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GSM Performance Customer Car Colouring Book Edition 1
Customer Question: Retro Reclining Seats For A 2012 Dodge Challenger SRT
Customer question, Dodge Challenger SRT
An email in this week from James: he wants to replace both front seats in his 2012 Dodge Challenger SRT, he is after a retro look, and he asked whether the SRT logo can go on them.
The good news is the hard part is already solved. Planted make a bracket for the 2012 onwards Challenger, and once a bracket exists the seat choice opens right up. So this page is the ladder we would put in front of him: a budget answer, a middle answer and a top end answer, all of them reclining road seats with the retro shape he described.
The logo question has a real answer too, further down, and it is more interesting than a yes or a no.
- Planted make a Dodge Challenger 2012 onwards seat bracket, so the fitting question is already answered
- Because a bracket exists, almost any base mount reclining seat we sell becomes an option
- Retro LOOKING recliners are the right answer here, not genuine classic shells: those belong in genuine classics
- Budget from GBP 229 a seat, middle around GBP 499 to GBP 541, top end GBP 733 for a leather Cobra up to GBP 2346 for a carbon Sparco SPX
- Cobra seats are trimmed to order in your choice of colours, piping and stitching, which is how you match an SRT cabin
The bracket is why this is an easy yes
Most seat enquiries live or die on whether anybody makes a bracket for the car. For a Challenger, somebody does. Planted list a bracket for the 2012 onwards car, part SB095.1, and that is the exact split James lands on: Dodge substantially revised the Challenger interior for the 2012 model year, which is why the part numbers change there. If a car sits right on that boundary we go off the build plate instead of the registration year, because the two do not always agree.
One thing to sort before ordering. We list three Challenger brackets across the generations and they are not all both sides, so for a pair of seats send us the registration and we will name the two parts your car takes. That is a one reply job at our end and it is the single most common thing people get wrong buying brackets in pairs.
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Retro look, without putting a classic seat in a modern car
Worth being straight about this, because it changes what we would send. We sell a whole family of genuine classic shells, the Cobra Classic and Roadster and everything alongside them, and they are wonderful in the cars they were drawn for. We would not put one in a 2012 Challenger. A car from 2012 is a modern car wearing retro styling, and a genuine period shell in it looks like a period shell in a modern car.
What suits it is a retro SHAPED recliner: the tall back, the separate headrest, the fluted centre panel, the soft shoulders. It reads as period correct next to a Challenger dashboard, and unlike a classic shell it reclines, it takes a normal seat belt and you can sit in it from Nottingham to Cornwall. Everything below is that kind of seat. If you want the difference between the mounting styles first, our base mount or side mount guide covers it.
The ladder in one picture. The jump that buys the most is the first one, from a bought in shape to a seat trimmed to your colours.
Budget: the Auto Style retro shapes
Auto Style do the retro silhouette at a price that lets you do both sides and still have money left for the brackets. The Type Retro and Type Retro II are the closest to what James described, and the Type Classic II is the cheapest way into the shape. Vinyl or fabric depending on the listing, reclining, base mount, and they come in pair listings as well as singles, which matters when you are buying two.
What you are giving up against the tier above is choice. These come in the trims they come in. You are buying a shape off the shelf.
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Buying them as a pairAuto Style list the retro recliners as pairs as well as singles, which is usually a few pounds better than two singles and arrives as one order. Tell us which trim you want on each side if you are doing anything other than a matching pair.
Middle: Cobra, and the first seat trimmed to your colours
This is the jump we would push James to make if the budget stretches, and it is not really about comfort. It is that a Cobra is trimmed to order. The listing carries a trim option list where a colour would normally be: any one or two colour combination in soft grain vinyl, leather, leather and Dinamica or spacer fabric, with matching or contrasting piping and stitching. You are specifying a seat and not picking one off a shelf.
The Daytona and the Le Mans are the two retro shapes in the range, the Heritage is the Le Mans with the period detailing turned up, and the Stuttgart is the same idea with a slightly more upright back. All four are base mount recliners on the 291mm x 330mm pattern, all four are road and track rated, and all four weigh about 13kg, which nobody buying a Challenger is going to lose sleep over.
