Ferrari 458 Seat Options

Ferrari 458 Seats are extremely customizable and are ordered to match the car’s (and your) personality. There are four main seat styles: manual, electric, fully electric and carbon racing. Next is the seat color and you have dozens of leather and alcantara colors to choose from. You even select the stitching pattern and thread color. This all adds up to more combinations than you can imagine. Let’s get into all the Ferrari 458 seat option details.

Ferrari 458 Seat Overview

Here is a step by step guide that walks you through the options, making it easier to understand all options.

Follow these steps:

Pick the seat type
Pick the seat and thread colors
Pick the stitching style

Seat Types

Manual
Electric
Full Electric
Carbon Racing.

Seat & Thread Colors
The seat color is quite extensive, with many shades of tan/brown, reds, grays, creams, and black. In addition to the color of the leather, you can select the color of the thread.

Stitching Styles
Each seat style can then have several different stitching options:

Standard
Daytona
Diamond
Rake (Carbon Racing)

Pro Tip
Once you understand these options, visually identifying in online for sale listings and images becomes super easy. This is particularly helpful when shopping for cars and the details do not fully explain the seat options.

Let’s go through each step.

Seats

There are two main styles of seats Standard and Carbon Racing. Think of the standard seats as seats you would find in another luxury car. The carbon racing seats are light weight, form fitting, manual only performance seats.

Standard Seats
These are the more common choice when compared to carbon seats. Within the standard seats it is about a 50/50 split between Electric and Full Electric. Very rarely do you see manual standard seats but they are out there.

Manual seats are just that. You make all the changes yourself by pulling levers or rotating dials.
Electric seats adjust the seat forward and back, up and down and change the angle of the backrest
Fully electric seats have all the features of the electric seats plus seat heaters, lumbar support, seat width adjustment and three memory positions.

The seats below are standard seats in Rosso Corsa.

Carbon Racing Seats
These are the lightweight seats, super cool manual only seats. About the only thing you can select is the size of the seat. Almost everyone chooses large.

Standard Seats vs. Carbon Racing Seats

Some like the standard seats, some like the carbon seats. If you want convenience like electric seat positioning and seat heaters you have to go standard. If you want lightweight and a more snug fitting you will have to go carbon. Note the carbon seats are fully manual with no electric options.

Manual Standard Seats

Manual seats are the base option. You move a lever and use your own power to move the seat forward or backward. Want to adjust the seat back angle? Then you rotate a knob and the back rest moves forward or reclines.

Note in the image below there are no controls on the left side of the drivers seat.

Electric Standard Seats

This is the entry level for electric seats. Electric motors are used to move the seat forward and backward, adjust seat height, tilt the seat base and adjust angle of the seat backrest.

The seat is adjusted using two controls on the door side of the seat. The front control adjusts the seat forward and backward, seat height and seat base angle. The rear control adjusts the angle of the back rest.

Note: base electric seats do not have popular features such as seat heaters and memory positions.

Fully Electric Standard Seats

If you are going with the standard seats, it is worth considering the fully electric option. Fully electric seats have all the features of the base electric seats plus seat heaters, memory positions, lumbar support adjustments and seat-width adjustments.

The seats are operated using several controls on the door side of the seat base. Like the standard fully electric seat is operated with the same front control. Above the front control are three “memory position”, allowing you to move the seat to your exact settings.

As we move to the rear of the seat side, the next control is the seat backrest angle adjuster, behind that is the lumbar support control, then then seat heater dial and the last control is the seat width adjuster.

Carbon Racing Seats

Carbon Racing seats are the light weight, fully manual, super awesome alternative to standard seats. Carbon seats are often spec’d because they are very comfortable and hold you firmly in place on track days and curvy roads.

Carbon racing seats have no electric motors, no memory positions and no seat heaters. They are 50 pounds lighter than the standard electric alternative and look f’ing awesome!

Here is a great picture of the carbon racing seat backs. When looking at seat images look for the open spaces in the backrest to determine if they are carbon seats.

True to the name the carbon race seats have a carbon back. When looking at photos or online listings, if the seats are carbon, there will typically be an image with the seat back pulled forward showing off the wonderful carbon back.

To fold the seat forward pull the square ring on the back of the seat backrest.

Seat Colors

You have a wide range of colors to customize your seat with. You can even mix and match colors if you like.

A sample of some of the 458 seat colors:

Leather Colors

Ferrari has leather choices in a wide range of colors and shades, including:

Cremes & Beiges
Tans & Browns
Black & Charcoal
Reds & Maroon
Bright & Dark Blues

For a complete list of interior colors and lots of interior pictures check out our Ferrari 458 interior color post.

Thread Colors

In addition to the color of leather you can also select the color of the thread. The thread color can be used in the seat, dashboard, door, or anywhere where leather is used in the car. Thread colors include:

Black
White
Yellow
Red
Green
Blue
Light Gray – Grigio Chiaro

Seat Stitching Patterns

Now that you have your seat type and the color of leather and thread. it is time to pick the stitching style. Options are the standard, Daytona or diamond stitching. If you have carbon racing seats then the stitching is a rake pattern.

Standard Stitching

This is the base stitch pattern. In my opinion the simplicity of the seat is very appealing.

