Bucket seats

In American cars

The popularity of front bucket seats began with sporty compact cars, pioneered by General Motors in 1960, with production of the Chevrolet Corvair 900 series Monza Club Coupe with standard front bucket seats. By 1962, more than one million U.S. built cars were factory equipped with bucket seats; often, these were fitted with a center console containing a gear shifter and other features such as ashtrays, a cigarette lighter, storage compartments, and power window controls between the seats. Large luxurious front bucket seats (and contoured "bucket-style" rears) made their debut in American personal luxury cars with the debut of the 1963 Buick Riviera in late 1962 as a 1963 model. In 1964, Ford introduced the Mustang "pony car", following the success of the sporty Corvair Monza further popularized the idea of standard front bucket seats – although a front bench seat was an available option. With the introduction of subcompact automobiles in the U.S. in the early 1970s, such as the Chevrolet Vega and Ford Pinto, bucket seats were used for the same reasons they had originally appeared: lack of seating room and floor-mounted levers for the gear shifter and parking brake.