Future Porsche seats will be 3-D printed to fit your body
Porsche is bringing new innovation to the seats in its sports cars and SUVS, directly inspired by the technology used in motorsports and offering owners a unique fit.
The “3- D printed bodyform full- bucket seat” can be customized to a buyer’s tastes. Specifically, the centre section of the seat can be 3-D printed to match a driver’s body, with three different firmness levels to choose from.
“With the 3- D printed bodyform full- bucket seat, we’re once again giving series- production customers the opportunity to experience technology carried over from motorsports,” said Michael Steiner, Porsche executive board member for research and development.
Porsche hopes the technology will be available for regular customers in the near future, but for now, the seats will only be installed in 911s and 718s intended purely for track use, and will include five-point harnesses.
Some 40 seats will be made to start, and based on the feedback from those customers, the automaker will decide if the seats will be available via its Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur arm in mid-2021.
As for the seats themselves, they add a significant amount of cyberpunk feel to the standard Porsche interior. With hexagonal lattice structures visible through the openings in the seat back, it looks like something out of Altered Carbon.
The only downside to the seats could be in the vehicle’s resale value. If a buyer desires a different firmness of seat, it might be difficult to source new units.