htny

+1 on the mats for sure

rear seats are a slippery slope, might look good, might look too broken up, but will cost you rear mats and lord knows how long before you buy a carpet dye kit. No one will ever notice, I vote leave em savannah in the back for now.

I would spend that money painting the center console in exterior color, that'll really be noticeable to you daily

CWay27

Yep that's right and lets not forget 964 RS, 993 RS, 964 speedster, GT3 (euro all have bucket seats), CLK black series, 360 stradale...... Must I go on??

Thundertub

I agree with the black (factory-style) floor mats front and rear for now (not the carpeting). Small price to pay in case you change your mind about the seats. Rather than switching the rear seats, leave them alone, and get one of those "floor mats" (in black) that covers the seat backs when they are folded down. That will tie the black front and rear without doing anything permanent. Might also be fun to change the front seat belts to black if you take it one itty-bitty step further. The console painted gloss black is a nice tie-in as well, but you can't reverse that thought easily.


My 2001 996 was ordered with a GT Package option (I still have the window sticker attesting to its authenticity - I just don't have that car anymore). Part of the package was a set of Euro GT3 seats which were dealer installed by Brumos (and totally not available here as a regular option). They were genuine factory racing Recaro's matched to the car interior including stiching and Porsche crest. They were shipped in a separate box, along with several other Euro-only bits.
I loved the seats at the track.
But they got tiring on the daily trek, or on long drives, because they did not allow any way to recline them just a few degrees.
I will add that the GT Package included the nicely polished roll bar. Not sure if it was for street safety, or because the car was expected to be driven at the track.

LJpete

While I can appreciate that, after seeing what was left of a friends M3 at Summit point and how level his car's roof was with his hood and trunk, I'd rather wait to install a roll bar with the fixed buckets. He ended up rolling and hit a tree (with the roof portion of the car. Amazingly enough, he and the instructor walked away. Of course, they had to be cut out of the car. Thankfully, the stock seats gave and they was diverted into the foot well area. That's of course assuming that I get fast enough to worry about that.

For me, better safe than sorry.

AudiOn19s

Can't blame you for wanting to be safe. I just wanted to make sure both sides of the argument were heard. In one of the DE / Track forum threads about roll bars there was a reference to structural integrity in modern cars and what it basically referenced was that the roll bar does very little help in most roll over scenerios. Where it's really a life saver is if the car impacts something or his hit by another moving object in that roof area while it's anywhere other than on it's 4 wheels. The Rollover your friend had is a perfect example of never being able to predict what's gonna happen in those situations.

The other thing to consider is that once you put a roll bar in a street cat you should at a minimum wear 5 or 6 point harness' on every single drive. Without them on every drive your just aksing for a head injury in the event you get in an accident that causes your head to come into contact with that roll bar. The "best case" secnerio would be helmet and 6 points on every drive in any car that has a roll bar. Might freak people out at the light next to you or in the grocery store parking lot though!

Andy

LJpete

Funny you mentioned this as there is a long standing discussion very similar on the BMW forums (can you tell that's where I came from?). It's a difficult question as where do you draw the line? If you are fast enough to require that sort of equipment, shouldn't you consider a dedicated car as a car with roll bar/cage requires harnesses etc and for the street there are safety considerations too if you are to drive it frequently. I agree while my friends incident was what I would consider rare, I tend to be more conservative on safety for track events than others. Many share the attitude, can't you put a price on your life mentality locally and push, for the equipment with the attitude of better to have it and not need it than, need it and not have it. Especially, at Summit main where there is so little run off.

Driving my friends club car around on the street is entertaining. Never driven a car so slow as cops are on you like white on rice.

AudiOn19s

I struggle with where to draw the line all the time. Right now the interior of my 996 is completely stock and since my wife drives it more than I do on the street I have a hard time justifying all of the stuff that should be in there for the track.

However I know I'm going quick enough on the track that I should be protecting myself better.

Sadly the only real solution as you mentioned is a dedicated track car. Until we all reach that point everything else is a compromise.

gota911

Just get one of these. The whole car is a roll bar.

ivangene

My guess is that this is actually less safe than stock. Looks like an "add more metal" here aproach... The car might make it thru a crash, but the passengers could get the beating of a lifetime!

Tbred911

not bad! you know what would really balance it out... black carbon fibre trim pieces for your centre console and the radio surround... that would give your seats and interior that "custom" look while appearing more integrated... black floormats would go nicely as well.... and a lot easier to keep clean!

how do you like the way the car drives with the GT3 seats?

ivangene

Thanks for the info and imput. Here is the run down. I probably paid too much for these. I am not sure who makes them but they dont look like Maxspeed to me (at least not current pics)

The kids (ages 9 & 10) are able to get in the back w/o any trouble and say there is more room for thier legs now. The seats are incredible feeling (although I have only about 100 miles in them so far)

It really transformed the way the car feels a lot more than I would have guessed. I have been driving in the snow and the way the seats hold you in place is awesome. I was kind of hoping to re-sell them after giving them a try, but there are 2 problems with that... (1) I already said, I paid too much and (2) I really think it will be hard for me to remove them because they feel so awesome.

That said, does anyone have an idea what they should be worth in case I opt to sell so I know what is fair to ask for them

PM is fine if you like too

ivangene

Nice pair of seats just came up on ebay, looks like a fair price... no affiiation at all........

Link to ebay seats