It seems as if everyone has finally decided to stop pretending that standing in front of a desk for 8+ hours was something anyone actually wanted to do, and once again embrace the classic adjustable office chair. But whether you’re writing code in a cubicle or are one of those people who apparently makes a living by having people watch them play video games, one thing is certain: your chair needs to be cool enough to make up for the years shaved off your life by sitting in it all day.
Case in point, these chairs that were made out of seats salvaged from a Porsche 996 by [Colby Newman]. You might never be able to afford the car they came out of on your salary, but at least you can pretend you’re power shifting into fifth while doing your TPS reports.
The first step, and arguably the most important one, was getting the seats from a Porsche. [Colby] wisely cautions the reader that they should avoid seats with air bags, as the last thing you want is your chair to explode while you’re streaming Fortnite. This is especially true if you are looking to salvage the seats yourself from the junkyard, as special care needs to be taken on how you remove them from the vehicle.
Assuming you got the seat without blowing yourself up, the next step is to mate it to the adjustable base. This part is going to depend on the make and model of vehicle you got the seats out of, but in this case it was fairly easy to use some flat steel bars to adapt the tubular frame of the Porsche’s seat to the base from the donor office chair. [Colby] put everything together with nuts and bolts, but this could potentially be an excuse to drag out the welder.
We’ve previously seen the driver seat salvaged from a wrecked car for use in a simulator, and a standard office chair upgraded with force feedback. We wonder who will be the first to combine all these ideas into one ultimate office racing chair…
I wanted to do exactly this with a Model S drivers seat. Until the wrecking-yard who has a Model S wanted AU$1200 for the seat
No offense to all of you Porsche fans out there, but Porsche isn’t known for their comfortable seats. They pride themselves on the driving experience not the comfort or luxury. If you complain about the seat poking your tush in all the wrong places then they will claim the problem is you and you aren’t worthy of the Porsche experience.
Now wean yourself off the soda pops already and soon you’ll be fine!
I did this excact thing to a pair of 1999 Subaru Forester leather seats! I eventually snagged some of arm rests from old office chairs and I have been rocking them ever since.As the seats are 20 years old now I am thinking of scrapping them since I just saw these chairs …and now I can’t decide if I should even rebuild them with seats from a Lexus, etc. because the allure is gone…off to the scrapyard for inspriation…
I’ve always thought the seats from a first-gen LS400 would make great office chairs. Only issue would be powering them for adjustment.
I don’t see the problem with airbags. They shouldn’t explode as long as they are disconnected (and not put into a fire).
I always wanted to do the same with train seats, either the 1st class seats:
https://p1.storage.canalblog.com/22/21/1336636/104064720_o.jpg
Or the 2nd class bench seats:
https://p1.storage.canalblog.com/23/07/1336636/104007840_o.jpg
Hum, I mixed up the pictures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DjOL2we8ko
I think the dragging out the welder part and welding direct to seat frame is the part where the airbags are going to be most dangerous. Either from transmitted heat, direct sparks and radiant heat, or stray currents induced by AC or conducted by DC (You might need mechanical damage to come into play with wiring squished between edges etc, but Murphy don’t go soft on you just because you didn’t think.)
Air bags aren’t the only explosives in car seats, 99.9% of modern car seats will also have seatbelt pretensioners. Granted they won’t do anything close to the amount of damage an air bag would (and yes, I highly doubt anyone would wear a seatbelt sitting in a gaming chair!) but a pretensioner would still give you one hell of a fright if it went off while you were playing Fortnite at 3am!
If the seat has electrics be mindful of your wiring…
seatbelts and their pretensioners are not part of the seat in any car I’ve driven…
I once had two old Opel seats (thought about building chairs with them) and they had the seatbelt tensioner built into the seat. Together with a metal locking washer to disarm them when in storage. But that was no pyrotechnic device but a strong steel spring and a mechanical trigger – probably some kind of ball in a seat which would get dislodged by the impact deceleration to release the tension spring
Rover 75 – pretensioner is a pyrotechnic tube bolted to the seat frame with pulley and the seat belt fastening attached to the end of a piece of half inch steel cable.
Given when this came from, and who owned who at the time, I suspect this is a BMW originated idea.
Of course, the same seat also had curtain airbags either side.
I have had a chair like this for around 15 years now (time flies) Its a drivers seat from a BMW, with a scooter battery to run the electric adjustments. Its heavy, and on a non-rolling frame, and despite the leather starting to crack and tear, its the most comfortable chair for long seated sessions. I thoroughly recommend!
There can only be one..
https://gear.dupontregistry.com/products/lxe-office-chair
With or without blood? I ask because I’ve seen how Porsche drivers are. :-/
using automotive seats as office seats is not the best idea and it has nothing to do with explosive airbags. Its about ergonomics, car seats are meant to have the occupant semi reclined with their feet stretched out infront of them with the occupants feet usually only a few inches below the bottom of the seat. When working at a desk the optimal seating position is with your back straight and upright, something that is incredibly difficult to do in a bucket seat.
I have a Recaro seat out of a MK2 GTI attached to an office chair base and while it is comfortable for long stints of reviewing documents and coding, I have had to add a foot rest under my desk to get my legs up high enough and then my knees are pressed against the underside of the desk. It is also 100% useless when i am working with any electronics or other fiddly work at my desk.
Laying down in car seat is good for relaxing not driving. Seat in upright position we are ready to go. Office chair back angle proportionly matches work done, or height of person in peter principal effect.
And then there’s the B-52 ejection seat made into an office chair…
http://www.motoart.com/products/seating/chairs/b-52-ejection-chair
Popping off airbags is great fun, from a safe distance. I have a wireless firing system for fireworks and it works great for airbags.
I have a nice leather seat from a Subaru. It even has heating elements in it. None of the seat mounting feet are at the same level. It is going to take some custom spacers to make it sit vertical. I got this for a project from a few years back. I wanna make a snow sled with a pair of old skis that I also have. I figure a couple A supports and a wooden deck with a rail across the front you can push with your feet to steer, the seat to sit on, and perhaps even a steering wheel so you have something to grab onto. I figure it would be fun to make, and take out to a popular hill and leave there and see what becomes of it. If people would use it or take it or modify it etc.
I guess this offsets or perhaps explains all of the photos that that I’ve seen around the internet, of vehicles with office chairs in them.
These chairs looks amazing & really comfortable!