This one comes up on the phone most weeks. A set of Corsa VXR seats has come up cheap, the Astra is sat on the drive, and the question is which part number makes them fit. There is not one, and anyone who tells you there is has not done the job. What there is instead is a route that works, that plenty of people have taken, and that turns on a single measurement you can check with a tape in about two minutes.
Vauxhall never built those seats to leave a Corsa. The steel base under them, the spacing of the floor bolts, the belt stalk and the wiring all belong to that car and nothing else. Moving them into an Astra H means adapting rather than swapping, and the reason it is worth doing anyway is what the VXR seat turns out to be underneath its trim. I am Cameron, and putting seats, frames and runners together into something that actually bolts up is most of what I do here.
What is on this page
A factory seat is designed around one car and one floor. The seat itself is only the top half of the assembly. Under it sits a steel base that Vauxhall cut to the Corsa’s mounting points, at the height the Corsa needed, with the belt stalk hung off it in the place the Corsa wanted. None of that is a standard. It is a part number for one model, and it is the part that does not travel.
Aftermarket subframes are the other side of the same coin. An OMP or a Recaro frame for the Astra H is drilled for the seat patterns the aftermarket brands use, because that is who buys them. Every frame listing on our site carries a line saying the frames are not suitable for OEM seats taken out of another vehicle, and that line is honest. What makes this particular swap work anyway is that a Corsa VXR seat is not a normal factory seat.
The steel frame under the seat is cut for the Corsa floor, at the Corsa's ride height, with the Corsa's belt stalk and wiring hung off it. It is the one part of the assembly that has nothing to offer an Astra, and it is the part that comes off.
A subframe is drilled to the patterns Recaro, Sparco, Cobra and the rest publish. That is why the listings say to tell us which seat is going on top, and why none of them can promise a factory seat will land on the holes.
You are taking an aftermarket frame, using it as a base, and mounting a factory seat to it. It works on this pairing because of what the VXR seat is made of, not because anybody lists it as a fitment.
Corsa VXR seats are built on the Recaro Sportster CS platform, which is why they feel closer to an aftermarket sports seat than to anything else Vauxhall fitted. The useful consequence is the mounting: the base sits on the Recaro pattern, 405mm across from bolt hole centre to bolt hole centre and roughly 290mm front to back. That is an aftermarket dimension, not a Vauxhall one, and it is the whole reason this swap has a route.
Put it next to the other two patterns you meet on a subframe and the picture is obvious. Sparco and OMP seats sit on 345mm across by 271mm front to back. Cobra seats sit on 291mm by 330mm. A frame set up around either of those is narrower than the VXR seat needs, so the frame you want is the one with enough width across the top to pick up 405mm. OMP and Planted are the two that customers keep coming back to us happy about, for exactly that reason.
We list subframes for the Astra Mk5 from five brands. Two of them are the ones worth talking about here, because they are the two with enough width across the top to work with a 405mm seat base. The rest are built around their own brands’ narrower patterns and are the right answer when you are fitting one of those seats instead.
The frame most Astra H conversions start from, at £144.90 including VAT for one seat. A steel subframe that bolts to the chassis floor, with the seat mounting taken care of above it. In stock, and the one we reach for first.
£325.56 including VAT for one seat, built for Recaro seats going into an Astra H. Since a VXR seat is a Recaro underneath, this is the frame that comes from the same family as the thing you are bolting to it.
One frame does one side, so a pair of seats needs two. OMP list a boxed pair as HC850-X2 at £289.80 including VAT, which saves you adding the same thing twice and getting the handing wrong.
OMP make a steel subframe specifically for the Astra Mk5, finished in black, that bolts to the chassis floor in place of the original seat base. The listing is straightforward about what it is: the frame gets you down to the floor, and the mounting between the frame and the seat is the bit that has to be right for whatever is going on top. That is why the product page asks you to tell us the seat at the point of ordering.
On this job that instruction is the whole ballgame. Put Corsa VXR seats into an Astra H in the comments box, or ring it through, and we will check the frame against the seat base before it ships rather than after. OMP also flag that bolt point tolerances run to about ten millimetres, so a small amount of persuasion at the floor end is normal on any of these frames rather than a sign something is wrong.
No bolts come in the box unless the listing says so. Worth adding a set of M8 and M10 fixings to the order while you are there rather than finding out on a Sunday.
Recaro make an Astra H frame of their own, part 864716, at £325.56 including VAT per seat. It is the more expensive route by a fair margin, and the argument for it is that a Corsa VXR seat came off a Recaro line in the first place, so the frame and the seat come from the same design family and the same 405mm base pattern. If you want the tidiest possible result and the budget is there, this is the one I would put my money on.
Two other Recaro Astra frames are listed and it is worth knowing which is which. Part 864416 covers the two door Astra G and H, which is the shell most VXR seat swaps end up in, and part 863316 covers the four door. All three are priced for one seat, so a pair means ordering twice and picking the side each time.
The same caveat applies as everywhere else on this page. Recaro list these to fit Recaro seats, and a factory seat out of a Corsa is not on their fitment sheet. Tell us what is going on top and we will check it against the frame first.
If you have read our guide to transferring seats from a Corsa VXR, you will have seen Planted Technology brackets named as our usual first answer. That still holds. Planted brackets are well made, they work to the same 405mm pattern, they are quick to get hold of, and on most cars they are the cheapest tidy way to get a VXR seat mounted.
The Astra H is the exception, and it is worth being straight about why. Planted are an American brand and they build to American applications. The Astra H only ever reached the States briefly as a Saturn Astra, and Planted never listed a bracket for it. There is no Astra application in their range and we do not stock one.
