25 COMFORT AND JOY...

We have a Fiat 500 Sport as our daily driver, an Abarth look-a-like, but it doesn’t have the bigger engine or the turbo.  We get all the downsides of stiff suspension and low-profile tyres, meaning that going over a cat's eye makes all your fillings fall out without the benefit of the car rocketing along - nice.

I have sat in an Abarth for 5 minutes and found that it has sporty seats.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a sporty arse and the thought of doing 2500 miles jammed in rock-hard, figure-hugging seats fills me with dread, quite frankly.

I mentioned that Richie also had the same misgivings, so last night, while I was bored, I started some eBay snooping to see if I could find replacement seats that were softer and wider. This would mean that I could make the trip without needing to spend six months in traction after we return home.  

If I'm being honest, I was pleasantly surprised by the choice on offer. For under £60, I found a natty white seat from the lounge model that was rip-and-tear-free. Okay, it had some worrying stains on it, but I’ve seen enough Facebook videos of people detailing cars to know that a couple of bottles of chemicals, a Vax wet and dry cleaner, and some elbow grease will be all it takes to transform it.

This ‘fix and fit’ solution fits with the project's ethos: expensive car, cheap modifications. For less than £100, I could pick up a near-mint seat, but I think I’d instead save £40 and have the satisfaction of knowing that I have saved it literally from the scrap heap. For £150, I found a full set of seats, two front, a complete back and door cards.

Another bonus of buying lounge seats is that they come in better colours.  As the Abarth is sporty, the majority of seats are black with red highlights - very butch but not terribly imaginative.  I could go for the red leather set, but they were clearly modelled on Cameo lead singer Larry Blackmon’s shiny codpiece from their ‘Word Up’ video.  Nah.

My eye was drawn to the white seats, but there were half-and-half black-and-white and red-and-white versions, beautiful brown seats, seats piped with baby blue, seats with the word FIAT spelt out in a repeating pattern, seats covered in spots, stripes, and even tartan seats.

The lounge seats are flatter and less sculptured, so they will ultimately offer less support in the corners, but the trade-off is that I will be sitting in the seat rather than on the sporty one, hopefully meaning a better experience on the boring motorway/autobahn/autostradas - I’ll just need to cling on like a limpet when giving it the beans on the alpine roads!!!