making it easy getting in the back seat, and you can remove the headrests and still have plenty of back support.
I like the look of buckets better and currently have a hand brake mounted between the seats. The seats currently in the car do not have a removable head rest hance the reason for new seats.
I used the stock bench in my 38 but went with 99 Dodge Intrepid in my 40 Ford Coupe. They fit well and very comfortable and sure they would fit the 38 as well. The headrests will remove as well.
Back when I had my 40 Chevy coupe, I went searching for seats to replace the wore out ones. I settled on late model Firebird buckets. They were of course too thin to be bolted direct on the floor. I found that front seat pedestals from a Chevy Astro van are the perfect height for mounting bucket seats.
I talked to an upholster, recently, who said he uses Firebird bucket seats. He said the driver's seat has a feature that allows it to move vertically. He said it mounts to a flat floor when the front tabs are reworked. He didn't mention what year had this feature.
'63 Impala but they won't be easy to find. Some of the older fellas around here are kind of partial to Neon Seats. I don't like the high backs but they are pretty comfortable.
not sure of the year that he's speaking of but i used a pair of 98 firebird buckets and removed the headrests. super comfortable and to me are the right size for the interior. hope this helps, hot rust.
Take a look at older Chrysler Sebring. Narrow enough and seat belts are in seats plus center console w/ E brake can be mod.
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