All RS Americas left the factory with cloth covered Porsche sport seats – which the factory data refers to as either “fabric” or “corduroy” covering. Often in For Sale ads stock RS America seats are incorrectly identified as “leather seats”. In reality the stock factory seats have no leather whatsoever, but they do have “leatherette” rear and side panels on the back support and also on the side and front panels for the squab cushion (the part of the seat parallel to the floor). However, all of the surfaces that a person sitting on the seat would be likely to touch, have a black cloth covering.
Sport Seats Description
The stock RSA seats have large side bolsters that provide occupants with excellent lateral support during cornering, plus each seat has two electrical rocker switches on its outboard side (as seen in the images below towards the front of each seat). There are two levers underneath the front edge of each seat, one on both inboard and outboard sides of the seat squab. Additionally there is a lever high up near the headrest on both sides of each seat as can be seen below.
The forward of the two rocker switches moves the front of the seat squab up and down (under the backs of your knees) using the electric motor under the seat itself. The aft rocker switch moves the rear portion of the squab (and the seat back above it) up and down, again utilizing an electric motor. There is no electrical motor driven adjustment to move the stock seat forward or aft. There are two levers underneath the front of each of the seats. The lever underneath the forward outboard corner of each seat has a round tapered handle and lifting this lever disengages the lock which clamps the seat to the seat rails on the floor. Lifting this lever therefore enables the entire seat to be manually moved forward and aft on its rails.
The flatter more curved lever on the inboard front corner of each seat releases the lock that retains the backrest portion of the seat, this allows the seat back to pivot forward to aft about its lower edge. The backrest is spring loaded to pivot forward and it is the resistance of the persons weight on the backrest that allows the seat back to be adjusted forward or aft.
Advantages
The advantage of the factory RS America seat over other Porsche stock seats are that not only do they give the same excellent support as any other version of the sport seat, but … the cloth covering means that they don’t get hot in summer or cold in winter like the leather covered version. The disadvantage is the same as all Recaro factory seats with electric motors …. WEIGHT!!!
If you have never taken your RS America seats out, you probably would not believe just how much they weigh. With all it’s motors and actuator cables etc. they actually weigh 50.4 pounds!!