The paper demonstrates the tracking performance of a sliding horizon feedback/feedforward preview optimal control when applied to a hydraulic motion simulator which has been built to provide a means of replicating the actual ride dynamics of an automobile seat/human system. The design was developed by solving an ordinary differential equation problem instead of a Ricatti equation. Simulation results indicate that the proposed technique has good performance improvement in phase tracking when compared to the classical design methods. It is also found that the controller can be adjusted more easily for robustness due to more tuning parameters.