Sports recliner seats are the modern upgrade path for owners who want substantially better comfort and lateral support than the original classic-MG seats provide. The headline product is a pair of complete replacement seats with leather facings, soft leather pleated panels with a choice of centre style, in the styling and colour range expected by classic-MG owners restoring or upgrading the cabin. The original seats fitted during production were specified to the standards and ergonomics of their era, adequate for the typical driving the cars were originally designed around but limiting for owners using their classic MG for longer journeys, motorway driving, or spirited use where modern seat ergonomics dramatically improve the experience, and the foam support, cover material, and seat frame on an original seat inevitably deteriorate with five or six decades of use.
What Modern Sports Seats Provide
Modern reclining sports seats offer several improvements over original seats. Adjustable seat-back angle allows the driving position to be tuned precisely to the driver's preference, moving the seat-back forward for upright sporting driving or laying it back slightly for relaxed motorway cruising. Lateral support bolsters at the seat squab and back rest hold the driver in position during cornering, particularly valuable on cars used spiritedly where the original flat seats allow the driver to slide across the seat during hard cornering. Improved cushion design provides better long-term comfort on longer journeys, the original flat horsehair or foam cushions typically being uncomfortable across an extended drive where modern seat foams are designed for sustained occupancy, and the original foam profiles changed during production in any case, so an original seat may have been recovered at some point with the wrong foam beneath, further degrading its comfort and support.
Headrest provision where included adds rear-impact protection that the original headrest-less seats could not provide.
Specification & Colour Options
Complete replacement sports recliner seats with leather facings offer a substantial improvement in both support and appearance over the original specification, supplied as pairs with headrests included and designed to fit directly to the existing seat runners without modification. Three centre panel styles are offered, plain, perforated, and ruched, each with soft leather pleating to the outer sections, with the leather on the seat facings and the backs and sides in leathercloth, matching the approach used on the original factory leather seats. The full colour range covers black, grey, magnolia, biscuit, autumn leaf, navy, and red, with a choice of contrasting or matching piping in black, green, red, or white, so the combination of centre style, main colour, and piping colour allows the seats to be specified to complement any interior scheme, whether matching the original factory trim colours for a period-correct restoration or building a personalised interior to the owner's preference. Sports seat retrofits require appropriate mounting brackets where the modern seat's mounting pattern differs from the original floor-pan mounting points, the bracket kit reconciling these differences and maintaining the appropriate seat height, angle, and fore-aft adjustment range.
Heated Seat Option & Application
A heated seat option is available when ordering sports recliner seats, the low-energy heat pads operating using minimum current and allowing comfortable hood-down motoring in cooler weather, supplied complete with wiring loom, illuminated switches, and straightforward fitting instructions, and the heated seat option is also available within the refurbished exchange seat scheme for owners who want the benefit of heated seats within an original-specification seat rebuild. Modern sports seats have a distinct visual character compared with original seats, the lateral bolsters, the headrest, the visible adjustment mechanisms, and the often-different upholstery materials all signalling that the seats are an upgrade rather than original equipment, so for owners building cars to a sporting or modified specification the modern visual character suits the rest of the build, while for owners restoring cars to original concours specification the original-pattern seats covered separately under the model-specific seat sections are the appropriate choice. The decision is principally about whether the car is being built around comfort and modern usability or around period-correct restoration, both approaches having their place, and the technical team is available to advise on the right seat specification and mounting approach for a specific car.