I'm trying to figure out if I can make an interior part from a 4th gen T/A work on a 3rd GTA. The part I'm referring to is the large plastic trim panel (seatback shell) that covers the back of the front seats. It's made out of textured grained plastic and has a large rectangular cutout in it for the net strap thingy attached to the back of the front seats.

The shells mount to the front seats with one phillips head screw covered by a cap on either side of the seat near the side bolsters, two screws located near the bottom seat cushion and two screws up top near the headrest.

The part I'm concerned about is where the headrest mounts. 4th gen T/A's have the headrest supported with two separate rods going through the "soft" part of the seat whereas the 3rd gen GTA's have a single headrest support rod covered by a rubber bellows attached to the top of the seat.

I believe 4th gen and 3rd gen seatback "shells" are essentially the same except one version has a cutout for a single headrest support rod (GTA) while the other version does not (4th gen T/A). Can anyone here confirm this?

 

In a word...different

 

Okay, what are the differences between the two where the headrest attaches to the top of the seat then?

The seat panel shells the same except where the headrest mounts to the top of the seat. 4th gen T/A's have two metal tubes supporting the headrest while 3rd GTA's, I believe, have a single flat metal rod which is hidden inside that rubber bellows thingy.

If it's just a matter of cutting a hole in the 4th gen panel to make it work on a 3rd gen style GTA seat, then that'd be great since the bellows would cover the top anyway. Ebony is still available from GM, but only for the 4th gen. 3rd gen panels have been discontinued.

 

Since nobody knew the answer to this particular parts swap question, not even Tom at "House of Camaro", I decided to take the plunge and ordered brand new 4th gen T/A seatback trim panels from GM. '93-'97 T/A style in Ebony.

Well....it wasn't a total plunge because I saw a Fiero with 4th gen style T/A seats in it at the local Ecology recently and compared the parts in question. I compared the trim panels to mine and apparently 4th gen T/A seats and 3rd gen GTA "Ultima" seats are nearly identical except for the headrest and the one piece thigh support cushion. Sure, the recliner handle and seat rail support covers are a little different, but everything else is basically the same.

If you have a GTA and the front seatback trim panels are all scratched up in the back like mine were, you can get new panels from GM with only a slight modification in order to make them work on the "Ultima" seats. You just need to cutout a slot for the headrest adjustment rod on top.

In fact, if you look closely, you can see a rectangular line molded where the cutout was once punched out by the factory. When the 4th gen T/A's came out, they filled in this hole during the injection molding process because they went with a slightly different headrest mounting location for the 4th gen T/A style seats.

Since most of the parts for the GTA "Ultima" seats have been discontinued by GM, using the still available 4th gen T/A seat panels, with just a slight modification, makes a excellent solution to get brand new scratch free panels on what would be an impossible find at the junkyard.

Ebony and I believe gray are still available, but I'm not sure of other colors like Beechwood etc...

 

I was wondering the leather "seat cover" was identical. If so, I want to swap my leather to 4th gen leather. But, only if it's identical. What do you think?

 

My understanding is that the 4th gen seats will swap into the third gen complete seat assembly for complete seat assembly, but the individual parts will not swap from one generation to the next. I'm sure the seat covers (leather or cloth) are not interchangeable because if you compare the seats closely, the 4th gen seat has larger bolsters at the sides of the lower back than the 3rd gen, and the difference is significant.