Why are they called bucket seats? where in the Jeebus did all this bucket business come from? Inquiring minds want to know.
From there creation to somewhere in the 1970’s, most cars had “bench seats” - ie. a long, straight seat much like a firm couch. Seat belts were tiny and forgotten by most, and not required by law. You could fit four people on the front bench seat of a medium sized plymouth! (hence, great for making out with the S/O)
Then, as more and more “high performance” cars began entering the consumer market, auto makers began taking their cues from race car manufacturers and utilizing individual seats that cradled and somewhat surrounded the front seat occupants. Compared to sitting on a wide, flat, slippery bench type seats, these new seats were like sitting in a “bucket” - it kept you steadily in one place while you were tearing up the road.
Now, with the demise of bench seats even in the rear in many vehicles, the term “bucket” seats has become almost moot, and simply “seats” could be used.
Don’t know, but I’ll just point out that automotive seats that stretch across the entire width of the car are known as bench seats. Maybe in the early days of cars single-person seats looked like buckets.
Yesterday on the radio the answer to the trivia question was Steve McQueen had the patent for bucket seats.
Another fun hijack from the haze of my toodler years: at the 1964 World’s Fair in NYC, one of the car manufacturer’s pavillions featured a fanciful car (…which I remember floating above my head for some odd reason…) made of all sorts of funny and punny parts. On it, I remember, were the “bucket seats,” made to resemble the old fashioned wooden-staved buckets you might find on a farm. Bucket seats were one of those hot new auto features in the early and mid-1960s.
This trend toward bucket seats really annoys me, because I possess a wider-than-average ass. I always fit great into those older, 7-feet-wides vehicles, but newer, smaller cars are toture to ride in.
When I was younger the joke was that the console between the bucket seats was a birth control device. (made it hard to have sex in the car)