Hello Jon,
The story behind the Steve Sunshine seat actually stems back to a Shelby style racing part. I was visiting a friends shop, and they had a Cobra in to do some general race prep. The Cobra owner had bought a
Ken Miles edition Steve Sunshine aluminum racing seat. What really caught my eye was the metal shaping, and all the care and attention that went into copying the contours of the original fiberglass seats. So many of the other aluminum seats out there that are made to look like an old race seat are made up of many pieces of flat stock cut and welded in smaller sub-sections to build a radius. They don't end up looking right to me.
I had long thought it would be nice to have a replica of the GM Racing seat in aluminum because of the additional bit of safety it might offer. The original fiberglass shell is only bonded to the steel frame by a few pieces of fiberglass and resin. With an aluminum seat, I feel you can more securely fasten it to any of your additional mounts or braces.
So, I contacted Steve Stunshine and asked him if he'd be into making a copy of one of these old GM racing seats. Steve was up to it, and even had a go with only measurements the first time around. That first unit missed the mark a bit, and so I sent him a replica shell of the original GM racing seat to copy. That second unit (and Jon's third) turned out very nice. And though Steve's upholstered cover is intended to copy the design and layout of my original, his fits better and tighter than the covers on the original GM racing seat.
Here is the last e-mail I have for contacting Steve Sunshine: KenMiles@comcast.net
I've also attached a picture of the Steve Sunshine replica GM racing seat in my car.
-Chad
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