The MINI Recaro seat I assume you are talking about is not DOT legal for MINI to sell OEM, because it doesn't have a weight sensor in it for the airbag, I'm not sure of the aftermarket ramifications but MINI won't/can't sell it in the US. Again I can only see the dreaded red X so I can't be entirely sure but I think you are talking about the JCW not John Cooper Motorsport Recaro seats black leather and the JCW logo.

I think I will be looking at the Cobra or Sparco but I need to sit in them before I'll know, plus my seat cost just went up 200+ dollars so I need to collect a few more paychecks before I have the spare change,time to do more through research.

 

Drew, your all mixed up here. Not sure why you can't see Victors pictures but they are of Recaros in a JCW series racecar, not the street JCW. Anyway, Recaro is not the company supplying the seats to the overseas JCW, Sparco is.
I think you do need to take your time in deciding in seats and anything else that you may want to buy with the thinking that you will eventually want to get into racing. Take some more time and research just what the right mods will be.

 

ok now I know which seat you're talking about.
^^^^Big part of the reason I started this thread, I'm upgrading brake components, changing seats and will be preping my car over time into the Spec MINI NASA standards, but doing HDPE's in the mean time to "tighten the nut behind the wheel". I'm getting info from here, browising NASA forums and doing braoder internet searches and getting what I can from manufacturers.

A seat change in the MINI has been a desire for quite a while as they simply are not as comfortable and don't offer the support that I am used to, so I'm looking into the seats and harnesses much sooner and want to make sure I do it in a Spec MINI compliant way so it doesn't come back to haunt me later. I orginally looked into the APC but have since learned that that is not a safe option despite what I had been led to believe. I am asking questions here to make sure I make the right choice, and a FIA approved seat seems to be the best all around option for me, I have thought this for a while and was even asking if the APC was FIA approved earlier. Mind you this is a daily driver as well, so I need to take that into consideration as I go about these changes.

Everyone has their own opinions and different experances and I am merely trying to sort through and find what my best option is, my next step as far as seats go is to actually sit in a variety of them and see what each is like. This is being asked more than 2 months prior to my consideration of pulling out a wrench to make the change, I'm actuallly insulted by the implication that this is something I'm rushing through, I spent several hours doing research before I even began to ask the questions.

 

I just bought a Cobra Imola II for my SSC race car. It is FIA 8599 approved and requires no rear attachments. It is made from kevlar and is a side mount, which requires Cobra side brackets which mount to the floor. I have the GT version which is about 2" wider than the normal one and it is very comfortable for me. The bad news is it is $700.00