Hundreds Of Products Ready Today. Dispatch/Collection MGB Roadster seats: narrower, no higher, and closer to the pedals
The letter behind this page is a good one. A customer with a 1980 MGB Roadster wants new seats, his wife needs to sit closer to the pedals than the standard seats will allow, and he set us a rule we happen to agree with: the new seats must be no thicker than the originals, because in an open B the driver’s head has no business sitting above the top of the windscreen.
That is three constraints, and an MGB enforces all of them. The cockpit is narrow, the transmission tunnel and the handbrake eat the space a wide seat needs, and the screen rail is very low by modern standards. Owners on the MG forums treat about 460mm as the widest seat base the car will forgive, and there is a long trail of people who found that out the expensive way.
The good news is that this is a job we know well, and the answer has a name. Cameron measures the classics that come to us and Garreth prices them, and the seat they hand people for a B is usually the same one.
- Corbeau call the Sportsman the smallest reclining seat on the market, with a 40cm base on their current drawing
- Modern runners give around 200mm of slide, and the mounting plate decides where that range starts
- A runner adds about 25mm of height, so the rest of the stack has to stay low
- From £468 a seat inc VAT, with trim, piping and headrest options
The short answer
A pair of Corbeau Sportsman recliners on modern sliding runners, mounted on a low adapter plate that picks up the B’s original floor bolt holes, with the runners positioned on that plate further forward than the factory rails sat. The seat is narrower than the cockpit limit with room to spare, the runners slide more freely than any 1970s mechanism, and the plate is what buys the forward reach without raising the seat.
How the factory seats mount
Worth two minutes, because everything else follows from it. Each original seat sits on two steel rails, and each rail is held by four quarter inch bolts. The front pair thread into captive nuts buried in the fixed crossmember under the floor, and the rear pair pass through weld nuts in the floor itself. Under the rails the factory put wooden support slats over aluminium spacers, which is exactly as 1960s as it sounds. The two rails sit at 12 5/8 inch centres, call it 320mm, and those hole positions are structural and permanent. There is no need to add any at all.
That is actually good news. Fixed, strong, factory mounting points are the best possible starting place for a seat conversion, because a flat adapter plate can pick them up without a single new hole in the car. The plate replaces the wood and the spacers, the new runners bolt to the plate, and the seat bolts to the runners. Nothing about the shell changes, and the whole conversion reverses in an afternoon if the car ever goes back to original.
The seat: the smallest recliner Corbeau make
The Sportsman has been Corbeau’s narrow classic recliner for decades, and their own words on the current page are the pitch: the smallest reclining seat available on the market, designed for vintage vehicles where space is limited. The base is 40cm wide on Corbeau’s current drawing, a size narrower on fitment than the PSR and comfortably inside the 460mm ceiling the MG community works to, and the low side bolsters that make it easy to get into also happen to suit a car you step down into over a sill.
It reclines, it takes a headrest or goes without, and the trim options run cloth, vinyl and leather with piping in five colours, so it has a look that sits quietly in a 1980 interior next to the deckchair stripe originals or replace them both. It also carries Corbeau’s narrow 291mm bolt pattern in the base, the one their Retro sliders are made for, which matters in a minute.
If the recline is optional, the fixed back Corbeau Classic keeps the same period look for less money, and its Tartan edition dresses the identical shell in eight genuine wool tartans. The PSR is the other direction entirely. It is a much more modern design than the Sportsman and the Classic, with taller bolsters and a fuller backrest, and its 50cm base makes it the widest fit of the group in this cockpit. For a B kept period, the Sportsman is the honest recommendation, and the PSR is there for an owner who wants the car to feel modern from the driver’s seat. We keep the range on the showroom floor, so sit in the two schools of thought back to back and the decision tends to make itself.
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Getting a shorter driver to the pedals
Nobody publishes a travel figure for the original MGB slides, and having wrestled a fair few we understand why. What owners agree on is that they are stiff, crude and short on range, and that a shorter driver runs out of forward adjustment well before the pedals arrive. Modern runners move about 200mm on ball bearings with a positive lock, which transforms the daily experience of the car on its own. The passenger side has a lock on both rails too, so the seat stays put once it is set. Our universal runner guide covers how they work in detail.
