[thefirebirdm@n]

Hi all, sorry its been YEARS I think since I was active here. Financial problems shut me down for a while but we are rebounding now. Trying to button up my wife's 68 Firebird and my 73 Trans Am is about to finally go into paint jail and my GTO is patiently waiting its turn after I completely rebuilt the engine and restored the entire sub-frame and suspension a few years ago.

My question for the group: I went to Pate this weekend. More Pontiac parts than usual but as normal nothing I really needed. I did come across a guy that had what looked like 73-75 Trans Am seats and he swore they were GM OEM reclining seats. I "thought" I had heard this was an option at some point although I had never seen a set but I really wasn't sure so I passed on them but did get the guy's contact information.

I believe my friend that was me with took a couple of pictures so I will add them here. Were these EVER an OEM option from GM? Or is likely someone just modified these seats? His price was very reasonable so I might buy them either way. I'm just trying to figure out if this was ever an actual option? Or something HO Racing offered or what?

['ol Pinion head]

Jimmy, Welcome back! What you most likely ran across were some '73-75 GA/'73-77 GP/ high end Pontiac A-body seats, the recliner was offered as an option on the passenger side seat. These seats have the hard back shells, other than no notches in the shell, down low, the buckets are same as the '73-81 deluxe Bird seats. There is a difference in the outer hinge & latch assembly.

An old friend & I, during the '90's, used to pick up these Pontiac A-GP seats, where ever we could buy them cheap, then bolt on '75-81 F body seat tracks, then offer the seats for sale in the N Texas area. Many matching pairs went to swappers. I kept buying nice core '73-77 A-GP buckets, as really nice cores for '73+ T/A's became harder to find.

['ol Pinion head]

the $15 "kit" HO Racing sold, to allow your passenger side to recline was a TORX allen shaped wrench along with instructions to remove the hog rings from the back of the seat cushion. After removing the TORX headed bolt that the latch hooked to, the pass side seat would fold down with the hard shell resting on the pass side rear seat cushion. Once one loosened the bolt several times, it became easy just to thread the bolt in by hand. As a late teen & early 20 something, came in very handy...

[Tellyshavilli]

Originally Posted by 'ol Pinion head

the $15 "kit" HO Racing sold, to allow your passenger side to recline was a TORX allen shaped wrench along with instructions to remove the hog rings from the back of the seat cushion. After removing the TORX headed bolt that the latch hooked to, the pass side seat would fold down with the hard shell resting on the pass side rear seat cushion. Once one loosened the bolt several times, it became easy just to thread the bolt in by hand. As a late teen & early 20 something, came in very handy...

I remember it well!

[Norwood]

I wish I knew

[SA74SD]

I think the Camaro had an option for an adjustable reclining seat around 71 or 72. I don't remember it being a factory option for Firebirds.

[thefirebirdm@n]

Thanks guys. I might buy them then. As soon as I can get some pictures I'll post them. They were interesting and I think likely the GP seats you mentioned Pinion. In place of the normal plastic "elbow" covers at the pivot point these had a metal chrome assembly. It also had a knob assembly sticking out of the side of the seat. It appeared you reclined the seat by rotating the knob. Reminded me of a small chrome triangular nut you'd see on top of any chrome air cleaner. The seats were rough, rusty and upholstery was trashed but they were cheap and I think easy enough to tear down to individual components and restore. Foam and seat covers are easy of course.

How hard would it be to source parts for these if I needed to replace something? Guy seemed to think these same seats were used in a lot of 70s Mopars as well. Said the same company made them for GM and Dodge/Plymouth.

['ol Pinion head]

Jimmy, missed this earlier. As long as the spot welded stamped steel portions of the seat are solid, as well as the reclining mechanism being operational, should be fairly straight forward to rebuild the buckets, replacing spring sections and foam. Ran across a '74 AG, the other day with reclining horse collar buckets. Having many years ago pulled several passenger side reclining buckets, was surprised to see the drivers side also had this same style reclining feature. Considering picking up these relatively decent cores & going through them instead of the horse collars i have. Have a repro set of '73 deluxe saddle covers for our BG 4spd, it's never going to be the cutting edge restored T/A.