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The second article in the ’66 Redux series of articles. Fortune smiled on me while I was at pick-a-part in Sunland, California looking for parts to finish off my electric fan conversion. I came across a 325i BMW with a pair of sport seats in pristine condition. Usually these sorts of seats are gone as soon as they hit the junkyard, but probably due to the overcast weather of the USC football game on TV these seats waited around long enough for me to snatch them up. Read along as I install them into my Chevelle.

The stock bucket seats in a 1966 Chevelle are hardly the apex of comfort or positive retention. Anyone who has taken steps to improve the handling of their classic muscle car is probably familiar with the “right hand on the wheel, left knee jammed into the door, left arm holding on to the window sill” technique for holding yourself in your seat will agree that there is much to be desired. I have spent considerable time browsing ebay, the recycler, and the summit catalog looking for a pair of seats that would strike a balance between comfort and performance. Most of what I came across was either in my price range or good, but never both. Fortunately while at the junkyard looking for electrical components I can across these seats out of an e30 BMW. They meet both the comfort and performance requirements and their covering material and color match the existing interior and the rear seat.

Follow along as I make some repairs to these seats then install them in my Malibu.



Front view of the seats after a light cleaning.



Rear view of the seats.



Close up shot of the damage on the rear of the passenger seat.

Trial Fit and First Look

The first order of business was to remove the factory seats from the car. Once I had the passenger seat out I placed them side by side for comparison. Right away it is clear that the Chevelle buckets are wider then those from the 325i, but they have similar heights and depths.

Next I put both seats on their sides to get a comparison of rail locations and seat height. This is simply to give me a rough idea. The final location in the car will be determined by actually sitting in the seats before making any sort of mounting arrangements.

The next order of business was to place one of the 325i seats in the car and take a look. The outside front bolt holes seem to line up quite well when I placed the seat down in the car so I put a bolt in for now.

Here is a shot from the passenger side of the seat sitting in the car. The black vinyl looks perfectly at home in the Chevelle interior and the seat location looks good.

A second view of the seats in the car and they look right at home.

At this point I sat down in the seat and got comfortable. It came rapidly to my attention that the BMW seats had me sitting higher in the car then I would like. The seat height is adjustable, but I had already placed it in the lowest setting. For reference I am 6 feet tall.

The feel that I have established for the car over the last 10 years says that the seats need to be around half and inch lower, especially at the rear. Fortunately the height adjustment allows me to mount them as low as possible then raise them in the advent that I grow shorter with age.

Seat Modification and Mounting

As you can see from this picture the BMW seats have mounting tabs that raise the height of the seat up about 1/2.” I will be removing this tab from the rear mounts of the seat to see how that impacts installed height. I will first remove only the bottom ring like tab, and if that proves insufficient I will remove the entire foot mount. Better to cut a little off at a time then take the time to weld stuff back together that has been cut too far.