I need help deciding which seat to order tomorrow in a new Boxster Spyder. Either the carbon fiber sport buckets or the more adjustable sport seats.

I won't go to the track with any regularity and I'm 5 foot 7 inches and about 145 pounds. I will most often use the car around town for short trips, but will occasionally road trip 2-4 hours one way in it. One can choose either seat for the same cost, so price is not an issue. I do like to look for corners that I can safely take at speed so some side bolstering is important.

I've sat in a GT-3 with sport buckets in a showroom for a few minutes, but have had no chance to drive a Porsche with them. They seemed to fit me OK and the extra difficulty of getting in and out of the car with them is not a significant issue with me. I like the 26 lb weight savings of the bucket seat and feel it is in better keeping with the light weight philosophy of the car. I have some non adjustable Sparco racing buckets in a Corvette which do not fit me as well as the Porsche seats did in the showroom. I had to modify them to make them work better.

On the other hand, I drove a Spyder with the adjustable sport seats for some distance and liked the seat a lot and don't feel there would be any comfort issues with them. I also found myself using the motorized recline feature. The sport seat clearly has more side bolster than the comfort seats in my 911 and probably enough for any street cornering.

So how are the bucket seats on longer drives for comfort?
Is the power recline feature missed?
Is a shorter guy like me going to feel the bucket seat is set to low?
Can additional padding be put under the bottom cushion if my driving position is to low?

I plan to keep this car a long time and feel it may have some collect-ability. I assume the buckets will be sold in far fewer cars. Any thoughts on the value with buckets versus not down the road 10-20 years?

 

No first hand experience here, but something to consider...
- those GT2 seats that come with the Spyder are an expensive option, and even more expensive to add afterwards (dealer charges ~13k for seats + labor if you want to put them in afterwards). Since this is not likely a daily driver (maybe it is) it's probably worth it.
- make sure your significant other likes and enjoys them, esp on long trips. Otherwise, you'll get grumbling in for the first few trips... then pretty much solo trip afterwards.
- make sure you can fit in them & make sure your SO can also fit into them (men and women are designed differently)
- seats only fold forward. So, you are pretty much stuck with one height and one recline position. Again, my finacee likes to recline the seat back to relax, esp when we take on long road trips. If your SO likes to fiddle with the seat (do they do it in your regular car or like to recline the seats on airplanes?), these may not be for the passenger.
- You can "fine tune" the seat height beyond just the 3 factory settings by stacking washers. Race shops can do this for you.

Personally, I would love to have them in my boxster, but I do enjoy my fiancee's company more. But that's just me.

For you,...I'd say go for it!

 

Yeah, if you've got a wife/fiancee/gf/bf/whatever, and you plan on them riding in the car, you'll probably want the Sport seats. And if you're DDing the car and plan on long trips, the Sport seats are a heck of a lot more comfortable.

I've made a long trip in racing bucket seats before, my *** was killing me the next day. It's up to you, and what you plan on doing with the car, though. The bucket seats do look great in the car, though!

 

I have the Recaro GT3 seats in mine. I LOVE them. Yes, they are a bit harder to get in and out due to the sides of them going up higher and being harder material. But once you are in the, you are snug as a bug and they are actually comfy, in my opinion. Granted the heated seats are missed but these make up for it by far! My car is also my daily driver and I wouldn't trade these seats back for the world! When you hit some nice twisties or do some spirited driving, they rock!

Best wishes!

 

FWIW, for a Spyder I would go with the GT2 seats, just in order to keep with the weight reduction theme of the car.

Have a set of GT2 seats on my Cayman S that were purchased from Suncoast last year, pricey but well worth it IMHO.

I'm about the same height as the OP and about 165lbs and don't find the need to recline the seat or raise the seat at all, then again I'm used to Racing seats and have taken drives as long as 10 straight hours to hit various tracks in the past so I am kind of used to it.

Both the stock seats and the adaptive seats are really crappy when using a helmet on the car because of the "active headrest" on the seats, so if the OP ever intends to track the car the bucket seats are a worthwhile investment.

 

For Spyder I would get the GT2 seats. Not like you are going to be driving this car cross country. Its a pure sports car, get the pure seats for it. (BTW, if you are 38 waist or higher, then no.)