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Top end: leather, the Misano, and the two best recliners we sell
Two steps up from there on the retro line. The Stuttgart in full leather is the sensible top end: the same seat as the tier above, trimmed in leather throughout instead of vinyl. Then there is the Misano Anniversary, which is a different class of object altogether and priced like one. It is made to order and the listing says to allow four to six weeks, so it is a seat you plan for, not one you order on a Friday.
If the retro brief can bend
Two seats belong in this conversation even though neither of them is a retro shape, because they are the finest reclining seats we sell and a Challenger SRT is exactly the sort of car people put them in.
The Sparco SPR is a reclining seat built on a fibreglass shell, which is unusual: almost every recliner is a steel frame with foam over it, and the SPR is moulded the way a competition bucket is and then given a recline mechanism. You get a shell that holds its shape under you and a seat you can still use every day. The Sparco SPX goes further again. Carbon backrest, composite lower section, Italian leather with an Alcantara centre where you need the grip, about 12kg, and it comes in driver and passenger side so a matched pair is straightforward.
Neither carries an FIA homologation, which is the right way round for this car: both are Road and Track seats that recline and work with the standard belt. If James wants the best seat in the cabin more than he wants the period look, these are the two to see.
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Retro or modern, pick one and commitThe one thing we would steer away from is splitting the difference. A retro shaped recliner and a carbon shelled one are two different cabins, and a Challenger looks right doing either wholeheartedly. For a car like an SRT, the middle tier in a good trim spec still looks better than the top tier in plain black, so spend on the colours and the stitching before you spend on the badge on the box.
The SRT logo, and what we can actually do
This is the part worth reading properly, because the useful answer is not a straight yes. SRT is Dodge’s own mark, so reproducing it is not something we would promise on a page before speaking to the trimmer. What we can tell you is exactly what is on the table.
On the Cobra seats the trim is made to order, and that is the lever most people are really reaching for when they ask about a logo. You can have the outers in one colour and the centres in another, piping to match or to contrast, stitching the same. If the goal is a cabin that reads SRT, matching the car’s own colours and stitching gets you most of the way there and it does it across the whole seat instead of in one small patch.
On embroidery specifically, personal name embroidery is a listed option on some of our ranges, though not on the Cobra and Auto Style recliners above. So the right move is to tell us the seat you have settled on and what you want on it, and we will come back with what the trimmer will do before you commit to anything.
What we would suggest to JamesPick the shape first, then the trim, then ask about the logo last. The trim spec is where a Challenger interior is really won or lost, and it is decided on the order and not afterwards. A logo is a small detail on a seat you will be looking at for ten years, and it is the one part of this we cannot answer without asking.
Common questions
Will these seats fit my 2012 Challenger?
With the Planted bracket for the 2012 onwards car, yes, and that is what makes the choice so wide. Send us the registration before ordering so we can name the exact bracket for each side, because the part numbers split at the 2012 model year.
Do I need runners as well?
If you want to keep fore and aft adjustment, yes. The bracket fixes the seat position; a sliding runner between the bracket and the seat gives you the slide back. Tell us how tall the drivers are and we will say whether it is worth it.
Can I keep the original seat belts?
These are road recliners, so they work with the car’s own belts in the normal way. That is one of the reasons a recliner beats a competition shell in a car like this.
Why not a genuine classic seat, if I want a retro look?
Because a 2012 car is a modern car with retro styling, and a genuine period shell in it looks out of place rather than period correct. The retro shaped recliners on this page give you the look and still recline, still take the standard belt and are still comfortable on a long run.
Can you put an SRT logo on the seats?
Not something we will promise before asking, because it is Dodge’s own mark. What we can definitely do on the Cobra seats is trim them to your colours with matching or contrasting piping and stitching, which is what most people are actually after. Ask us with the seat you have chosen and we will come back with what is possible.
How long will they take?
It depends on the tier. The made to order Cobras carry their own lead time, and the Misano Anniversary listing says to allow four to six weeks. If you need them for a date, say so when you order and we will confirm before anything is taken.
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The next stepSend us the registration and the look you are after
Registration first so Cameron can name the two brackets, then tell us which tier you are working to and what the cabin looks like now. Ring 0115 9893488 and we will spec the pair with you, trim and all. Garreth has done a lot of these and the trim conversation is the one that makes the difference.
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