A seat holds you in a crash, and the mounting matters as much as the seat. Owners warned that some seats made entirely of composite with bolt-through fittings have broken, and that harnesses need the right seat and the right bar. Treat this as owner experience, not an approval list. Prices are from 2013 to 2015.
At a glance
- The main choices owners discussed: the standard seats (often re-padded or retrimmed), Lotus Exige and Probax seats, Tillett, Reverie, JK, Corbeau and carbon or composite seats from several makers.
- Fit is the catch. Several seats need a different subframe (early Elise or Exige, or 340R), and some foul the roll hoop headrest or the centre console.
- Go and sit in them. Seat shape and your build matter more than the padding, and owners disagreed about almost every seat.
- Cost: in 2013 a trimmed Exige-style pair was about £1,500 plus VAT, used Exige seats fetched about £1,000 to £1,200, and the cheap composite seats were widely doubted.
The options owners listed
| Seat | What owners said |
|---|---|
| Standard seats | Comfortable for some, and fine on long trips, but upright, with little lateral support and, on an older car, no padding left. Can be retrimmed, re-padded and given harness holes. See Seat comfort, padding and back pain. |
| Lotus Exige (Probax padding) | Straight fit with the right rails, look right and are comfortable to many, but several owners said they add little support. One owner called Probax just the padding, not a different seat. Some owners said the Exige seats fouled the passenger headrest on their car, and one who fitted them had to notch the centre console for the seatbelt clasps. |
| Elise seats | One owner fitted Elise seats from an older supercharged car for about £200 to £250 plus a retrim. The Elise runners fit and lower the seat by a couple of inches, and the seats hug more at the shoulders and hips. Narrow enough that a harness could be used without cut-outs, said one owner (whether that is safe is disputed below). |
| Tillett (B5, B6, R500) | The most praised for support and comfort, including by larger owners, with little or no padding. The B6 holds your legs in better than the B5, said one owner who tried both, and the B6F is made for a six-point harness, but one owner said the FIA approval applies only to the version with the larger lip. Another found his so reclined that it hit the rear window and left no legroom for his longer legs: they suit shorter legs. Tillett seats usually sit much lower in the car, though how much is seat and how much is mounting gear isn't clear. Adjustable, so you can sit more upright. More raked than the standard seats, which made fitting the roof to the shelf harder with some harness bars. One 2015 buyer chose carbon B6 seats with VX220-logo pads to fill the seat out. A used set from a Caterham or Lotus Seven came up fairly cheap, said one owner. |
| Reverie | Praised by tall owners and for long trips, but not for everyone. One owner said the VX-specific fitting kit still didn't make them fit out of the box. A Hangar111 version trimmed in leather and Alcantara was said to have cost about £2,000 and didn't suit one owner. Another owner was pleased with a Hangar111 race seat, but said you end up sitting slightly higher than in the standard seats. For maximum memory foam, one owner preferred the Reverie to the Tillett. |
| Corbeau | The LE and LE Pro were cheaper (about £900 a pair in 2013, before any retrim) and an owner called the VXR-style one comfortable, supportive and light, with proper harness holes. The catch is the mounting: see below. |
| JK | Mixed. An early owner said the non-carbon ones flexed badly and mounted high on the standard subframes. Others said new versions had much less flex, but one owner needed to cut welds and re-fit with rivet nuts, and others found them too big or sat too high. Opinions were strongly against them from one owner and mixed from the rest. |
| Composite Worx (carbon, Kevlar, glass) | Praised as supportive and surprisingly comfortable with little padding, but in 2015 owners said the maker had finished altogether. A group buy had been discussed in 2013, needing 6 to 10 pairs for a discount. |
| Eltech (Italy) | Carbon or glass-fibre seats, about 500 euros delivered in 2015 according to one buyer, who had to drill the mounting holes himself and take the roll hoop headrest off to slide the seat back far enough. Only sold through Facebook, as far as owners could tell. |
| Recaro (Apex, Profi SPG) | One owner who tracks his car called them one of the best mods he had done, and said you sit very noticeably lower. You need to be slim and not short, as they don't go far forward. |
| Eltech V1 and others (2016) | One Swedish owner said the Eltech V1 gives better lateral support than the standard seat, but not like real race seats, and that thicker Velcro side pads can improve it. A carbon one cost 500 euros delivered two years earlier, and the glass-fibre one about 400 euros. Cobra seats were also mentioned, with no experience reported. |
| PB Racing carbon | An Italian maker priced at about 410 euros plus VAT in 2013. Owners were interested but nobody had direct experience of it in a VX220. |
Fitting problems
- What will physically fit. An owner who knew the market said in 2014 that, apart from tailor-made Elise and VX220 seats, almost any other seat is much too wide and the base too high for the cabin. The tailor-made ones are often bare carbon shells (Reverie, Tillett) or copies of the Lotus seat (Corbeau). Even generic race buckets often need significant modification, or you lose the passenger seat. Seat brands don't share mounting patterns either.
