I have a differing opinion. Both seats are better than most average street cars while heavier and less bolstered than any real race seat. The recaros are put in for looks, marketing, and maybe some negligible keeping you in place. I doubt in autoX which moves you body around the most that you will see people's times drop by having the recaros where as a real race seat you'll see some improvement as the drivers fights less to stay in place.
If the recaros (and all you get on that package) were a 500-1000 increase in price I would have paid for this package on my car, but I don't see the value in spending more, I can take the money saved and pay for two real seats and a harness bar and come out with a way better setup.
It's a personal decision on how you want to spend your money, but if the pure performance of the seat is really your priority I wouldn't fool yourself into thinking the recaros offer much help.
Owned cars wtih race seats ya been to the track. Question is what is OP doing with your car? If its a street car you take to the track occasionally they actually are great.
Why? Well for one you’re not monkeying around bypassing the airbag setup so it functions safely because race seat have no airbag.
For two climbing in and out of a race bucket on a street driven track car is a pain in the ass . Been there done that as well. Lol
Seriously drove both stock seat car hard and Recaro equipped hard did not regret getting my Recaro eqiupped 18 for $500 more than what they were selling bases for i.e. under 20k. It was a no brainer.
I am sorry but the only thing the base seats were good for is sitting about an 1/2 inch lower. Other than that they sucked. No side support no nothing. Hell in Europe and the UK you cannot buy the car without The Recaros.
Ford got cheap with us because they figured they could charge more for the Recaros but it you were savvy on your purchase you could get a Recaro equipped car for the price of a base or a few hundred above.
So ya 18 Orange Spice(595 option) Smoke Storm Recaro,(1995 option) Ebony wheels,, (375 ) option $19,678
best base deals in California were coming in at around 18,700 for non tri coat paint cars. some cheaper but with high finance rates to cover.
Base Orange Spices $19,100.
Plus mine was ordered!
For under 20k it was like ya give me the Recaros and I don’t regret it a bit.
There is an older very respected membe Raamaudio , who compared the weight of the Recaros vs dedicated race seats amd rails the weight difference was not large enough to warrant running race seats in his car.
It was setup as a crazy fast track machine and it performed great. He has built an d driven lots of race cars over the years as well . He had none of the negatives you have claimed for the Recaros.
I get you might not like them thats fine but as far as choice and excellent one for the platform they rule over base seats on vehicles seeing time driven on the street.
Dedicated track car well thats completely different and most of the cars on this forum either do double duty or see a little track amd more street than anything.