When I got my 70 Dart it had a 72 Duster or Dart bench and rear seat in it. The front bench has the center armrest. I know that 70 Darts didn't come with a center armrest bench seat but I'm not concerned about originality. It appears though that I am going to have to use either 70 Duster or 71/72 Dart/Duster covers when I get the seats redone. My question is are all 70-72 A-body front and rear seat frames the same? I am leaning toward the design of the 70 Duster upholstery over the 71 and 72 Duster/Dart designs but I want to be sure that 70 Duster seat covers are going to fit my 72 seat frames before I order them. I talked to someone at Legendary but they couldn't say for sure. Thanks in advance for your help.
Are 70-72 A-body bench seats the same?
- Thread starter JimK
- Start date
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Vs29H1B
Well-Known Member
+1 Waiting for an informed answer.
I don't know for sure, but have been told the 1970 and 1971 seat frames are the same. On Dusters, the 1970 and 1971 bench seats used different headrests, while the 1972 bench, at some point during the 1972 production year, went to a fully integrated headrest (non-detachable).
The 1972 Darts as i vaguely recall used a different bench from the Duster and Demon.
Hopefully some one pops in, and gives us a good answer!
70dart
Well-Known Member
there are slight variations head rests, etc but the seat bolt holes line up on all of them.
Vs29H1B
Well-Known Member
Thanks.
We need to know if the shape of the upper part of the seats, i.e. the backrest portion, beyond the lower part of the frame, are the same, so that he can order the correct seat covers.
pushrod
70dart 340
I have the same situation in my 70 dart 340. Legendary will not make the 70 interior with an arm rest. Had a local shop rebuild the 72 seat with 70 style and it looks great. The seat frames are the same.
STR-14
I put the hoar in hoarder
I have both, and to my eye the frames look similar enough. I can tell you for sure that the '72 foam is different as it is injection molded and a real PITA to work with. In addition a proper '72 seat has the metal inserts in the upper material. I would believe that any variations from 70-71 in how the material is secured to the frame should be able to be compensated for by a competent
upholsterer.
Daryl
upholsterer.
Daryl
2 Darts
A-body Addicted
Can't imagine that seat mounts from 70-72 are different. The 70 seats had the oval shaped adjustable headrest. Not sure about the 71s. Three different styles of bench seats were used in 1972. The first was the bench with a center armrest. The seat back release these seats was a rectangular button mounted high on the seatback. There was also a lowback bench without a center armrest, but it was only available in 4-door models. The third type was the highback seat with integral head restraints. All were available as all vinyl or vinyl with cloth inserts. The all vinyl, low back seats and bucket seats had metal inserts. The highback, integral headrest seats did not.
I had a 68 Cuda fastback with a bench front seat and an armrest. Maybe you could find one of those or see if the covers are made for them with an armrest and if they would fit. They wouldn't be original, but functional.
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