QOTD: Will Recaro Remain? UPDATED

by Tim Healey

Published: July 31st, 2024

Recaro, or at least the part of Recaro that builds seats for sports cars, has entered bankruptcy.

Now, we all know that going bankrupt doesn't necessarily mean the company will go kaput. Companies declare bankruptcy and survive all the time. But the question is, will Recaro survive?

It's tricky, since we lack details. We do know that Recaro is widely considered to be the gold standard for seats for performance cars, and we also know the rest of Recaro is apparently NOT going background. We also know that even if the market for Recaro sport seats is small, it's still significant.

So, what do you think?

Sound off below

UPDATE: Recaro PR sent me this statement after publication: "Please note the insolvency does not affect RECARO Automotive North America, Inc. RECARO Automotive Japan Co. Ltd, RECARO Automotive Composites Engineering, LLC, RECARO Automotive Components (Shenzhen) CO., LTD, RECARO Automotive (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., or RECARO Automotive’s commercial vehicle units."

[Image: Recaro]

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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6 of 19 comments

Klkrause on Aug 01, 2024
I used to work for Johnson Controls when they owned Recaro. It's been 6+ years since I was in the seating industry, but one of the biggest challenges a company like Recaro faces is their high cost structure for selling relatively low volumes vs larger, high volume seating companies. A company like Adient (spin-off from Johnson Controls) has significantly higher scale in areas like engineering, manufacturing, and purchasing power. They could afford to make sportier seats at a much lower cost that would work for most "sport" versions of cars or trucks that would satisfy most OEM's and customers vs what Recaro could do. I think Recaro got into trouble when they tried to go after some of these higher volumes and had to sacrifice some high-end content/features in order to get their name on high-volume vehicles. At that point they couldn't compete on price with Adient or Lear, though. If Recaro survives, I think they need to get back to their roots of being a race-focused seat that competes on quality and design instead of price. This will also mean lower volumes, though, so they're going to have to shrink their overhead. Just my 2 cents ...

3 Reply
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- John on Aug 01, 2024
  Thanks for the insider take, sounds like you've nailed the dilemma that Recaro faces.
  
  1
- ToolGuy on Aug 01, 2024
  At the two large automotive OEMs where I worked, Johnson Controls did an excellent job of consistently overcharging for crappy seats. (Good on them.)
  
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- Wjtinfwb on Aug 01, 2024
  On the money. While I was thrilled when my Focus SVT EAP came with standard heated, leather Recaro's, I couldn't figure out how they fit into the Focus price point. They' already made their OEM mark with the '79 Pace Car Mustang, the '82 Trans AM and several other mass produced cars, I just figured they used them a loss-leaders for brand building and name recognition. The loss part was correct, apparently the name recognition never happened. I've flown in several private and commercial planes that use Recaro seating, apparently that part of the company was never spun off to private equity, just the automotive piece. Hoping the company survives with the quality product intact.
  
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Srd275 on Aug 01, 2024
before side airbags. It was easy to change seats. With airbags it is another story

1 Reply
- EAM3 on Aug 02, 2024
  A lot of sporty cars came with awful seats from the factory, making Recaro the best choice to correct that issue. Swapping them out was easy as could be and the results were more than worth it. My '01 Mustang GT's seats looked brand new when I sold it because I replaced them with Recaros when the car had less than 200 miles, which I then sold separately. Now? Car seating has gotten so much better + the integration of airbags and other components has made that market shrink considerably. I first became aware of how awesome Recaro seats when my sister bought a new '79 Mustang Pace Car back in the day. Been a fan ever since.
  
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