You can always tell who is home and bored the day after Chrismas when a thread that has been dead for 12 frigging years gets dug out. The one Real 60's race car around here that I was around in the mid 60's (a wedge powered Mopar called Rambunctious) ran a pair of Dodge A 100 seats. The car was owned and raced by Bob Norwood who the DFW area guys know as that Ferrari tuner in Dallas. The man was known for making Mopar wedges run strong in the 60's and did the tune ups on most of the Washington State Patrol Mopars in that time frame.
BITD in my neighborhood the preferred place to source seats for a Gas Class car was the all night laundromat. Now that I mentioned the laundromat that reminds me of an Austin Coil story. In the early days of the Chi Town Hustler Coil used to wash shop rags at the local facility. One time he added about a quart of gas to the wash because the rags were particularly dirty. Everything was fine until the dryer door was blown off.
Hello, When we pulled the 1940 Willys Coupe out of the neighbor lady’s back yard, it looked completely worn out, sitting under that canvas tarp for who knows how long. The body was in good shape, with absolutely no dings or dents. The coupe was complete, shiny bumpers and all. It did not run and we had to tow it home with our trusty marine heavy duty dockline. Upon disassembly and starting of our reconstruction, my brother decided to get a pair of bucket seats from a small sports car at the nearby scrap yards. The adjustment mounts came with the seats. Just putting those sports car seats inside gave us much needed room to fix up the floorboard, firewall and center hump. We had to weld in the seats after careful measurements and with one of us sitting in a wobbly seat. Adjusting to a 10% setback, a new firewall and floorboard mods were the reason for the bucket seats. Plus, being tall teenagers, we needed as much room to be comfortable inside of the cab. It definitely was not our roomy 1951 Oldsmobile sedan seats or the 1958 Chevy Impala front seat area. When both seats that fit were welded in place, we clogged up the passenger side footwell area with a new Moon Aluminum Tank and pump set up. That was not nice for the passenger, but would do well at the drags. Since the original gas tank was being used for full water weight for the rear wheel traction. Jnaki The original seats did not feel right and did not give us the option of any cockpit modifications that we were doing. The small sports car seats felt right and gave us the room we needed. Despite the intrusion of the Moon Aluminum Tank sitting in front of the passenger seating area. One of our friends had an MGA sports car and his seats were comfortable. But, it was the lowest cost, black, seats from a sports car (forgot the name) with adjustment frames that made the seating comfortable. In the end, only the bare metal frames and wires were still there.
This are gennie JC Whitney bucket (I have a pair). I did get Fat Luckys to replace the original covers (which you actually bought separate) but these are the real deal. They were cheap and got used a lot. A lot of what got used in the really true low budget back yard gassers were the original bench seats or van seats like out of an Econoline or that type of van.
The Jalopy Journal
