I am planning a new interior for my R52 and plan on doing away with the useless rear seat. Does anyone have any pic's of a rear seat delete? Are there 'kit's' available? Do I have to build my own and what about side panels?

The fronts are going to be done in red and gray leather to go along with the present coloring. Hoping to have it done by MINI meet east.

As always, TIA for any help or information...Teddy

 

I have been toying with the idea of rear seats delete almost since day 1, but 12 years later I still have the rear seats. The reason is unless I am tracking seriously there is only about 75 pounds to be saved - hardly worth bother for street use. The bigger reason for not to is if the rear seats are completely removed carrying cargo that you load from the back becomes more difficult than just folding the seat backs down which give you a flat platform. Still I would want to have a factory appearance where the seat removal left bare. I would also want to do something to noise-proving the area as without the seat there would be increase of tire, road, and exhaust noise transmission.

Of course you can fabricate a platform where the seat delete is. The other problem is the need to store the seat parts in the house. What would motivate me to do the rear seat delete is to carry the space saving spare tire which I bought and never use.

The only thing that I have done is just removing the head rests. The back seats of my Mini is always folded down all these years. This is just my view of my needs and tradeoffs.

 

By the time you add back the weight of sound deadening, a panel to keep the back level, and carpet all of that you really arent saving enough weight to make any difference.

 

I would think that a good upholstery shop could make something that would flush out the area where the bottom portion of the seat was removed. The thing that is in my head is what are you going to do with the Bactrian camel roll bars?

 

Ah i see now, this is in convertibles, you guys are prolly looking to get rid of seats no one can use and gain more cargo space.