The forward reach comes from somewhere else though, and this is the part most people miss. The car’s bolt holes are fixed, but the adapter plate between the holes and the runners is made, not bought, so the runners can be positioned on it further forward than the factory rails ever sat. The whole 200mm of slide then starts closer to the pedals. That is how a driver who could not reach the pedals in the original seat ends up with adjustment to spare, without anyone touching the structure of the car.
One practical note from the people who have done it: set the runner position with the handbrake in mind, because a seat that sits further forward changes where your hand falls on the lever, and check the seat base clears the tunnel before anything is tightened for good. The Sportsman carries Corbeau’s narrow 291mm bolt pattern underneath, the same one their Retro sliders are built for, so the runner order takes care of itself and the plate simply spans out to the car’s 320mm floor centres.
Keeping your head under the screen rail
The customer’s rule is the right one, and the B gives you very little margin to play with. Owners around six feet tall report sitting with their eyes level with the top of the screen in a standard car, and there is a small industry of people trimming seat foam to buy an inch back. So every layer in the new stack has to earn its height.
The runner is about 25mm and cannot be avoided. The plate can be kept to a few millimetres of steel, and it replaces the factory wooden slats and spacers, so some of its height is bought back before you start. What ruins these jobs is a tall universal bracket between the floor and the runner: the common off the shelf ones add dead height, which is exactly the inch this car does not have. A flat plate made for the job, or a bracket we have confirmed the height of, keeps the finished seat at or very close to where the original sat.
The runners for the job
Corbeau’s own 291mm Retro double locking runners are the ones made for the Sportsman’s bolt pattern, boxed as a pair for the two seats at £117.60 inc VAT. They lock on both rails, they release from a single handle across the front, and they are the reason the passenger seat will finally move for the person actually sat in it.
Because the runner is universal and the plate underneath is made for the car, there is no MGB specific frame to buy, and honestly none exists off the shelf in the UK. Any competent fabricator can make the pair of plates in an hour from the dimensions on this page, and if you would sooner we quoted the whole package with the plates included, ask us and we will price it as one job.
Ordering it
A pair of Sportsman seats is ordered as a driver’s side and a passenger’s side, with the trim, piping and headrest decided per seat. The runners are one boxed pair of the 291mm Retro sliders for a Sportsman order, and we double check that pairing against the seats before anything ships.
Common questions
Will the same setup fit an MGB GT, or an earlier chrome bumper car?
Yes. The seat frame and the floor mountings stayed the same from 1970 through to the end in 1980, and the fitting logic is identical on the GT. On a GT the screen rail rule relaxes, which also opens the door to the slightly wider PSR.
Can we keep the original runners and just fit new seats?
Owners do adapt the original slides to aftermarket seats, and it works. You keep the original height, and you also keep the original stiffness and the original range, which is usually the very thing a shorter driver is trying to escape. For this customer the modern runner is most of the point.
Do you sell an MGB fitting frame?
No, and nobody offers a UK off the shelf one that we would put our name to. The honest route is the low plate on the factory holes, made for the car, and it is a simple part. In the United States, Moss sell an adapter kit for Corbeau seats in the MGB, which tells you how well trodden this path is.
Will the new seats definitely sit no higher than the originals?
That is the design goal of the low plate route, and it is why we steer people away from tall universal brackets. The final figure depends on the plate and the foam, so we talk heights before ordering, especially for a taller driver sharing the car.
What trim can the Sportsman come in?
Cloth, vinyl or leather, black as standard, with piping in black, blue, red, white or yellow, and with or without the headrest. The leather version trims the headrest, front, middle and base in leather.
Can a harness be used with these seats?
The Sportsman is 4 point harness compatible. In a road car with the original belts, both seats work with the standard MGB seat belt arrangement, and the buckle position is worth checking at fitting like any seat swap.
What we would order
Two Corbeau Sportsman recliners in black vinyl with the headrests, £468 a seat, a boxed pair of Corbeau 291mm Retro double locking runners at £117.60, and a pair of low plates made to the dimensions we supply. Trim and piping to taste, and the whole conversion lands close to the price of having the original seats professionally retrimmed, with a seat that actually fits the two people using it.
Final thoughts
There is a reason we like doing these. The B is a very sorted little car to upgrade, because the factory left such honest mounting points to build on. The Sportsman lives with the rest of the classic range in Corbeau retro seats, and the wider recliner catalogue is in reclining sport seats. If your classic is not an MGB, ask us anyway. The same thinking fits a surprising number of old cockpits, and we quite enjoy these ones.