Firstly thanks to Big Deano for the concept and PastyBoy for the complete interior change guide.

Having been inspired by Pasty’s thread I thought I would have a go as I was totally fed up with the white seats always being grubby.

I sourced a set of black and grey Recaro’s from Gumtree for a good price though two headrests were missing.

I realised the driver’s seat sponge bolster was worn so kept my eye out for a spare passenger seat which would have less wear than a driver’s seat while I sourced two spare headrests. I then stumbled upon what I thought from the ebay ad was a pair of front Recaro’s but being miles away I put in a very low bid and lost them. A week later they were relisted so I contacted the seller to find that both front and back seats were for sale for a stupidly low buy it now price. Despite the distance that was a done deal.

I also wanted to keep the third rear belt which meant finding a later interior but all those Fabia seats for sale did not have them. Another lucky find on ebay was a brand new rear upright from a Mk2 Fabia complete with centre belt from a Skoda dealer. I noticed it in passing first time and dismissed it as being the wrong fitting and expecting a high price. I then found it again, remembered someone had fitted a complete Mk2 interior and saw it had no reserve. A cheeky 99p bid as the auction came to an end was I thought a worthwhile gamble and paid off, though postage added a bit more.

I then only had to source a set of Fabia seats and the project could begin. A breaker in Birmingham had both front and rear seats (in fact Cliff listed them at the end of his project while I was watching them) and after a phone call a deal was done.

At this stage I had three complete interiors which took up quite a bit of room in the conservatory and garage!

As I thought the drivers seat bolster was beyond repair and the back rest bolster was not much better.

The rear seat bases went together relatively easily. The sponge needed a bit of trimming here and there to allow the wire base metal to fit and the cover required a bit of brute force and persuasion to fit around the sponge and frame but once done and test fitted it looked OK.

I thought about having a go at unpicking the small section, using it as a template to cut another from a donor piece of fabric and re sewing it back together with the hole cut in the correct place. I then re thought that plan and realised I am not an auto upholster, do not have the right equipment and would probably ruin the work so far achieved. A job therefore for a proper upholsterer.

The large section came apart easily enough.

To this

The weather was great this morning and it dried super quick so this afternoon into this evening I managed to get the whole Recaro interior fitted with a bit of faffing with the centre rear belt.

Pleased with how it looks but haven’t had a chance to take the car out yet to try them on the road.

Looks unreal! Great thread don't know why the vrs's don't come standard looking like this

Top work Sam

The one thing I wish I'd done on mine (other than source less worn seats in the first place! ) was to port the metal support brackets across. Having seen your base bolsters above it serves to highlight exactly how collapsed mine are.

Ah we'll its the extra grip in the backrest bolsters that are the main benefit.

That said if you've still got a half decent piece of base foam kicking around without a home....... :wonder:

They do look excellent and glad it went well.

My next plan is to potentially get seat surgeons to do mine in leather. I mean they must have mk4 Golf Recaro patterns available surely?

Excellent work. Looks fantastic

Thanks Cliff.

I've enjoyed the project and was surprised at how possible it all was. The hardest part was waiting for the welding and upholstering to be done.

I've still got another set of Recaro base frames with the support bars attached if you wanted to Retro fit them?

Looks spot on that

Looks excellent.

Thanks Cliff.

I've enjoyed the project and was surprised at how possible it all was. The hardest part was waiting for the welding and upholstering to be done.

I've still got another set of Recaro base frames with the support bars attached if you wanted to Retro fit them?

Yeah it really is much simpler than you'd ever consider it to be!!

I've still got my Recaro metal work in the garage along with my spare Comfort interior but thanks anyhow.

What was the final cost?

PM me if you want

Er..... It was slightly more expensive than I meant it to be!?

I think taken seperately the prices for things were relatively good but it does tend to add up quite quickly. Things like getting two extra headrests and then finding a complete interior meant I had spent money i didn't need to. The same with getting the Mk 2 rear seat section. I wanted the third seatbelt but buying from the fabia seats from the breaker meant again I had doubled up on parts. The most expensive bits were the fabia donor seats at £60 for the set. The upholster charged £50 and the welding was £40.

I haven't added it up yet but I know its quite a bit over £200. All at once that seems a lot for a second hand interior but I may get some back if I sell the old Vrs interior and ebay the remaining bits. I still have a full Recaro back seat and half a fabia back seat. The main thing is I aquired bits over a period of time so spaced out the cost, I learned quite a bit and enyoyed doing something myself.

That looks amazing!!

I have managed to fit a leather Recaro interior into my firby,just taken my time and followed Pastyboy & Big Deano,s guide,hopefully get the last bit of the interior (the big rear seat backrest) fitted this weekend and get some decent photo,s posted up,my car has factory side airbags & heated seats which i managed to simply plug together without any airbag warning lights appearing on the dash,although the heated seats seemed to be on contstantly with the ignition on!! and had to be disconnected before my trousers caught fire...

Quality work mate well done looks great!

Quick update,

Been to try the seats out this morning. Definitely more hugging round the sides and sit slightly higher which is good for me as I'm only short! All in all pleased with the result and hopefully will now be longer between seat washes!

Someone please make this sticky if poss (dream on!), I didn't realise this existed but now glad it does save me a lot of guessing

Does look good any £200-300 for a recaro interior isn't bad! Bet you got £100 for your vrs interior too

Those seats look great, very well done mate! Long gone are the days (when I had my saxo vts many moons ago) where you'd buy two ridiculously uncomfortable cobra buckets and pay through the nose for cobra to retrim everything else to match! Lol

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seats look amazing bud. :love: very jealous.