I am idly contemplating a racier set of seats for my sweet, sweet Volkswagen. Something comfy for a road trip but with enough bolstering so I’m not bracing against the door in corners. I have a variety of options, none of them seem ideal.

My first thought was to get some Brides or other racing buckets, but they’re expensive and they apparently don’t meet the requirement of being comfy on the highway. Also they don’t recline (makes getting access to the back seat area a pain) and they don’t totally match the look of the car but that’s less of an issue.

My second thought was to get some vintage Recaros, but it turns out those are either hilariously, hilariously expensive or bought up within ten seconds of going up for sale. There was a sweet brown vintage cloth one near me for sale for $250 the other week. It disappeared within a day and is now for sale in New Jersey for $450.

My third thought is to get some kind of sporty road car seat that has some bolstering to it from an unexpected car. Comfy! Reclining! Affordable! All good. The problem is that most of these aren’t actually all that supportive. I tried out a set of MR2 Turbo seats that weren’t really that sporty, and I also tried out a set of old Jamex Recaro knockoffs and they were still a bit too wide for me.

Other odd ideas were Kirkey seats, but the most padding you can get with them is 1" it looks like, and while they look cool in tweed and match the car’s vibe, they are apparently ridiculously uncomfortable. I also contemplated picking up some vintage Saab Sonett seats, which look awesome and are reportedly comfy, but don’t recline and are likely way too low for the car as they’re fixed fiberglass buckets.

The good thing about all of this is the seats that are currently in the VW are some re-upholstered original VW seats, which are at least very very comfy on the highway. Nice and softly sprung. This all means that I don’t need new seats immediately, and I can keep bopping around the internet looking for things that seem interesting. This, of course, means delving deep into the depths of Craigslist searches, bumping through random stories of people selling off garages full of never-used race components and parting out quasi-sporty coupes from eras quickly forgotten.

For example, look at very cool looking Prelude seats! Anyone ever sat in those? Is the bolstering any good?