Let's find a way to replicate the 355-360 cf seats?? | FerrariChat

Let's find a way to replicate the 355-360 cf seats??

Discussion in '348/355' started by madturk, Aug 13, 2015.

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  1. madturk

    madturk Formula 3
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    #1 madturk, Aug 13, 2015
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    Forget the carpet....
    Let's replicate the darn 355-360 cf seats. There must be a way to make this happen for the right price so everyone can enjoy. There must be a donor out there and there must be someone who can lead this project.
    It couldn't be all that difficult. Do it for the brotherhood. Im sure we could make it a group thing.
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  2. INTMD8

    INTMD8 F1 Veteran
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    There's a place called Ultra Carbon in Washington that has a good reputation on a racing message board I'm on.

    I'm sure they could do it if they had a seats to pull molds from.
     
  3. Yassa

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    Wicked Thread. I'm in.
     
  4. ShineKen

    ShineKen F1 World Champ
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    It actually is a difficult project. I'll tell you what it entails:

    1. Find the seats. Do I need to continue ?

    2. Make a mold of the buckets. Left and right seats seem to be different because of seat adjustment locations. So you would need molds for passnger and driver's side.

    3. Take the seats apart and have the mechanism that allow the seats to adjust reproduced. I've never seen these in person, but I'm sure there is quite a bit of hardware.

    4. Someone must be willing to have their seat cover taken apart and sent to an upholstery shop and traced.

    5. Sourcing Conolly leather from the UK and stocking up on desireable colors. Tan and black for the most part. Maybe some red. The leather comes in a large cowhide and you try to use the sections of the hide with the least amount of imperfections.

    6. Build the slider/mounting mechanisms

    7. Finding enough customers who will pay you enough to do steps 1-6.


    My buddy in Australia recently purchased a 95 manual GTB and it comes with these seats. I plan on visiting him at the end of the year. I'll check em out then :).
     
  5. madturk

    madturk Formula 3
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    I'm sure we can gather 5-10 people for a fair price. The guy who is letting us mold on his seats can get free reupholstered seats. Not bad, that's a $3k value. Not all these seats are in perfect shape still. Maybe your friend:)??
     
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  6. madturk

    madturk Formula 3
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    The thing is I love this car. I've already spend little more than $30k in extra stuff on it this year. I would spend another $10k to get the seats but I'd feel like I got raped. I'm sorry but these things aren't worth that much.
    I could live with $3-4k. I think that's a fair price for such seats.
    Personally, all I need is the seats to make this 355 one the best out there as far as I'm concerned. But at $10k I'll just keep admiring:(
     
  7. ShineKen

    ShineKen F1 World Champ
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    Logistics is a challenge. You've had these seats before. Is the left and right side identical? My buddy wouldn't mind having a mold taken from the seats. However, i would have to find someone good enough over in Australia to make the molds and and ship the molds here. I know he wouldnt be down with shipping both seats to the US and I wouldnt ask him too. And I wouldnt ask him to take the cover apart either. The best candidate would be someone who has a beat up seat cover and wants a new one. THAT will be difficult to find. For a project like this, anyone charging a "reasonable" price , which I think is $2500 per seat, would be crazy to take on this project with less than 25 confirmed customers. Connolly leather + foam+ quality upholstery is easily $1000 per seat. Easily. There's just waaay too much going on and execution has to be on point. The financial incentive has to be there. These are real numbers from a 355 brother to a 355 brother.
     
  8. madturk

    madturk Formula 3
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    25 might be though to gather.
    I for one am in.
    I think $1000 deposit from each entry should be fair.
    I'm ready to PayPal my deposit.
    Anyone else?
     
  9. madturk

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    I don't know if the left and right were identical. I never really examined the seats that closely. All I can tell you is the cf seats were great. Much more comfortable than the regular seats. In my opinion all 355 should have come with the cf seats.
     
  10. ShineKen

    ShineKen F1 World Champ
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    Here are some more numbers to consider if you really want to get into the details.

