Rear seats in cars are more interesting than you may think. As something designed to carry human beings, it’s an important part of a car, and yet it’s also a part of a car that many haven’t actually sat in. Back seats are evocative of many things, with some lascivious connotations as they’re often a prime spot for in-car boning and also innocent connotations, since the possible results of those bonings, children, often end up there. What really fascinates me in the world of back seats are those barely-usable back seats that are often crammed into sports cars, almost as an afterthought. Very often they’re just the idea of a back seat, but still made real with leather and foam and carpet. Let’s look at some of these marginal seats, but, before that, I want to share with you a truly incredible rear seat.
This one was shared with my by our very own The Bishop, a man who also appreciates a good rear seat. We were talking about back seats, though I can’t recall just how we arrived there? Anyway, that barely matters, because this back seat is worth seeing, regardless of the context.
Are you ready? Good. Behold one of the best back seats ever to be mass-produced, the rear seat of the Lancia Beta HPE:
Look at that! It’s like the best of ’70s modern furniture, crammed in the back of an Italian hatchback. That color! And that fabric! I can feel it under my hand; there’s something about that color and texture that I always associate with bold ’70s European design and I don’t feel ashamed saying I fucking love it. It’s the furniture style of the space stations we should all be living on in some much more optimistic future that never quite happened.
Look at those black bolsters between the seat and the backrest! Look at how the sides are cushioned and upholstered and wrap around the rear of the car! There’s nothing I don’t like about this. I want to slump in that back seat with a book on a nice long road trip. And maybe nap.
Okay, I promised you one fantastic back seat, and I delivered. Now I want to really push the limits of what we can consider a back seat at all, and see how various cars played in these blurry spaces, sports cars that, for reasons lost to time, decided that they needed back seats, even if physics and space and human anatomy weren’t able to quite make it work. But they tried. Oh did they try.
Some I actually think were successful, if strange. Like the Lancia Fulvia Sport Zagato, which had a really novel back seat that somehow eliminated the middle of the backrest. It looks odd, but you have the top and bottom of the backrest, so I think your back would be plenty well supported. It may be less hot, too, in the summer, with that big gap allowing for airflow to your sweaty spine, and you have easy grabbing-access to stuff in the trunk area. I think this one kind of works, actually.
In some ways, this is the opposite of the Lancia up there: this Alfa Romeo Junior Zagato has a full seatback, but what looks like no seat bottom, which makes me question if this is actually a rear seat or not. You see, the presence of un-padded, un-upholstered, carpeted areas usually are how one tells an area not actually intended to be a seat from something that is intended. This sort of has both, which is confusing. They seem to be hedging their bets here – is it a seat? Maybe! Can you sit in it? Sorta? It’s a gamble!
The Porsche 356 is really pretty similar in setup to that Alfa, but Porsche is determined that the rear area there be thought of as a place one could sit, so there are actual padded and upholstered seat bottoms and a sort of half-backrest, with the negative spaces covered in carpet. It’s a strangely disconnected seat, but it’s clearly intended to be one, and, provided the front seat passengers are short enough, you may be able to keep your legs.
Speaking of legs, I think the most cynical of the almost-seats are ones like these, in a Lexus LC 500. It’s well finished and upholstered in a lovely manner, padded and fully-realized, but the legroom is effectively zero, unless you have legs made of some kind of flat noodles, like rad na noodles. The effort put into those seats while the car designers knew that there was zero legroom just feels, I don’t know, cruel somehow. Like a sick joke, and I’m not laughing.
I have a lot more respect for cars that really worked and tried new ideas to make a rear seat work. Take the incredible Lamborghini 350, for example. It could be had with no rear seat (those twin metal strips on the not-seat are the clue that this almost-seat is not really intended for sitting) or with one central rear seat, as you can see above!
It’s a very strange solution, and I’m not clear on where the rear passenger’s legs should go: splayed out to either side, where there’s sort of room, if you sit like a big frog, or perhaps stretched out between the front seats? I’d really like to try this seat one day, perhaps when I get to become part of the incredibly wealthy thruple of my dreams.
The Alfa Romeo Montreal is a confusing one, because I’m not 100% certain these are seats. The level of apparent padding/upholstery is riding the line between cargo area and seat area; the little wells there could be for butts or suitcases. I’m really not sure of the intent; perhaps it was deliberately vague? I guess whatever you end up using it for makes it what it is?
