By Robert Emslie
Every car should come like this audacious 1961 Buick Electra Flamingo Motorama show car—which has its own flight attendant.
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Chrysler actually offered a version of that in ’67-8. The Imperial Director’s Coupe.
More recently, Chrysler again did something similar with the “Swivel ‘n’ Go” setup available in the RT-platform minivans (but with the 2nd-row seats turning to face the 3rd row.)
How did that work out with seat belts? Or was it intended as a parking feature? Soinds pretty cool, really.
The belts were mounted to the seat structure. I haven’t personally experienced it (my experiences have been with the much more popular Stow ‘n’ Go system of conventionally-oriented seats that fold into the floor) but from the photos I always thought the legroom was maybe sketchy.
http://media.mlive.com/grandrapidspress/photo/2009/01/147835-standard.jpg
Oh yes. I haven’t been in a modern full size van, but the third row tends to be sanitized for leg room in the compact vans I know. My Honda has painfully little leg room for a five year old, it’s much the same with the ubiquitous Prius, here with the second row all the way forward:
http://car.watch.impress.co.jp/img/car/docs/451/574/p36.jpg
The seatbelt solution is interesting though. Togetherwith the possibility to swivel, they must have engineered them preety rigidly…
I haven’t spent any significant length of time on the road in the Swivel n Go seats, but I was the minivan rep in a few auto shows the last year Chrysler offered that option. Leg room wasn’t actually that bad (provided you’re comfortable intermingling legs with the people across the table), but it really was best suited for kids. Still, these are huge vans, there’s space to be had (even the third row is decent). Also, the Swivel seats had more padding than the Stow n Go ones, which was an asset to some people.
As far as safety, to some extent, you’re in a better position facing rearwards. Any seat that’s designed to be removed is inherently compromised, but considering most momentum is at least headed towards the front of the vehicle, a seat back does a better job of spreading out and handling that energy than a strip of fabric.
You can solve the legroom problem with back to back seating.
http://archcomm.arch.tamu.edu/archive/e-newsletter/Images/Art-Car.jpg
And the ’86 Renault Espace, very handy for rained out picnics.
http://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/news/the-renault-espace-a-nod-to-practicality-and-usability-48959_1.jpg
The Toyota Previa also had the option for “captain seats”, come to think of it.
http://www.greatcovers.com/media/customoptions/options/16822/103493/toyota-previa-seat-covers-middle-le-captains-chairs-t683.jpg
I love the 1st gen Previa for being such a wacky solution to a mundane problem. I like to imagine the project planning meeting going like this
“Ok, we need to transport a family of six in comfort”
“the obvious answer is we should make an egg shaped thing with wheels, and make it mid engined and RWD”
“ooh ooh, can we do a 4WD version with supercharger too”
“sure, why not”
*everybody congratulates each other on a job well done and gets trashed on sake”
With a minor revision: Trashed on sake might have come first.