    A Hide of Connolly Leather is about $350 each (with current exchange rates). Let's say you order 10 hides to save on shipping and to stock up on different colors. Shipping cost, importing fees.... You're gonna be around $500-600 per hide. Now if you're lucky, you can get enough leather to build 2 seats from a hide. That's $250-$300 per seat just in leather material. Foam is inexpensive, but quality foam will add more to the cost. A quality upholstery shop is going to want at least $600-700 per seat. You want a professional who's going to stitch and glue seat nicely. The last thing you want is crooked ghetto stitching on your Ferrari. So that right there is $1000 per seat just on the upholstery side.

    Now for the mechanisms. Unless we know exactly what a seat entails, this is a big question mark. There might be some plastic pieces (ex. Seat adjustment knobs) that will require aluminum tooling. Just the tooling costs for small misc items could easily be $1000-2000 each. That's why selling 5-10 seats isn't enough. Then there's the slider. I don't see that being anything less than $150 each.

    Then there's the cost of making high quality CF buckets. If executed perfectly, i think the project taker will be fortunate to make $500 per seat at $2500 each. That's $1000 a pair. The molds for the seats will be roughly $5k. Reasonably, a pair of seats would take 2 weeks with upholstery done.

    The seller would need to sell 5-8 sets to break even. 8 sets would take 4 months. 4 months of making seats to break even. This is if someone GIVES him the seats. You better bet he'll need 25 confirmed customers. It would take a year to fulfill 25 orders if no mistakes. And you can bet on there being mistakes somewhere along the production chain.
     
  11. madturk

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    Honestly, I don't see people paying $5k for replica seats no matter how good it is. I think if the cost can be kept below $3500 for a pair we'd have a group of buyers lined up in no time.
     
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  12. brian.s

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  13. ShineKen

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    I don't think there are 25 people who will pay $5k for a pair of these seats either. I also don't think its possible to build these seats for $1750 each without cutting alot of corners, which I believe will ultimately lead to an undesireable product. A CF bucket seat with streamlined non-custom upholstery... Yes. But not reclineable seats requiring two molds and tooling costs for a bunch of hardware.
     
  14. madturk

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    There is one other catch here. Remember these seats came In different sizes. My seats were size large. I've seen mediums. Not sure if there is small etc.
    I'd say it's safe to assume size large for everyone.
     
  15. ShineKen

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    If you have pics of yours, post em. Didnt know there were different sizes
     
  16. Eric C

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    I thought someone on here had some shells laying around?
     
  17. madturk

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    I remember reading that too
     
  18. ShineKen

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    Status Racing Seats is owned by Vivid Racing. They would probably be one of the best candidates to take on the project as they are a dedicated seat maker and probably have their own in-house upholstery operation. But even still, their CF bucket seat retails for $1500. That's without mounting rails. A streamlined seat cover, which is not premium Connolly Leather, which is what we need for our cars.
     
  19. ShineKen

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  20. ShineKen

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    Do these seats share the same mounting hardware as the regular seat? If so, that's one less thing to worry about.
     
  21. ShineKen

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    #21 ShineKen, Aug 14, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
  22. malex

    malex Formula 3
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    This would be a much more practical exercise if the desire was to replicate the 355 Challenge seats. It's a single shell, upholstery is relatively simple and can be in cloth (since that's originally what the seats were covered in) or alcantara to save costs. Or just have the shells reproduced and buyers can have them upholstered however they want. Original seats were a kevlar-carbon fiber weave and each side is identical, which would further save on costs. The mounting brackets would need to be reproduced and anodized, but I had that done 3 years ago by a local machine shop relatively cheaply (and I had just 1 set made, not 25).

    Biggest issue is finding someone with a donor shell to borrow for a few weeks. Also would need to replicate the plastic "grommets" (3D print?) where the harness passed through, which might be costly for tooling for such a small run.
     
  23. INTMD8

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  24. madturk

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    If we are going to go through all the trouble for seats I think it needs to be the 355 cf seats not challenge seats.
    C'mon guys lets have the wheels turn and come up with a plan and make this happen.
    First, who else is willing to be part of this?
     
  25. Eric C

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    I'd be down, but I'd need the XXL's. :)
     

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