that brought tears to my eyes

Here is a shot of the seats in the 24 army boat... Its not the best pic. in the world for looking at the seats but but it is a shot of the bottom of the seats & may give you an idea of how they would sit...

Just for the record my vote would be for the new style bolsters. Simply for the Timless look... No offense to anybody with the sitdowns... I just like the Bolsters , but hey as short as I am its a wonder that I can even see over the bow of any offshore boat that I have had sitting or standing....

Here are 2 more shots that I found of the army boat.

Speaking of us short people...... Sorry Jo if you are reading this I just couldn't resist ! Sad thing is he probably has me beat in height by an inch. So that clears me up to crack the short jokes.

Hope these pics. help some & btw I wish you the best in your restoration & as you already know you have a great boat so enjoy it !!!

I Got Some Old Skater Seats If You Are Interested.
Mike

Bouyhunter Im going to install sit down seats in my 24 Pantera. No problem with standing at all with my bolsters. I'm 6 foot. The option of standing or sitting make more sence but I love the looks of the sit down race seat. So If your interested I will be selling my bolsters.

Tim,

Looks great, and all too familiar, Keep up the work, it will all pay off in the end. Took me 3 years to finish mine, and that was with just an outboard, now I want twins, but still gotta pay off all the parts for the single first.

Rick

5'10 170ish...
i had footrests and would hunkerdown when running hard.
Couldn't sit and run at all.
I think w/ a nice set of sitdowns w/ built in shocks w/ footrests you'd be pretty invincible.

The look of the standup bolsters is classic though.
If you go that route, make sure you use the guys who make the factory interiors.

Also, there was a thread about rear passengers not being able to sit comfortably when underway... guy had a motion cat. He installed footrests behind/under the front seats for the rear passengers to use. Made them from alum and battery box covers.

Have any pics?? I might be.

One other thing that I forgot to mention on the boat, and I'm sure everyone that owned the boat remembers this.
The original owner had named the boat "HOT STUFF".
Apparently, when he put the vinyl name on the transom, he must have had a sheet of vinyl, stuck it down, and then freehand cut the letters into the Gelcoat. One of the previous owners removed the vinyl, but the razor blade digs in the gel remained, clearly leaving the name of "HOT STUFF" on the boat. After 2 hours of wet sanding, there is no trace of the name, and now I just need to bring the shine back up in the gel.
Sometime's these small triumphs feel very rewarding.

You forgot to mention the funny coincidences with the name "Hot Stuff" related to Nick and I.

Hot Stuff was my daughter's first two word combo when she started talking (fresh in my mind because she's only 3 now) and Hot Stuff was the name of NickK's Scorpion that he owned before the Pantera.

Did they have vinyl back in '80 or was the line from the mask? Chris removed it originally, so he'd know. He thought it was a drug reference as I recall...