- A 2008 Corbeau LE Pro fit. The seats were sold as a direct replacement, but the buyer found you need a subframe, and the seller couldn't say which. He needed Reverie double-shear brackets for the driver's seat and a completely new subframe for the passenger side, where the bracket is welded or tacked on rather than bolted. Even then the seatbelt bolts supplied (7/16 inch by 43 mm) were a few millimetres too short to reach the threaded inserts once the spacers were in, so he planned to buy bolts 5 to 6 mm longer. A second owner said a double-shear mounting needs accurately sized 7/16 UNF bolts and that Lotus said they couldn't sell them singly. Corbeau's sales staff had told another owner no subframes were needed, which that buyer found was wrong. Don't rely on a seller saying it bolts straight in.
- Subframes. The Corbeau LE Pro seats mount like early S1 Elise and Exige seats, so a VX220 needs a particular S1 subframe, or a 340R one, to take them without altering the standard mounts. One owner who fitted them said the early S1 subframes bolt straight into the VX and only the upright side mounts for the seat differ. He bought the S1 frames so he could go back to standard seats when he sold the car. A 2013 note put the cost of getting two subframes at £300 or more. The maker had been asked for years to change the moulds. Even genuine Lotus seats can be fussy about subframes, as Lotus used many versions.
- Making the standard subframe fit. Owners elongated the holes in the subframe, which gains adjustment but is hard to undo later. One owner said most aftermarket seats accept FIA-type subframes, which also let you mount the harness off the subframe rather than the seat.
- Seat height. The VXR-style seats, the JKs and some Corbeaus sit higher than the standard seats, according to several owners, and the Exige seats and Recaros sit lower. Check your headroom with the roof and the hood, and your legs against the steering wheel.
- Roll hoop headrest. Some Exige seats fouled it on one or both sides. Owners said some trimmed or modified the headrest, but one said he thought the headrest part was important after an accident, and he asked for the shorter seats. Two part numbers were suspected for the Exige seat (slightly different head restraint height), but that was not confirmed.
- Centre console. One owner who fitted Exige seats had to cut a 1 inch notch in each side of the plastic console for the seatbelt clasps, because the rails are slightly wider than the standard VX220 ones. A carbon console was something he would have wanted to avoid cutting.
- Which Lotus seats fit. Not all of them do (one owner said so), and in 2013 Lotus told one owner they would not sell Exige seats for a VX220 for safety reasons, although another owner said Lotus had fitted such seats and a harness bar to his own car years earlier. The VXR seats are different again: owners said they are not the same as the standard Exige track-pack seats, and that they are costly new.
Harnesses and harness holes
- One owner ran standard seats with a bolt-on harness bar and harness and no movement. Another said bolt-on harnesses are fine without cut-outs in the seat but are slowly wearing out the edges of his seat, and that wrap-around harnesses on a seat without holes are a definite no, adding that the physics only works if you only hit things head-on.
- A different owner said it is not safe to use a harness on standard seats without harness holes. The first replied that he had meant bolt-in harnesses. The owners disagreed, so get advice for your own set-up rather than treating either view as a ruling.
- If you add harness holes to standard seats, one owner said the ugliness comes from the universal plastic cut-out inserts, and that a retrimmer who cuts and finishes the holes properly gives a far better result.
- A bolt-in harness bar from a named maker was mentioned several times (search the forum), and it was said to leave room for speakers and to let the roof sit on the shelf, which is trickier with the more raked Tillett and Reverie seats.
- One owner kept the standard belts and tucked the four-point harness behind the seat for road use.
Cost (2013)
- New Exige-style seats trimmed to order by a specialist: about £1,500 plus VAT, with a long lead time. Used Exige seats: about £1,000 to £1,200. One owner added that new seats trimmed to your requirements, from any of the carcasses above, come to about £1,800.
- Retrimming the standard seats properly was said to cost about a third of that, and some owners decided that was the sensible route. In 2020 one owner paid nearly £1,000 for both seats plus door panels and shoulders in leather and blue Alcantara, and said extra padding and stitched headrest designs can be specified. Ask a trimmer for a price, because it depends on materials and detail. See UK specialists and parts suppliers for a trimmer.
- Cheap composite seats at about £150 each were widely distrusted: one owner who had felt them said you can tell they are weak.
- Selling the standard seats was said to bring about £200 if marketed well, and you should keep them if you want to put the car back to standard.
Safety: all-composite seats
An owner with experience warned in 2013 about seats that are entirely composite with bolt-through fittings: there had been a number of breakages. The good ones have metal load spreaders in the laminate, which you can see in the original seats, and the cheap ones leave them out to save weight. A second owner said the same of the early JK seats. Ask the maker what the mounting points are made of.
Help wanted
We don't have current prices or availability, a verified list of which seats fit which subframes, torque figures for the seat mounts, or a safety assessment of any of these seats. If you have fitted one, tell us which seat, which subframe, and what you had to change.