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