So on this car the OMP HC850 does the job Planted would normally do: an off the shelf steel frame at sensible money, wide enough for the seat, in stock. If your project moves to a different shell later, go back to the transfer guide and check the Planted list first.
The order of operations is simpler than it sounds. The Corsa base comes off the seat, the Astra frame goes on the floor, and the seat mounts to the frame with a runner in between if you want the seat to slide. Everything below the seat is chosen for the Astra, and the seat itself is the only part that carries over from the Corsa.
Three things are worth settling before you order rather than after. The first is height. A frame plus a runner plus the seat base is a taller stack than the Astra’s own arrangement, and how much taller depends on which frame you end up on, so there is no single figure we can publish for it. If headroom is tight in your car, or you drive in a helmet, measure the gap you have got now and tell us when you ring.
The second is the seat belt buckle. On the Corsa the stalk is hung off the base you are removing, so the Astra’s own buckle is the one you keep, and it needs to end up somewhere your hand naturally goes with the seat where you actually sit. The third is the wiring. Corsa connectors do not match an Astra loom, and VXR seats came in heated and side airbag versions with extra plugs on them, so it is worth having the trim off and a look at what you have before the frames arrive.
A sliding runner is what gives you fore and aft adjustment, and it has to be on the same 405mm handle width as the seat. Four options cover it. Recaro’s own double locking runner is the premium one at £166.94 including VAT per seat, with 220mm of travel, and Recaro list it for base mounted Recaro seats and for anything else on an estimated 405mm width, which is exactly this. The Endurance Motorsport Recaro compatible kit does the same job at £95.04. Corbeau’s runner comes in four handle widths and the Motorsport XL option is the 405mm one, at £58.80 per seat or £117.60 for a boxed pair. Our full guide to universal sliding runners works through all of them properly.
All five brands make an Astra Mk5 frame. The column that matters for this job is the middle one, because it tells you which seat pattern the frame is set up around and therefore whether a 405mm base has anything to land on.
| Frame | Part number | Built around | For a 405mm seat base | Price inc VAT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OMP Astra Mk5 | HC850 | Wide, adaptable | Right width | £144.90 per seat |
| OMP Astra Mk5, boxed pair | HC850-X2 | Wide, adaptable | Right width | £289.80 for two |
| Recaro Astra H | 864716 | Recaro, 405mm | Right width | £325.56 per seat |
| Recaro Astra G and H, 2 door | 864416 | Recaro, 405mm | Right width | £301.75 per seat |
| Recaro Astra G and H, 4 door | 863316 | Recaro, 405mm | Right width | £301.75 per seat |
| Corbeau Opel Astra H | OpelAstraH | Corbeau seats | Ask us first | £294.00 per seat |
| Sparco Astra Mk5, 3 door | 00499024 | Sparco, 345mm | Ask us first | £111.00 per seat |
Prices include VAT and were correct on 5 August 2026. Every frame above is priced for one seat unless the row says otherwise.
Worth running the sums if you have not bought the VXR seats yet. The seat they are based on, the Recaro Sportster CS, is £1,581.30 including VAT each brand new. A used pair of VXR seats plus two OMP frames and a pair of runners lands a very long way under that, which is precisely why the swap has stayed popular for twenty years.
What you give up is the fitment sheet. A new Sportster CS on the Recaro Astra H frame is a listed combination with a known answer, and this job is not. If the certainty is worth more to you than the saving, buy the seat rather than adapt one.
There is also a middle road that people forget about. Our Astra Mk5 bucket seat guide covers every seat we list for this car with the frames that suit each one, including plenty that come in well under a Recaro. If the reason you like the VXR seats is the support rather than the badge, that page is the better place to start.
No, and nothing on the market makes them. The Corsa base is cut for the Corsa floor, so it comes off and an Astra H subframe goes in its place. What makes the job realistic is that the seat underneath that base sits on the aftermarket 405mm Recaro pattern, so there is something for an Astra frame to bolt to.
The OMP HC850 for most people, at £144.90 including VAT per seat, or £289.80 for the boxed pair. The Recaro 864716 at £325.56 per seat is the tidier route if the budget stretches, since it comes from the same design family as the seat. Either way, put Corsa VXR seats into an Astra H in the order comments so we check it before it ships.
Only if you want the seat to move fore and aft. If it does, the runner has to be on the 405mm handle width to match the seat base: Recaro's double locking runner, the Endurance Motorsport Recaro compatible kit, or Corbeau's Motorsport XL option. One kit does one seat.
People do try, and it turns into a fabrication job rather than a bolt up one, because the Corsa base does not line up with the Astra floor. Cutting and welding an OEM base is not something we can sell you parts for or advise on. The frame route exists so you do not have to.
Two OMP frames at £289.80 for the pair, plus a pair of runners from £117.60 if you want adjustment, plus bolts. That is the parts side of it under £450 including VAT on the cheapest route, against £1,581.30 for one new Sportster CS. Fitting time is yours or your garage's.
Buy the pair of OMP HC850 frames at £289.80, add a pair of Corbeau Motorsport XL runners at £117.60 if you want the seat to slide, and get a set of M8 and M10 fixings in the same order. That is the route that gets the most Astras finished, and it is the one I would take in my own car.
Before any of it, measure the seat base. Two numbers, front holes across and one side front to back. If they come back near 405 and 290 you are on the pattern this page is written around and the rest is spanner work. If they come back as something else, ring us with the figures rather than ordering, because the frame changes.
And if you have not bought the seats yet, read the Astra Mk5 bucket seat guide first. There is a real chance the seat you actually want is one we list with a frame already worked out for it.
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