The Mazda RX-7 took an opposite approach, with two variants of its rear interior area, one very clearly for seats, and the one we got in America, very clearly not. The rest of the world got scooped-out butt-holders, and we got little covered bins. I think I’d rather have the seats, because they can do both jobs: occasional people or cargo. The bins are just cargo!
Okay, one last one, which I really like, because getting any rear seat into a mid-engined car is a triumph. And the rear seats in a Maserati Merak are kind of a triumph. Maybe a terrible one if you’re stuck in them, but they exist, and that goes a long way. The backrests are as vertical as church pews, and between the seats is something that looks like a quilted garbage can. You sort of have an armrest in front of that, but just, it seems, for the part of your arm from your wrist to your fingertips.
At the same time, legroom seems to exist back there, somehow! I think the designers did an incredible job working within some massive constraints.
I think the rear seat in my Volvo 740 was cool – the rear facing one
I have a picture (somewhere) of a true hero with TWO baby carseats in the BACK of a Porsche 911. We gave up our 300ZX for a Subaru wagon when twins were soon to be born. A true hero.
I’ve always thought the “technically a back seat for insurance reasons” was really really stupid. In that situation why has nobody turned that seat 90 degrees so you can have a third person reclining on a sort of chase lounge behind the front seats? (Don’t have to worry about leg room!)
The Mercedes 230SL (and probably the 250 and 280) had exactly this as an option: a single well-upholstered rear passenger seat facing sideways.
Datsun Roadster!
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTgAcaqZGOrbYO5FUlYiKc1UXoFAQhBDSy4W8PinRMGjqirbQpQLnuIsRNi&s=10
I’ve always loved the look of the back seats in the BMW 3.0. The curved transition from the back to the seat just looks so great.
Let’s all take a minute to appreciate the absolute work of art that is the Beta HPE. What an amazing design. I like the post-facelift even better, but that shape is just to die for. Absolute perfection.
How can we forget the amazing rear “office chair” jump seats on Checker Marathons? I believe these were also made as back-less.
https://barnfinds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/052720-1972-Checker-Marathon-7.jpg
And my old FJ40 had inward-facing, fold-up jump seats and seat belts that had about as much off-road retentive function as a macrame thermos.
The thing about rear seats is we get to see them in every Marketplace or Craigslist ad. Driver seat? Hey! Look at that console!
Needs more ’67 Tbird, which is like the first back seat, but larger and with a console in the middle. It has the cool curved sides, too. We called my buddy’s T-bird’s back seat The Throne Room.
i8 and Evora enter the chat (re: mid engine cars with “rear seats”)… The i8 was a surprisingly suitable daily when the younglings were 4th grade and younger.
Subaru Brat’s were always enjoyable, but the best are probably the rear-facing ones on any 70’s-early 90’s large wagon. Endless hours of fun before parents understood to seatbelt their children at least. (+ for bonus rear tailgate windows)
In a similar vein to the LC500, the current SL has laughable back seats. I guess they could work for little kids but there’s no way that they’re for adults
Very fun. I love 2+2 sports cars and always have. The Evora is my favorite example because mid engine like the Merak. And I read this article about how you can totally baby with one back years by some weird car writer on a different website. And now I own a BRZ I fold my toddler into cause that same writer also did an article on the FRSs baby abilities. Wonder what happened to that guy? I hate when auto journos say tiny rear seats are pointless and the cars just shouldn’t have them since they don’t comfortably fit adults. Tell me you don’t have children without telling me you don’t have children….
My problem is that my brain always thinks that any car purchase is for life – I couldn’t conceive of buying a car that I would have to get rid off just because one of the kids hits 40lbs. I should probably loosen up, but what can you do?
I’ve always been fond of the ’04-06 GTO rear seats…they’re basically front seats…but in the rear.
The actual best back seats are the captains’ chairs in a conversion van.
I conceptually like the back seats in my Prius v–they recline a solid amount. But I’ve never had the opportunity to actually experience them myself for any extended period of time.
I hate “decorative” back seats. If your “back seats” have less than x inches/centimeters of legroom, just make it a shelf and be honest with yourselves and everyone else.
I dunno, the optional rear seats in a Toyota Alphard minivan are pretty damn hard to beat.
cries in USDM
I believe, without actual proof, that having the extra “seats” lowered insurance premiums, at least back in the day and possibly only in Europe. Having only two seats suggested a wild and reckless thrill-seeker terrorizing the highways. (Which was about right.)
