Customer Question: Fitting Recaro Sportster CS Seats In A Porsche 964 C2
Customer question, Porsche 964 C2, Recaro Sportster CS
A customer rang this week about a 1990 964 C2 and a pair of Recaro Sportster CS. Good seat, right car, and the answer is yes. There is one number in the middle of it that decides what else goes in the box, and it is worth two minutes.
Cameron's first question was not which seat. It was which frame, because people tend to buy the frame first on price and the seat second on feel, and on this car those two decisions are not independent. Garreth's line was blunter: the frame is the last place on a 964 to save forty quid.
- The Sportster CS is a base mount seat, drilled 405mm across by 290mm front to back
- Cobra drill their 964 subframe to their own pattern, 291mm x 330mm, for their own seats
- A generic runner will not bridge it either: most use FIA 290mm centres, Recaro is wider
- We recommend the Planted Technology 964 bracket with a Recaro pitch runner on top
- From £1,898.94 a seat, all in, with nothing cut and nothing drilled
- The Planted side codes are inverted: on a UK car the driver takes the PA part
The short answer
It goes in, and nothing needs cutting or drilling. Three parts, in this order, and the seat lands on the floor where it should.
- The 964 floor, using the mounting points Porsche already put there
- A Planted Technology bracket made for a 964, which speaks to those floor points
- A runner cut to Recaro spacing, which is what the seat actually bolts to
- The Sportster CS on top
That middle layer is the one people skip, and it is the one the whole job turns on. The seat bolts down through its base, so unlike a competition shell it needs no side mounts at all. We went through that version of the question on the same car in August, with a Profi SPG XL, and that one needed four layers because the shell has no base holes to speak of.
The number that decides it
Every listing we sell carries a Fixing Bolt Pattern, which is the spacing of the four holes a part is drilled to. Put the seat next to the obvious frame, at the same scale, and there is nothing left to argue about.
405 by 290 against 291 by 330. Not a near miss, just two different plates.
The next thought is usually to slip any old slider in between and let that sort it out. It will not. Most sliders are cut to the FIA 290mm hole centres that the majority of seats use, and the Recaro bottom plate is wider and on its own pitch. Cameron has had that conversation enough times to ask about it up front.
Nothing wrong with the Cobra frame
Worth saying plainly, because we sell it and it is a good bit of kit. Cobra drill their subframes to Cobra’s own base pattern, and that is exactly what you want if a Cobra seat is going in the car. Put something from the Nogaro range on it and it is the tidiest, cheapest way into a 964, and we will spec it that way all day.
It is simply not the frame for a Recaro. That is a matching problem, not a quality one. If you are still choosing the seat, this is the fork in the road: Cobra seat to Cobra frame, or Recaro seat to Planted bracket. Garreth would rather have that conversation before the money is spent than after the box arrives.
What we would put in the car
Planted make a bracket specifically for the 964, part SB052-4952. It bolts to the original floor points and its top face is a flat platform for the runner to sit on. Whenever Planted make one for the car it is where we start, and on a 964 they do.
On top goes a runner cut to Recaro’s 405mm spacing. The Endurance kit is made to that measurement and is the cheaper of the two. Recaro’s own double locking runner is the one we sell most of: 220mm of travel, and one lever releases both locking points so the seat cannot end up sitting on a single latch. Cameron will tell you which suits the way you drive it.
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What it costs
| Per seat | Seat | Bracket | Runner | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| With the Endurance runner | £1,581.30 | £222.60 | £95.04 | £1,898.94 |
| With the Recaro double locking runner | £1,581.30 | £222.60 | £166.94 | £1,970.84 |
One seat, inc VAT, read from the listings on 18 September 2026. Double it for a pair. Colour and trim move the seat price, so the listing is the final word.
Keep the original seatsA 964 with its factory seats missing is a harder car to sell than one with them in the loft. Take them out whole, store them flat and dry, and keep the bolts with them. It costs nothing now and it is worth real money later.
The Planted side codes are inverted
This one catches people out often enough to be worth its own heading. It is printed on the listing, so it is not workshop folklore.
| Part number | What it is on a UK car |
|---|---|
| SB052-4952PA | RHD DRIVER side |
| SB052-4952DR | RHD PASSENGER side |
Planted Technology Porsche 964 seat brackets, product 17947, read 18 September 2026.
On a right hand drive car the driver takes the PA partIt reads backwards and it is correct. Order by the side of the car you sit in and say which side you mean, not by the letters on the part. Doing both seats? Then it does not matter, you need one of each anyway. Doing one, ring it through on 0115 9893488 and Cameron will put the right one in the box.
A word on the seat
The Sportster CS is Recaro’s fast road seat, not a competition shell. It reclines, it is comfortable for three hours, and it still holds you when you are pressing on. Recaro fitted it as original equipment on a fair few performance cars, which tells you what it was built for.
It is four point harness compatible, so belts are an option later if the car goes that way, and there is a harness fitting guide here for when it does. It comes as a seat only, so the bracket and the runner are always separate lines on the order.
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From £1,581.30 Incl. VATPayPal CreditKlarna ReadySelect options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
Can I just buy runners?
Not on their own. The runner bolts to the seat above and to something else below, and on a 964 that something else is a bracket made for the car. Runners alone leave you holding a seat with nothing to attach it to.
Could I drill the Cobra frame to fit?
We would not talk you through that. Drilling a load bearing frame to force a pattern is not something we will advise on, and the difference between the two routes here is small enough that it is not worth thinking about. Buy the part that already fits.
Does the seat come with a frame?
No. The listing says seat only and that is accurate. The bracket and the runner are chosen to match both the seat and the car.
Same answer for a C4 or a Targa?
As far as these brackets are concerned the floor is the same across the 964 range and Planted list the part without splitting it by body, so tell us the exact car when you order and we will confirm it before anything ships.
Where to go next
If you have the same car and the same seat in mind, ring it through. Tell us the year, whether it is a C2 or a C4, and whether you want one seat or a pair, and we will put the right bracket and runner against it before you pay for anything.
The whole Recaro range and the Planted bracket range are on the site. Better still, come into the showroom and sit in one before you commit, which at this money is worth the trip. Call Garreth, Cameron and the team on 0115 9893488.
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