What are the best seats you’ve ever experienced in a car?
This week’s question to you, members of the Hagerty Community, is based on your experience while ensconced in the cars of your past and present. Which one had the best seats?
I came up with this question after buying new seat foam for a pair of bucket seats in an old Mercury. Holy cow, the difference between 50-plus-year-old foam and its modern replacement simply cannot be put into words! What can be explained are reasons that inspire you to choose a seat for multiple reasons, as there’s a fair bit of science in these critically important components.
A well-sorted seat is crucial to having a pleasant experience in an automobile. Saab knew this, and went into painful detail in its sales literature in the 1980s. It ensures you know why its seats are soft at first but supportive ’till the last mile. Saab explained how the chairs adjust for everything, including a variety of thigh lengths.
As one of Hagerty Media’s steadfast fans of American Iron, I hate to say the following statement: the Europeans (namely Saab and Volvo) made better seats to accommodate a variety of needs. If it weren’t for the competition, Detroit would have taken longer to add the level of support we now expect in automotive seating. And it picked up the slack quickly: Not long before GM tapped Lear-Siegler for optional seats in third-gen F-bodies and C4 Corvettes, Ford had spoken to Recaro for performance derivatives of their Fox-body platform. And Ford’s headrest designs in the 2000s changed drastically upon its purchase of Volvo in 1999.
Seats must do a lot of things while appealing to a wide cross-section of body types and safety regulations. My choice for the best seat I’ve ever sat in comes from a vehicle I neither own nor have spent a significant amount of time with: the Mercedes-Benz W124 E-Class.
These are my favorite chairs for several reasons, few of which actually pertain to my needs or wants. First, they came in a wonderfully luxurious and grippy cloth fabric, something we never (rarely?) got in America. Second, they were immensely supportive, as they held you in perfectly without resorting to aggressive bolstering that made ingress/egress difficult.
But lastly (and most importantly) the W124’s seats were so accommodating that just about any body type could be blissfully relaxed in them. The latter is something that body-hugging seats in performance cars can’t touch: Very few seats are fantastic for everyone. The W124 catered to all, and never discriminated once you entered. That’s why I voted for it, but what are the best seats you’ve ever experienced in a car? We can’t wait to read your answers!
The second generation Supra seats were excellent. Cloth covered with good support and adjustable lumbar with the sphygmomanometer. Divine.
2014 Lincoln Navigator.
Hands down, my 1995 Buick Riviera. Nothing else comes close.
http://www.americantorque.com/page/1/1189/
I think you may have overlooked the seats in the Citroën ID/DS range… designed in the 50s, they are the most comfortable seats for long distance road trips…
Was it a coincidence that the picture used at the beginning of the article is an 80’s/early 90’s SAAB 900? I have owned Porsche 911’s, BMW 3’s, and C-Class MB and many other vehicles (47 and counting)………..my 84 and 86 SAAB 900’s were the most comfortable in their day. SAAB were innovators along with Volvo for ergonomics in their vehicles well before the others. I loved my air-cooled 911’s but I found none of them that comfortable on a trip………playing around……….absolutely!
Before SAAB left I did like the 9-3 and 9-5 seats………A LOT!……….miss the brand.
Ditto loving my HHR SS Driver’s seat. Really great support, grip and comfort for the twisties…
For me, the seats in my Dodge Omni GLH Turbo were a great fit. Simple, yet supportive. For a friend with a heavier build, they were horrible.
Of all the cars I’ve sat in at auto shows, one seat that stands out was in the Volkswagen CC. It immediately felt great.
Volvo seats. All of em. Never felt an uncomfortable seat in the Volvos that we’ve owned. Mid-80s “comfort” 911 seats are pretty comfortable too.
The OEM French-stitched black leather seats in my 2003 Mercury Marauder are not comfortable, after only one hour of driving. Adjusting the lumbar support does not make any difference.
The well-worn OEM cloth seats in my 2009 Crown Victoria Police Interceptor are not much to look at, but are still ALL-day comfortable to ride in! Ford knew what they were doing with THOSE seats!
The #1 goes to. BMW 740 il .One could drive and drive and no discomfort. #2 to Ricaro in the sports car department they are great.
1984 Volvo 240, crossed Canada, Calgary Alberta to Ottawa Ontario 8 times, last time in 2 x 16hrs days NO num bum. October 2021 I did the same ride with my 2016 F-150 in 3 1/2 days, I HAD num bum. To remedy I put the seat on cool which help. I just repeated the same trip last summer in the F-150, on my return trip I sat on a foam whoopee cushion. Excellent.
I have owned a lot of vehicles in my 86 years.
The most comfortable seats are the ones in my current driver, which is a 2006 LT3 Silverado extended cab pickup.
The leather seats in my Silverado are heated and they have lumbar which gives great lower back support.
My 2006 Silverado has 63k miles and it is the best vehicle that I have ever owned. I hope to drive it for as long as I am able to drive.
For me it was my 1990 Celica All-Trac (GT-Four). Those seats were amazingly comfortable and supportive.
The Barcalounger’s in Chrysler’s Imperial LeBaron, you pick the year…..Get done with a cross country road trip and you just want to climb back in and do it again. That my kind of seat !
There’s no single seat that can do it all. For a track car (not that I’ve had a lot to compare), I found the Sabelt seats in the Ferrari 355 Challenge to be amazing at keeping me firmly in place. But I wouldn’t take a road trip with them. I remember our family’s Volvo 264 GLE with adjustable lumbar support. Back when nobody even knew what lumbar was. Those seats were ahead of their time for support and overall comfort. I had a friend with an ’89 Jetta with the Recaro seat option that were the most amazing seats I’d seen at that point, but no one from the larger-size crowd would have agreed with me. In general, the more sporting nature the car, the more sport-oriented the seats need to be. SUV seats had better keep their passengers comfortable for a full tank of gas.
The massaging seats in my Lincoln MKX ARE MULTI ADJUDTABLE ,HEATED AND AIR CONDITIONED ,HAVE LUNBAR SUPPORT AND THIGH SUPPORT . ON A LONG TRIP THE ADJUSTMENTS AND MASSAGE FUNCTIONS MAKE IT EXTREMELY COMFORTABLE