I've been looking for a bench seat with an armrest for a while for our 67 buick skylark . My wife found a 68 seat. What's the difference? Are the backs and side panels the same and will 67 upholstery work on this seat?
I think the frames are the same, but that is only based on a report from a fellow who owns a specialty wrecking yard. I am personally looking at using the covers from a 1967 Chevelle in my Buick, which doesn't have an interior that is reproduced.
I don't know that the 67 covers will work on a 68 bench seat. If they follow when the bucket seats, and rear seats changed then the answer would be NO. They all changed with the new body style. My gut feeling is the 68 seat bottom cushions are wider, and I believe the tops are thicker (from front to back) as well. I certainly would not take the chance of trying to make this work. In all the years when I made these seat covers for Buicks, I never had anyone try this. I don't know that you want to be the first. Duane PS. Just so you know what seats to look to buy, only the deluxe interiors for 67 would have been available with the center armrests, therefore the only cars that would have an exact match, would be out of a 67 Buick A-body or an Oldsmobile Cutlass/442. The Chevy's and Pontiacs would not have them. Also, and I don't remember if they had them, but the 66 seats might be the same. Someone here might be able to get you some measurements to check. Good luck finding what you need.
If memory serves me correct, the handle that moves the seat front to back on the 67 Buicks is also different. It looks more like a paddle then the knob that is on most of the other years. If you are trying to be "exact" you will need to find one of them. I know the 67 buckets had them and believe the bench seats had them as well. Again, maybe someone here could take a picture of one of them and verify their usage. Duane
It's kind of surprising to me that there is no definitive info on these interiors? I mean other than Duane of course. A book that contained the measurements/part numbers of the interior components GM used in various cars would be so helpful! I know I saw a chevelle 300 that had the identical interior to my GS California car. whether this was original isn't clear, because the car was in a wrecking yard. but it looked to be, as the door panels were there also. Because almost anyone that is restoring these cars want's the "original" looking interiors, once that isn't available (Special Deluxe?), there is zero info.
Max Damage, The problem with interior parts is the fact that they were produced by Fisher Body and not by Buick, Chevy, etc.. There is very little info available about Fisher Body, especially regarding inter-change ability. From years of doing this for a living I got to figure out all kinds of things regarding GM interiors for 64-72 A-body cars. I wrote an article outlining the interchangeability of the 64-72 Buick bucket seats with other gm models, but we are talking about bench seats here. That is really pushing my memory here. You talked about seeing a Buick interior in a Chevelle. For 1968 only, if you ordered a Chevelle with a deluxe interior you got the Buick Custom/Deluxe interior installed....but the door panels did not come with any Buick emblems. When I first started making the 68 Buick interiors I was amazed at how many I was selling because I knew the 68 cars were not all that popular. It took me the better part of a year to figure out that the majority of my initial sales were going into Chevelle's. Duane
I had a chance to inspect a 1967 Chevelle split bench today. As per: This appears to be the identical seat frame as in my 1968 GS California car. Same width, depth, thickness of top, and mounting points. No back seat, so I can't make any comment on that.
More here: https://www.v8buick.com/index.php?threads/inside-a-bench.241550/ I think the funnel (GS) seat covers would look better on the armrest seat, but I didn't want to have to recover the rear seat too. This is the Special covering, custom made by the shop that did the work.
