After pulling the seats from my 74 convertible and looking at all it would take to put them back It was going to cost an arm and a leg because things like the chrome seat back hinges had rusted, the seat back were cracked, foam was shot and worst of all, had I spent the money to "bring them back", I'd still have been faced with a seat that's less than comfortable. I began the search, firstly looking at C5 seats. What I found was they could be made to fit...at a price. C5 seats tend to come at a premium, and even then, I'd still be faced with having to come up with a seat cover for them that matched my Medium Saddle interior. This would drive the cost to well over 1500 bucks, more than I have budgeted for seating duties. I then looked at Fierro seats, but wasn't able to find a worthy example. What I did find, and had been listed on Craigslist for over a month with no hits was a mis-matched set of seats from a C4. One was a gold color and the other was 2 toned black and red. I tossed out an offer of 100 bucks and was on my way home with the ugliest set of Vette seats I had ever seen...but they were all there. I knew I'd be recovering them anyway, so the ugly didn't matter, and these seats are WAY more comfortable than the original C3 seats. I ordered the correct Medium Saddle spray dye, and colored all the hard plastic for a good match. After searching my options in the cover department, I went with covers from Corvette America for 2 reasons. First, I have a friend with covers from them, and they look great. Matter of fact, I'd have sworn they were leather...but they are not. They are called "leather-like", with the fit and feel of leather yet tend to last longer and are much easier to care for. The second reason is Corvette America stitched them using the correct Medium Saddle, a color not available in C4 seating. I also had to use the seat rails from the C3 seats, and build bracket adapters to fit them to the C4 seats while keeping the seat low as possible.
Once the covers arrived, I went to work. After completing one seat, I stopped dead in my tracks. Here you can see why. The Corvette America seat covers fit like a wet noodle. Certainly unacceptable in my book. The areas around the bolsters looked terrible.
After a few days of deliberation, I broke down and ordered new seat foam, another 250 bucks. After it arrived, the first thing I noticed was the difference in feel between the new seat foam and the original. If I didn't know better, I'd say Corvette America uses some kind of jelly substance in the foam process as these foams are unbelievably comfortable.
After installing the new seat foam and the new covers, they fit like a glove, certainly worthy of their new home.
So I guess the moral of this story is don't skimp. If your car is 30 years old, spring for new seat foam. You wont regret it!