I was looking through the 122 parts catalog, and I noticed that there were front bench seats in there. Has anybody seen these in real life? Were they for automatics only? Would they work with a stick shift? Do they tilt forward for 2 doors??

Thanks,

mario

I´m Joaquin Novara and live on Lima, Peru (South America). In advance, my excuses for write on spanglish (english words with spanish idiomatic rules).

Here, the 120 series was a Volvo's emblematic car from 60's to 70's (we had a military dictatorial goverment these times, and the import of new cars was no allowed. The next volvo car I see here was the 240 on the 80's).

I have one Amazon (on reality, two, but the second one was a donor car for the first and was scrapped). Both was 121, no 122 (the 121 was produced only for european, african, southamerica markets, not for US; 121 has 4 doors, 122 has 2 doors).

The car has a front seat bench and also had a column manual shift mount (I change it to the floor-mounted, due the column version was very troublesome on engage the 2nd gear- after the change the transmission work without a glitch!). My chasis number is 232598, one of the last 4-door sedan produced (year 1966).

I believe (a) the front seat was an experiment or (b) due was one of last sedans, it was a creative use of the remmants early parts on store (God knows).

The seat are rigid and don´t bend (with 4 doors this is unnecesary). On my first month with the car I hate the seat (if you adjust for your size, you move the passanger side, usually with the passanger seated; also the degree of inclination is adjusteable only using a screwdriver - in other words, adjust on the garage, and not move anymore). But, with time passes, I start to like it (a bit of feeling rememoring my grandfather's 50's car). Probably, this type of seat fit well also on the station-wagon (estate) version.


Additional notes:

Also, between other rarities, my car use a B18A engine with a single Stromberg carburator (without add-ins, by example, it lack the temperature compensator). The engine has 2.5% CO emissions, but it is well into the local enviromental laws (and we using here 84 leaded octane gas and a double headgasket - Hey tree-huggers, I live on a third-world-country and our enviromental laws allow 5% of CO! - due half of the car park has 10 or more years of use).

The Stromberg carburator work fine and develop a 10 Hp more of a SU carburator (I test both, the donor car has a SU - now my backup carburator). With the Stromberg I was capable of coax 180 Km.p.h. from the old beast (usually I use the car as my conmuter home-work-home with a mean speed of 40-60 km.p.h.). SU carburator has breathing problems at 130 km.p.h. (tested both outside the city).

I have seen bench seat in an early 4dr with coloumn change auto BW I think, I believe column change was available for manual.
Hans

I've seen one, it was fitted to some early cars together with a column gearshift (manual box). At the time you also had the saxomat semi automatc, though I've never seen one of those. The autos didn't come in until '65-'66.


Regards



Pete

So it doesn't surprise me that it was available on the Volvo 122. I've not noticed one, though. I would have been suprised if Volvo offered a column shift....although I'm pretty sure SAAB did have one. With bucket seats, I think.

On the Mustang the bench came with a floor shift (I think). In those wonderful, care-free days, one's "significant other" (this would invariably have been a girl in the 1960s) could snuggle up and shift the gears. There were no head restraints. The seat belts - lap belts, if so equipped- would be a tangled mess stuffed under the seats.

The seat backs would have tilted forward on the 2-doors. They had no latches.

I seem to remember that most cars from the pre-WWII era had the combination of bench seats and a floor-mounted stick shift. The column manual shift mount ("three-in-the-tree") was a development which first appeared on "premium" cars..

-Punxsutawney Phil

From the www.gcp.se site (they have the Volvo microfiches online).
The column shift M40. I've never seen one in real life. I imagine it would be as much of a pain as any other column shift manual, though.