How's the alcantara in the Limited? Will it pill like the BMW E46 ZHP's?
 

While alcantara has an awesome feel to it, I've known it to pill and fray from my experience while shopping for an BMW 330i w/ ZHP Performance Package. Granted, the alcantara was only on the steering wheel where it gets used up often. Now i'm a pretty neat guy, so i think with proper care, the alcantara may just last for a few years.

dunno about in this car, but my speed 3 had leather/alcantara seats and they still looked like brand new after just over 4 years and 58k miles.

I'm with you on this. Even though they look great, I feel they won't hold up as well as the years pass compared to the cloth, imo.

The FR-S seats won't hold up as long as the BRZ will. It has to do with the BRZ holding you in a little better. Less rubbing on the seat when you get into the car and while driving.

Aren't the seats on the twins the same?

No...the cloth differs between the base BRZ and FR-S, and the Limited BRZ has Alcantara with leather bolsters.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8591

Nope

Alcantara upholstery seems about the same quality as in 08 STI. So find one nearby and see for yourself if you're worried. Alcantara on seats in my Legacy is holding up pretty well.

I can't remember exactly where I saw it on here but some have said the seats are the same just the materials are seat covers that can be removed. I remember them saying they were going to order the Brz seat covers and put them on an fr-s. Can anyone offhand confirm or deny this?

Thanks for the link--great article. However, I meant if the seats are different structurally, which they are not. Materials, some difference, but its structurally the same seat. As I see it, there shouldn't be any difference for how the seat "holds" the driver/passenger.

It's a bit hard to quantify but Alcantara will hold you in place better than some cloth and most leather. It's harder to slide around on the material.

Oh no, everything else other than the few cosmetic things are different. They are built next to each other at the same factory

I had a Celica GT-S for 5 years with Alcantara seats. I didn't like how they were dust magnets so I put seat covers on them from the begninning so I can't comment on lastability. But another BRZ owner told me his friend's BMW's Alcantara seats were a pain to maintain and frayed. So I bought faux leather seat back/bottom cushions from Wal-Mart. It only covers the Alcantara midsection and leaves the leather bolsters/headrest on the seat exposed.

I put 12k miles on an Audi S4 with leather/alcantara seats and try still looked brand new when I turned the car in. The nice thing about Alcantara is that they have a color palette of material and it's synthetic so even if it does wear several years down the road, an upholstry shop worth it's salt could replace the Alcantara sections fairly easily.