I have been thinking about pulling out the bench seat and put in bucket seats in my 1950 Ford Tudor. If some of you guys have done this could you tell me what seats you used and did you have to build a pedestal?
That’s a horrible idea. For a lot of reasons. Those original seats are like sitting in your living room sofa. Bucket seats are not traditional. Bucket seats in an early large ford tend to make the car look like a streetrod. Sure you may find some in a small 32-33-34 and they look great. But not in the later models. IMHO……
If it is a shoebox, that is not a large car. Mine came with some awful buckets front and rear. Probably from a boat. I have removed them and put in 60s mustang fronts and 66 Tbird rear along with the console and I think it looks great. Not street Roddy at all. Make sure you use small and short buckets. Tall ones would look terrible. CN
I'm using 65-66 mustang buckets in mine. Fit really well won't wear you t shirt back out bouncing on the stock sprung seat. Works perfectly with the floor shift I'm running.
Considering how they fit similar year Chevy id assume 58-early sixties t bird. And despite naysayers that would in fact be a traditional option.
I decided to go with buckets in my '54. The stock bench seat sat too low for my liking and you tend to slide around in a stock seat. Someone set these Prius buckets out on the sidewalk so I grabbed 'em! Made some brackets to mount them. They're very comfortable, reclinable, tilt forward to access the back and lock you into the seat when going around corners. They'll be upholstered next month in green and white. They fit perfectly in my unfinished interior! Here's a short vid........ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/A6B9ALpmtMM
Admittedly the right buckets are probably a hell of a lot more comfortable but there is a lot to be said for a nice bench seat in an old car that lets your gal snuggle up right next to you rolling down the road. I got to thinking about it a while back and my 44 year old son has never owned a vehicle that didn't have bucket seats with a console in the middle. He and his wife both have crew cab pickups (hers is bigger than his) and she has a new Ford something as a drive to work car. When you put buckets in an older vehicle you have to be careful to make sure that they look like they belong there and weren't stuck in as an afterthought. I saw some early 80's Eldorado buckets in a Chevy AD pickup a while back that outside of the done in the early 2000's vibe of the upholstery looked like they were designed for the truck. The upholstery was most likely done by a local shop that pretty well does the embroidery work like that and uses that tweed stuff to this day. The shape of the seat is what I like and that it doesn't look out of place in an older rig.
These are CJ-5 Jeep seats in my A pickup. Recently replaced them with CJ-7 high back buckets. You can buy brand new Jeep buckets with 7 color choices, reclining backs and 2 kinds of material. When you’re in your eighties, you care about comfort and don’t give a rat’s ass about tradition when it comes to seating.
I think that's one aspect a lot of guys here seem to forget. Back in the day with exceptions pretty much everything was functional. Like if you can't spend any real amount of time driving it why build it?
In the old days 58-up Thunderbird were the go to buckets because of the way the folded to let passengers into the rear seat. Today there are some great offerings in the smaller US manufacturers and foreign. Honda Accords have a great seat and if you get some that doesn’t need work your rear seat can be matched to them.
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