Car seats have come a long way from the old days. I can remember when car seats had the contour and comfort of a park bench. Covered in shiny vinyl, they offered nothing in terms of support or safety. With the rise in popularity of foreign sports cars in the 1950's, the American public came to recognize the "bucket seat" as a sporting alternative to the three across seating that most domestic cars came with. By the late 1960's American cars with sporting pretensions like the Camaro, Mustang and the like offered high back bucket seating that suggested some lateral support.
But it was the German manufacturers who lead the industry in offering supportive and stylish sports seating for street cars. Recarro emerged as an industry leader, providing seating to Porsche, Audi and others as well as selling a popular line of seating as replacements to other less-sporting models.
Today the aftermarket offers a wide variety of "racing seats" to dress up even the most pedestrian car to look like it belongs on the front row of the Le Mans starting grid. When choosing replacement seats for your car there are some important factors to consider.
Real racing seats in real racecars are not particularly comfortable seats. In the world of high lateral g's generated by racing tires and suspensions, it is important to keep the driver's butt nailed down in one spot. I guarantee you that it is impossible to drive a high performance car are its peak efficiency if the driver is slipping and sliding around in his seat. Designed to hold you in tightly, race seats are narrow in the hips (painfully so if you need to wear jeans with a touch more room in the seat) and envelope you upper body neck and head to protect against injury in an accident.
Better suited to street use are aftermarket seats that have a "racer" look. Less deep and restrictive as real race seats, these seats are easier to slide in and out of. Plus they provide more padding and general comfort.
Fitting aftermarket to most cars is a simple job requiring only simple hand tools. The only consideration is that after market seats come without the sliding rails that allow easy adjustment; these must be purchased separately and are designed for specific applications. Most aftermarket seat manufacturers will have a list of car models that their sliding rails will fit into.
If you are very handy you might be able to modify the sliding rails that your car's standard seats ride on to accept the new aftermarket seats. But care must be taken to insure that the new seats are safely attached permanently to the body of the car and can withstand the forces of an accident.