There are other threads on steering-seat distance and how to adapt a seat from another source but here I want to discuss with other roadster builders the topic of roadster entry/exit. Sadly I have wanted a Model-A roadster for a long long time but only had a very few rides in one, always admiring rod magazine articles on roadsters. Today my neighbor, Dick Ivey, just four houses down the street took me over to an owner (Ted Glenn) of an original '29 Ford roadster to test the seat. Dick is a local luminary of the Model-A club and has won awards for best in class at Hershey with both a Model-A sport coupe and also with a 1953 Ford convertible and routinely repairs restored Model-As. He claimed that the Model-A rodster has less leg room than any other model and his sport coupe has a sort of package shelf behind the seat. Well anyway I am only 5'10" and average size but I had to twist my leg to get into that roadster. Once I was in there seemed to be enough room to wiggle my feet around the pedals but entry/exit called for a knee twisting motion with a duck down under the standard height top (not chopped). Sooo, can you roadster owners comment on your way around this problem? I note the seat was a restored stock seat with the usual fat part at the back of the seat with no package shelf. I assume if I fabricate my own seat I could use a minivan middle seat that could maybe be pushed back a bit under the back collar edge of the cockpit to gain maybe 2 or 3 inches of added leg room but the entry with my intended 2" chop now looks like something my wife will surely complain about and may even be tricky for me, although I have put up with a number of inconveniences in the past (no doors at all on a VW Sand Rover Dune buggy and tiny doors on a MG midget) but how can I make the best of the small doors on a '29 A roadster (including a firewall indent for the V8)?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder