Replacing seats in the C5 Corvette

Taylor Galster here. When you’re 23 years old and newly married, what are the best financial decisions you can start making? Buy a house? Start learning the stock market? Roth IRA’s? How about a C5 Z06. Now that sounds like a lot more fun and still plenty of ROI in the end… let me explain.

With these space-age, capsulated modern cars coming into market, enthusiasts are losing touch with the sensory side of cars as we knew them.

Blah blah blah new cars suck & no one likes automatics, we’ve heard the narrative before. But just because you’ve heard it before doesn’t make it any less true. Chevy’s getting ready to start selling the new C8 Z06 that on paper… sounds like it could be a really hard hitter with a 670hp NA flat plane V8. Except for one major downfall: An autotragic transmission… only. This will add both nostalgic & real value to the older/purer Corvettes. I could go on & on about the market for early-2000’s sports cars, but I’ll leave it at this: Go get in the driver’s seat of a C5 or C6 with a proper transmission, and you’ll quickly see what new sports cars are missing… despite all their impressive horsepower numbers.

Shopping for these turn-of-the-century Corvettes can be odd, especially the Z06’s.

You’re most likely buying a car from a young guy like myself… or someone who’s old enough to have seen all the corvette generations launch. And after searching for nearly 10 weeks on every selling platform, I can stand by that statement lol. C5 Corvettes have gone from being a sports car that only the upper eshelon and/or retired could own… to now being arguably the best bang-for-the-buck sports car in the entire market.

When looking at modifying your C5 or C6, it can be overwhelming.

There’s a fine line with cheap accessories and/or going overboard, and for generations, Corvette owners have crossed it lol. As such, there can be a stigma associated with Corvettes. Yet – the shape of a C5/C6 is undeniably timeless & iconic. So try and find something new & fresh to compliment these platforms. They’re practically begging for it.

Chevy just couldn’t keep the Chevy out of the C5’s interior.

In other words: The factory seats are garbage. Therefore, one of the best initial modifications is to update the seating to something more supportive, appealing, and appropriate.

Seat options for C5 Corvettes are nearly non-existent… unless you’re Corbeau.

With a genius idea, Corbeau was able to get over the hump of how narrow the ‘tube tunnel’ & door frame is in the C5 Corvette. The fix: Mounting the seat opposite. Yep. These Corbeau A4 seats are able to be mounted opposite, so the passenger seat installs into the driver seat position… and vice versa. This puts the seat-recline handle against the tunnel instead of by the door. And as odd as it sounds on paper, it actually works very well. Although, your passenger will always get lost trying to lean the seat back… and you’ll have to explain to them that GM never did quite specialize in interior designs.