The original, black leather seats in my "71 142E had been replaced with green, cloth ones. I made them presentable by covering them with custom-made, Autocraft covers and painting the headrests black. But ever since I replaced the seats in my PV with Recaros from a seventies BMW and found them so much more comfortable than the originals, particularly on long trips, I've been on the lookout for a set for the 142. The prices I saw on eBay, however, were discouraging. Then, while prospecting in a junkyard, I came across an "87 BMW 325iS with Recaros. They were in pretty sad shape but, for $25, within my budget. (I had paid $40 for the ones in the PV, which are now being professionally re-upholstered for $500.) The rear seats were in excellent condition, and I took them along for another $25. That gave me enough extra leather for repairing the front seats, with plenty left over for other projects.

I got the passenger seat back into pretty good shape with a general tightening of the fasteners, splicing the broken back release wire, and treating the leather with stain and Lexol. The driver's seat was a different story: in addition to the same treatment I gave the passenger seat, I had to weld the bolster frames back onto the bottom frame, add foam in a number of strategic places, re-sew one of the seat bolsters, and put new leather on one of the backrest bolsters - hand sewing because I don't have a machine that could deal with the leather.

I first thought that I could, with some adapters, attach the Recaro runners to the U-shaped tube frame the Volvo seats sit on, but that made the seats too high. So, out of 1 1/2" by 1/4" flat bar I welded up a set of U-shaped frames that fitted the mounting holes in the Recaro runners. With some welded-on flanges, I attached these to the brackets aft of the cross floor frame and, at the front, to the height adjustment screw. To allow the passenger seat to slide back and forth, I had to flip an adjustment bar under it so it would clear the ECU.

On a BMW these seats mount directly on the floor, but in a 142 they have to go on top of the cross frame. This puts them at a height that, although needed for driver visibility, tends to make sliding in under the wheel a bit tricky. In fact, I already had this problem with the standard seat till I replaced the steering wheel with a 13.5" Formuling wheel. Because of the high bolsters, Recaros are always a little complicated to get in and out of, particulary when they are higher than in the vehicles they were intended for, but the comfort once you are seated compensates for that. If you want more details, email me.
Bob S.
BMW Recaro Seats in 142E

Looks good! I have a pair of 325is seats I plan to mount in one of my 1800ES's.

$25 is REALLY good price for those seats, regardless of condition.
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(2) '73 1800 ES 'projects', g/f's '73 1800 ES

Looks great Bob and congrats on taking on seats that needed so much work and making them look good again.

I want to do something similar to my 142 when the time is right. The previous owner hacked out that cross member and I was sure to cut it out of the 142 I sent to the crusher so I've been thinking of cutting a few inches out of it before I put it back in. This is all sever months away at best though.

I would think that making that replacement cross member about 1 inch lower than the original, maybe reinforcing it with some extra metal, would be helpful. After posting my report, I found that the seats were still a bit too high and I cut the pounting pads off the Recaro runners, except for about 1/8 inch to keep a bit of clearance between the slider and the home-made U frame atop the cross member. However, Recaros came with many different mounting frames, so what you need to do to make them fit a Volvo much depends on what car they came out of -- even the ones from BMWs are different. The ones I have in the PV came from a 321-something Bimmer of the late seventies, and the outer mounting frame was lower than the inner. After doing all sorts of imaginative welding and still being unsble to get them to fit right, I stripped off the Recaro subframe and sliders, made up an H shape subframe out of flat bar and put the original Volvo sliders under that. BTW, I think the earlier Recaros with simpler adjustment mechanisms are easier to work with and, actually better seats. It takes some effort to get it right, but the results are worth it. When you get ready to go I can send you some additional pictures.
Bob S.