Daytona Stitching

Daytona stitching style is the horizontal bars, with a vertical bar running down the middle. Often times this stitching pattern is selected for comfort. This is a classic Ferrari seat pattern.

Daytona seats do not have to be limited to just one color of leather. Below is a fantastic example of a two color Ferrari 458 Daytona seat.

Diamond Stitching

Diamond stitching is a very comfortable and not as common pattern. It gives the seat a nice modern feel.

Carbon Fiber Standard Stitching

There is one only one stitch pattern for the carbon racing seats, but that does not mean you are short on options. You can select different colors of leather, combine different colors of leather and use the perfect color of thread to compliment the seat color.

Stitched Cavallinos

I am a super big fan of os the stitched Cavallinos Ramparte (prancing horse) in the headrest.

99% of the time getting the prancing ponies stitched look better but there are a few cases where the unstitched cavallinos look better unstitched.

Should you decide not to stitch the horse, then you will an embossed logo in the headrest.

How To Identify 458 Seats

Standard or Carbon Racing Seat Differences

The first step to figure which seats are in a 458 is determining if they are “regular seats” or “carbon”. This is done by looking at the seat back, if there are openings the seats are carbon racing. If there are no openings the seats are traditional seats.

To identify carbon racing seats first looks at the head rest just below the horse. If you see an opening then you know they are carbon racing seats. If no opening then they are standard.

Below you can easily see the open section in the carbon racing seat back.

Carbon Racing seats also have a shiny carbon backside. In most online listings sellers fold the seat forward, highlighting the carbon seat option.

When identifying the seats I look for the tell tale signs of carbon seats, if they are not there then I know that they are standard seats.

If you determined the seats are standard, now we need to figure out is the are Non-Electric, Electric, or Fully Electric. When you know what to look for it can easily be done, you just need to have the right pictures to look at.

Manual, Electric & Full Electric Seat Differences

The key to identifying the power option in standard seats is having a photo of the side of the seat base. Once you have this image then you need to know what buttons to look for.

Manual Seats – no buttons or slide
Electric Seats – 2 Controls
Fully Electric Seats – 5 controls plus 3 memory positions

Manual Seats – This seat has no buttons on the side of the seat. At the bottom of the back of the seat there is a rotating knob that adjusts the seat back. This will increase or decrease the angle of the seat.

NOTE: The Carbon Racing seat is also a manual seat with no buttons on the side, be sure that you identified the seat as a standard seat and NOT a carbon racing seat.

Electric Seats – When looking at electric seats you will notice two controls on the door side of the seat. If you see more than two controls these are not electric seats, instead they are the fully electric seat.

Fully Electric Seats – Look for the same controls as the electric seat but the seat will have even more controls. You will see three small buttons above the front seat control, these are the memory position buttons. At the rears of the seat side look for two larger round controls with a small dial in between them.

The front three buttons are seat memory settings.
The two larger in back control the lumbar support and the width of backrest sides.
The small dial between the larger round controls is the seat heater setting.

Seat Controls

Manual Seat Controls

The controls for the Basic seat are pretty straight forward. You can slide the seat forward or back and increase or decrease (title) the backrest forward or tilts back

To move the seat forward or backward there is a bar or lever that you pull then and then you can slide the seat forward or back.

To adjust backrest angle there is a rotating knob at the bottom of the backrest. By rotating this knob you will increase or decrease the angle of the seat.

Electric Seat Seat Controls

The electric seat allows you to move the seat forward or backwards. Raise or lower the seat, tilt the seat base up or down, and adjust the seat backrest angle.

To adjust the seat, there are two controls on the side of the seat base.

The front control adjusts the base of the seat. This control works the way you would expect it to. Push the control forward and the seat moves forward, push the control back and the seat moves back. Push it up the seat height raises, push it down the seat height lowers. When you push the top front or or top back of the control you control the angle of the seat base.

The rear control adjusts the angle of the backrest. Push the control forward the the backrest becomes more vertical. Push control back and the backrest moves to a more reclined position.

Both of these controls work pretty much the same way as most luxury cars.

Fully Electric Seat Controls

The fully electric seats have the same controls as the electric seats (above) and they also have control for

Memory Settings
Lumbar Support
Backrest Width
Seat Heaters

Memory Settings – You have the ability to program 3 differen seat and mirror settings. This way if multiple people drive the car, or if you want one setting for the road and another for the track you just press the button of the desired setting and the seat and mirror more to those positions.

Lumbar Support – This is the front of the two larger round controls and allows you to adjust the lumbar support.

Seat Width Adjustment – The rear of the two larger round controls allows you to increase or decrease the width of the seat and backrest.

Seat Heater Dial – Tis is the small dial between the lumbar and seat width adjustment. It has three settings 0, 1, 2, 3. Position 0 is off. Position 3 is boiling. At the highest setting you will get pretty toasty.

Conclusion

As you saw Ferrari has a whole world for seat options including standard or carbon racing seats, manual or fully electric. Then when it comes to the colors and stitch pattern combos sky is the limit.

I hope your found this post helpful in understanding the 458 seat options. I know I learned quite when resarching seats for my 458 and even more when creating this post.

Anything else to add? Did I get something wrong? Let me know in the comments below.

Thanks!