Jump seat

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Oldsmobile Curved Dash Runabout Model 6C (1904) with optional jump seat behind the driver. The passenger sits with his back to the direction of travel “ dos-à-dos ”.

A seat in an automobile that is not regularly used is referred to as an emergency seat . It can be permanently mounted, detachable or foldable and should take up as little space as possible in the vehicle when it is not in use. In large limousines, an emergency seat is an armchair that can be folded out of the backrest of the front seat or from the vehicle floor.

history

Lateral emergency seat on the Paige model 6-66 Daytona Speedster (1921).

In the early days of the automobile, it was often a removable, but sometimes also fixed, cushion behind the driver, on which a maximum of two passengers could sit with their backs facing the direction of travel (e.g. Oldsmobile Curved Dash , Packard Model A , B , C ) . James Ward Packard claimed to have used this accessory on an automobile for the first time.

Resourceful bodyworkers built a folding emergency bench for two daring passengers into the splash guard, which closes the body at the front, for models with a centrally or rear-mounted engine. When open, the upper half of the flap forms the backrest, the lower half the leg rests. The driver's view is of course restricted.

After the front-engined design prevailed, the roadster and speedster were sometimes equipped with a rear single seat. In the late 1910s, a variant that was not without danger appeared: the side emergency seat, which in two-seater vehicles (mostly roadsters) was pulled out from behind the door like a drawer from the side of the body.

The emergency seat in closed vehicles

With the advent of large and very spacious inner handlebars in the 1910s, the question of better use of the interior also arose. There was a lavish amount of space in the rear; a passenger couldn't even get to the back of the front seat or the partition wall with his legs wide apart. While the latter increasingly also contained compartments and boxes for special amenities such as a bar or a make-up kit, folding seats against the direction of travel were also installed there, for example in German taxis from the 1930s.

Salon arrangement

The designation salon refers to the arrangement of the seats, which in principle corresponds to that in today's minivans . Two more seats are attached behind the front individual seats so that there is a gap between them. It appears that later jump seats were used that could be folded up and sunk into the ground. These seats are normally accessible via the rear door (neither sliding door nor tailgate as in the minivan). The gap between the seats is the passage to a bench in the stern. The salon arrangement is not limited to a particular body type and was especially in large touring cars , sedans , Sedan and Brougham applied. It was widespread from around 1915 to 1925, especially by luxury manufacturers such as Packard and Pierce-Arrow .

The "mother-in-law"

Very early folding seat on a Crossley 20 HP from 1906. The design goes back to the racing driver Charles Jarrott .
Open emergency seat in a Ford Model A Roadster from 1931. The handles and the round step plate for getting in are easy to see.

The ironic term “mother-in-law's seat” usually refers to an uncovered and thinly padded makeshift seat or bench seat for one or two people that can be folded out of the rear, as was characteristic of some roadsters and coupés from the 1920s and 1930s. Often the open hinged lid padded on the inside forms the backrest. More luxurious versions had side rests that retracted when the flap was closed. Access was via the step, with one or two steps on the rear fender making entry easier and protecting the paintwork from the footwear. There were even versions with a separate door (e.g. Rolls-Royce Phantom II Henley Roadster from Brewster) and others had an additional, fold-out windshield for the rear passengers, e.g. B. the Triumph Roadster . Here, the pane and the backrest, when closed, each formed part of the cover over the seat.

In Great Britain this seat is called Dickey seat and in USA Rumble seat . In the early 1930s, practically every manufacturer had a roadster, a convertible coupé (non-folding windscreen frame, fixed, more stable convertible top and cranked window) or a coupé with this configuration on offer, sometimes as part of a more upscale variant such as the Ford model A deluxe. In the standard version, the emergency seat was subject to a surcharge.

As cars got faster and more streamlined, the jump seats disappeared because they became too uncomfortable for passengers. The risk of accidents for those practically sitting outside the car was also very high.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Paige 6-66 Daytona Speedster prototype (1919). conceptcarz.com
  2. ↑ Packard Dominant Six 3-48 Two-toned Salon Brougham (1914). packardinfo.com