In collaboration with Recaro GmbH, ASC Fabrics, Brey Krause and RCVRD Workshop.
It remains fascinating how custom bucket seats are this opaque world to many BMW M owners and the amounts of Dos and Donts that are often skipped by your local furniture upholstery guy.
I experienced this for myself when we disassembled the previously repaired OEM seats in my E46 to develop the custom seat program. Lots of you were surprised about electric sliding buckets being a thing.
Getting hands on really makes me better appreciate the subtleties of upholstery work, ever more so on M cars.
This program will hopefully be something the community appreciates for its proximity, transparency and hyperfocus on delivering OEM quality with your personal touch.
BMW & BMW M Fabrics & Leathers + Genuine Alcantara
I am currently working with various partners to source and list most if not all BMW specific fabrics and leathers. Graham at ASC Fabrics is personally sourcing and developing BMW M matching fabrics that are unavailable from BMW.
The M-texture that was used on my E46 M3 Pole Positions were sourced by ASC Fabrics.
Genuine Alcantara matching BMW's selection in various M cars will also be offered to complement the OEM fabrics and leathers.
You can read more about the details of the fabric and how they are carefully aligned to replicate the OEM upholstery here.
Custom Embroidery & Embossed Logo
David at RCVRD is currently working on unique techniques to provide never-seen-before Embossed logo designs.
Various Mounting Solutions
The custom seats will be delivered with a brand new mounting solution that was tested on your seats, ready to be assembled with recommendations based on your height and desired driving position.
You'll just need to bolt them to your OEM sliders, directly to the floor or to provided fixed floor mounts.
You can read more about my experiences and research into mounting solutions here.
Plug & Play Harnesses for Electrical Sliders
The custom seat program will feature E46 M3 specific Plug & Play harnesses for electrical sliders, passenger airbag occupancy sensors and optional Genuine BMW heated pads compatible with OEM buttons.
Plug & Play Heated Seats
Bucket seats don't necessarily need to sacrifice on everyday comfort. We have developed a custom heated seat solution using Genuine BMW components.
They will be Plug & Play with your provided hardness and OEM 3 way buttons. Due to the Recaro Pole Position backseat configuration, the heated elements will be on the lower section of the seat only.
Specifications
- Exclusively assembled using brand new seats, mounts, fabric and electronics.
- Recaro original, brand new foam is used.
- Seats, fabrics and electronics are sourced from Europe.
- Genuine Alcantara is used.
- Upholstery threads are hand made using high grade Serafil threads by Amann: an OEM supplier to Bentley.
- Fabrication of Plug & Play harnesses for electrical sliders and optional heated pads.
- Optional, Genuine BMW heating elements compatible with OEM 3 way button and P&P Harness.
- The upholstery and assembly service is done by RCVRD Workshop in Canada.