Bench or Buckets

Way, way back in the day, I had high hopes that the LeMans would be on the road before my daughters grew up. I thought, back then, that seating for six was an imperative, so I bought a bench seat and a steering column out of a mid-60s GM A-body (I think it was a '66 Buick Special - my memory is hazy on 20-year-old events). Well, time has flown by and the daughters have flown the coop, so it's just the lovely Loriann and me. Now that I’ve finally gotten serious about getting this car back on the road, I needed to do some online shopping for upholstery. Since it was my intention to still use the bench seat (so I could have the lovely Loriann snuggled up next to me during our rides together), I went shopping for a parchment (white) vinyl bench seat cover that matched the pattern my car came with.



Exhaustive searching ended up being more frustrating than fruitful. All I could find were the following images online without explanation as to whether it was original or reproduction. I had some hope that, since Pontiac made a front bench seat in vinyl, some vendor would reproduce it.



During my search I did unearth the following image from Pontiac’s Color and Interiors Brochure where they presented the offerings for ’65 A-bodies. This showed that only the LeMans and GTO got the top-of-the-line vinyl (Morrokide):




So, currently, the only ’65 front seat upholstery available being reproduced is for bucket seats. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since I imagine most, if not all, LeMans and GTOs were sold with the sporty buckets, so the demand for a replacement bench seat cover is probably pretty small.

From everything I've read and seen, at least '64 thru '66 used the same seat frames, so I  expanded my search and came up with another option. YearOne and Ames Performance sell '66 Tempest seat covers in black, red, metallic red, and gold vinyl that will fit my front bench and rear convertible seats. I'm thinking the following combination may work.

Does the pattern in the seat complement the pattern in the door panels? That is the deciding factor. I just sent a technical request to YearOne to confirm the same gold viny is used in both their '65 and '66 upholstery. We'll see.

In the end, is the best choice to stick with bucket seats?