winovin

Looks like the side airbag is in the seat now (rather than door)

Standard features talk about the driver & passenger seats with "integrated airbags"

What are the pros & cons of this?

Luke

expensive seat

winovin

It just occurred to me, what about the GT3 seats?

This means that a GT3 seat upgrade will result in no side airbag.

Greg D.

The biggest issue to me is that if you want to swap seats with a nice set of REcaros aor sparcos, well, you'll most likely get a light on the dash because the new seat does not have an airbag.

I have the same issue with my mini cooper, this sucks... I like it better when the airbags was in the door, I swapped seats on practically all the porsches I owned....

Only saving grace is I cannot afford a 997 so it's no big deal to me ;-)

MetalSolid

I can't think of many cars with the airbag in the door, right where an occupant might have their arm, except the 996.

teflon_jones

actually putting them in the seat is more prevalent than putting them in the door. when you put them in the seat, they deploy to the same location on all drivers. if they're in the door, drivers that sit all the way back may not get full coverage from them.

winovin

Actually, I am surprised they did not add some sort of high-positioned airbag, like the BMW HPS (Head Protection System) which would deploy from above the window. I would have thought this would be a consideration given there are a lot of high riding vehicles, particularly in the U.S. market.

MKW

The current 996 airbags in the doors are triangular shaped and cover the head/shoulders/ torso , so I would expect the same for the 997 seat integrated ones.
Interestingly, the new BMW 6 series has door side torso bags , but no head protection , coupe or cab . You would think the solid top coupe should at least have it or they would do the Porsche system on a model that has a cab option. The sedan only 5 and 7 series have the HPS head protection system, though.

winovin

Looks like it will have an airbag in the door AND in the seat

Carrera GT

The order guide suggests all seats will have air bags. The sports seats have adjustable, memory side bolsters. The Carrera is becoming very complex.

Carlos from Spain

Autocar mentined that now in the 997, bucket seats will be a third available seat option, so I guess it will be only for RoW if Autocar is right. I really hope this is true since bucket seats was at the top of the my option list for when I upgraded for the 997S in a year or two. And by that time I hope that round beetle looking "sport" steering wheel has been changed already by popular demand.