SW Spaceship Seats? Wanna take a seat

[Falk]

Has this been discussed before? I am sure we have members that are vintage car experts and SW aficionados.

What is the origin of the seats used in a couple of SW spacecraft, like the Falcon (I mean Han & Chewie's front seats, not the Martin-Baker bangseats) or X-Wing?

My guess is British Minivan or box wagon... Any ideas?

Any help would be appreciated!

Cheers,
Falk

 

[Falk]

Anyone?

(Impudent bump :angel)

 

[CB2001]

Weren't they from a Corvette or something?

 

[CustomCreations]

You probably need to look at small bucket seats from Sports Cars.

www.classiccarseats.com/

has a lot of sample seats which are already very close.....

Chances are they would be bought in a shop rather than taken from a scrapyard!

 

[Falk]

Thanks CustomCreations,

but I don't think these are sport bucket seats - those sets had been built in England and on a budget - not so many Trans Ams or Vettes (and the like) available there.

And those accessory seats cost a fortune (even then, when a Stormtrooper helmet prop was about 35 GBP)!

If there is something I learned in decades of prop research and collecting it is production crews do not spend a single dime (penny, cent, ...) on something if they can get it cheaper (and with a used look altogether!).

Therefore my guess is they found them somewhere on a scrapyard or even ripped it out of one of their own production vans! :lol

Any Brits here with some experience in vintage British cars / trucks listening?

 

[Falk]

Another shameless bump (I cannot believe there is none on this great board who has never seen anything really similar to the seats the set decorators at Elstree used back in the 70s...)

Please help! :cry

 

[Funky]

I don't know if you're interested, but there is this: http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=14823&highlight=ejection+seat

 

[Falk]

Hi Funky Jedi,

Thanks for the link. As you already mentioned does that link cover the so-called Nav chairs in the Falcon, with a Martin-Baker Mk.4 e-seat drogue chute container as headrest.

I am looking for the presumely unmodified pilots seats (which came most likely from regular British cars as mentioned earlier).

There are several seats from that era I checked, unfortunately to no avail yet. I have to admit there are not so many vintage cars built on British soil where I live though, guess that is my problem... :confused

Cheers!
Falk

 

[Clerval]

It certainly looks to be a bucket seat for an auto, but have you ruled out older high-back chairs (w/o arms) as well? Long shot perhaps... you'd think a high-back bucket seat that was scavenged for this would be a bit easier to ID.

 

[DeanB]

Doing some on-line inquiries led me to English rally car seats. Specifically to this site/page mk1-forum.net ? View topic - What rally/bucket seats are these - any ideas discussing a couple of aftermarket seats. The second one looks an awful lot like the seat in the x-wing. The seams for the headrest look a little different than what the x-wing used, but the overall shape and materials look very close. If this is the same seat model, it's possible there are slight variations from seat to seat, or year to year. I wish I could find more photos on-line, but nothing yet. What do you think?

 

[Davy Jones]

Looks pretty good to me!

 

[SofaKing01]

WOW! I asked this exact question re: the XWing seat a day ago on another thread - AWESOME FIND!

 

[Wavey]

Fantastic! The advert even has the suspected Corbeau GT seat on sale. Look at them prices in '73 - drooling!!

 

[Falk]

this site/page. What do you think?

Dean - you are awesome! That's it!

And look at the prices - £14.28 (the XWF seat) and £18.68 for the MF seat - as suspected, a low budget solution (at least back then).

Now... where to get them today?

 

[DeanB]

I'm glad I could contribute. Good luck in finding a seat! You might start with the folks at the mk1-forum.net site. I'm personally not interested in purchasing an actual seat, but if any of you ever happen to get one, I'd really appreciate some photos (orthogonal views especially) and a few critical dimensions so I can recreate an accurate 1/24 scale replica.

 

[moffeaton]

Great discovery!!

 

[James Kenobi 1138]

I was watching SW ANH the other day and I believe the exact same seats were used as the 'chairs' in the Deathstar control room where Luke, Han, Chewy, Ben and the droids first go after Han and Luke dress as Stormtroopers and leave the Falcon.

 

[Dewback_Rider]

I found that when the 'Terry Hunter' brand changed to 'Huntmaster' in 1974 the 'Easy Rider' became the 'High Rider'. Also ,another new brand name appeared on the scene,'Billover',unfortunately I do not know much about them except they were owned by a company called the 'Mill Accessories Group', but it looks like they took over the 'Paddy Hopkirk' and 'Terry Hunter' designs, even naming the 'Carrera' and 'Easy Rider', 'Carrera' and 'Easy Rider'

 

[Stormy320]

Nice

So where did you get those pictures?

 

[DanRickard]

Hi Guys, just joined the RPF so I could let you know that I have just bought this on Ebay.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/331663126257

Been searching ever since I found this thread last year and this looks fairly close to the pictures posted above. I'm picking it up in a few weeks so will post some better stills once I have it. Hopefully its in good condition and matches the correct shape for the X-Wing seat. I cant tell 100% from the Ebay photo but looks pretty good to me.

I'm going to use the seat for my X-Wing cockpit and simulator that I am slowly building. I started a blog about it, but its massively behind and when I get a chance, I'll do a few more posts to show where the project is currently at.
http://xwingsim.blogspot.co.uk/

Cheers

Dan