It’s similar as to why Morgan “Trikes” had 3 wheels. The tax laws back then defined automobiles as 4-wheeled vehicles, or something like that.
Yes, in France for example the number of seats will influence the number of CV (fiscal horses) of your car, which will change your insurance premium.
That’s very confusing to me, because I’ve heard that insurance companies are smarter than that. “No, your 2+2 is not a family car, it’s a sports car. Your premiums go up.”
Fantastic feature Torch. This is what we come to this site for.
Where do 90s Chevy S10 or Ford Ranger back seats fall? Worst, best or meh? My kids love them since they face each other and have conversations while I drive and can look at the back watching my home depot run doesn’t fly away.
My favorite so far is the back seat of a e38 and up 7-series, especially the L versions. I’m pretty tall, and fit back there just fine, even if I have the front seat set for me driving.
You also need to consider headroom. A co-worker years ago had a Geo Storm, and I once folded my 5′ 11″ frame into the back. While my knees were up to my chin, my head was banging on the glass above. Thankfully, it was only about 10 minutes.
Hyundai put a label on the rear hatch of the Veloster and maybe earlier Tiburon too, warning about head clearance when closing the hatch with rear passengers seated.
Worst rear seat ever: Porsche 944. With the transaxle in the rear, the low roof line, and the tiny wheelbase, it’s a torture chamber. If you put Dean Keaton back there, he would scream, “There’s. No. Fucking. ROOM!”
One of the best back seats belongs to my ’04 LeSabre. I’ve spent time back there on road trips while my wife was driving and one of the kids sat in front. I have grotesquely long legs, but I can even cross them while sitting behind my wife (who’s also pretty tall). And having the other kid in the other back seat was no issue at all. No wonder so many realtors bought LeSabres back in the day, before they all bought RXs.
I immediately thought “something Lancia” and then of the 356, when I read that headline, I you didn’t disappoint 🙂
The upper 2 parts (in the 1960s Porsche 356 models, b&w picture) fold down flat for a decent and good looking cargo area between the front seats and the rear firewall (and window).
I have carried all kinds of not at all small things back there during the years. Even sat in the backseat several times when others drove the car. The sturdy old german hinges also serves as good anchor points for lap belts.
In non-US markets the first two generations of the Honda CRX had rear seats.
The mk1 had a flat load area back there with a pop-up backrest that covered a padded buttock cushion. I think it was described as an emergency seat. I kept it folded flat.
The mk2 had a more traditional tiny rear seat set up. I once gave a 100 mile lift to a guy in the back seat of one of my mk2s. He got the train back.
I once spent a happy couple of minutes watching a drunk I disliked trying to get in to what she insisted was the rear seat of my mk1 MR2. She was very confused.
I’ve had a lot of 2+2 type cars and I’ve always climbed back there to find out how bad it would be to offer a lift to someone. The Nissan S13 200SX was probably to most roomy, I’ve driven actual full sized humans hundreds of miles in those seats.
The Honda CR-Z was the same way, non us market cars got rear seats, us bound ones got plastic not seats
Incredible – I distinctly remember traveling in (on?) the US-version CRX rear trunk area, with a friend. We routinely fit 5 teenagers in a CRX.
Roadster back seats are shooting fish in a barrel, though. The MB R107 could technically have them. I drove a recent Aston Martin where a 6’3″ salesman tried to cram himself into the back seat so my SO could be in the passenger seat, to hilarious results. Etc ad infinitum with those cars.
We bought a restored R107 when I learned it was my wife’s fav car. The seller included a rear seat kit but I don’t think we will install it. Rear legroom would look a bit like the Lexus above. Need to check ebay values.
Jason, if you like mid-engined “four-seaters” the Lotus Evora deserves a mention here!
My other half got driven to a wedding in the back seat of an Evora. She’s 5’3” and she fitted ok. It was only for half an hour. The guy who owned used to take his kids out in it all the time, they loved it.
The Honda CRZ went the way of the RX7: in every other market, you got rear seats, but North America got only 2 fronts (and 300lb lower GVWR, somehow)
What about the McLaren F1? The two side seats are technically rear seats aren’t they?
I believe they’re referred to as recessed passenger seats officially, but I could be wrong.
EDIT: I’m likely wrong, a quick google search turned up no official documentation calling them that. I could swear I’d seen that expression being used officially.