Corvette C7 Seats - Another Failure

There is only one Corvette generation that had supportive and ergonomic seats that can be very beneficial in spirited driving:  Corvette C4.  Never before and never after, General Motors managed to at least equal those seats.  Seats in C5 and C6 were not really awful, they were just very generic seats that did not imply or promoted high performance driving.  After C4, the notion of bolstering the seats, especially the bottom cushion was outright discarded from all Corvettes, regardless if the seats were called sport seats or not. 

There is actually a very logical explanation why Corvette seats became so worthless.  The  majority of Corvette buyers is old and overweight, this is not an insult, it is an embarrassing reality.  These people had a very difficult time battling the heavily bolstered seats to get in and out of the car.  Since GM is very receptive to buying majority, proud members of AARP, never again there were seats used in C5 or C6 that could offer this kind of support.  After all, let us face it, older people and heavy weights may like the idea of high performance but are not willing to live with the consequences of a car actually being high performance.

So now, after countless complaints from car magazines and a few owners who actually weigh less than the car they drive, GM came up with allegedly new and improved seats in C7 in two varieties, touring and competition.

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So what is exactly a problem with the new seats?  The problems are obvious right away.  The bottom cushions still have NO BOLSTERS, regardless of the type of the seat one would buy.  Why is that?  Well, no secret that the fatter you are, the larger your behind becomes and harder it is to lift it up to get in or out of a car.  Should you manage to accomplish this part, the bottom cushion bolsters would just not accommodate anyone with waist larger than 36 comfortably, and let us face it, the average waist line of Corvette buyers starts at 40.  Thus, no bottom cushion bolsters once again.

What is the impact of lack of bottom bolsters in a car that pulls over 1 g in lateral acceleration?  The answer is simple, YOUR BEHIND SLIDES, regardless if your back and shoulders are supported by those truly pathetic bolsters both seats have in the seatback portions.

Now, let us discuss the seatbacks.  Seams like competition version has openings to accommodate 5  point harness which is very funny actually.  Yes, you can meet the requirements most competition events set but how can you possibly even think about competing using these seats. 

BTW, for the seatbacks to have effective support for the back and hips, the bolsters would have to be separate, higher bolster should be a separate parts, thus, once again, all GM did was creating more smoke blowing.  Just like with C5 and C6, the only way to really take advantage of proper seating would be to dismount this junk and replace them with real sport seats. 

I am not sure but maybe there should be a weight requirement to prevent fat people from buying these cars? I know this is not nice but obesity and AARP compliance can be truly deadly to any car with high performance aspirations.