One thing I love about old car brochures are diagrammatic pictures showing the flexible interior configurations of their cars, demonstrating how people and cargo can best be hauled via folding or unfolding seats and platforms. Usually, these are all pretty sensible, and show interior configurations you’d absolutely choose to use, depending on if you had to carry six people or just two and a sedated llama. A brochure for a 1971 Saab I came across, however, has shown me something genuinely baffling. Let’s explore it.
First, in case you’re sadly unfamiliar with the sort of diagrams I’m talking about here’s a couple of other examples, both from Renault, because for some reason the French automaker always set out to provide the most visual details for the crap that could be hauled around:
Most carmakers’ brochures just used flat colored blocks to show the various seating or cargo areas, but not Renault! The company wanted you to know you could haul ornate dressers or variously colored suitcases or birdcages or houseplants or sacks or even miniature horses.
The diagram that I want to consider today, though, was for a 1971 Saab 95. The 95 was the wagon version of the Saab 93 and later 96 coupé, and was introduced in 1959 with Saab’s DKW-inspired 841cc inline-three-cylinder two-stroke engine, but switching in 1967 to a V4 provided by Ford of Germany.
The thing to keep in mind about the Saab 95 is that it was never a big car by any standard, yet it was capable of carrying seven people, thanks to the jump seats at the rear.
Of course, the kind of people you could stick in those jump seats are probably the young, not-fully-grown kind, as there really wasn’t that much room back there:
Sure, those little Swedes look comfortable, legs happily nestled in that lower bay that held the seat when folded, but a full-grown Swede, all tall and blonde, would likely have found this a bit cramped. Here’s another picture of the jump seat area, minus the young Swedes, from a ’71 that showed up on Bring a Trailer:
Even with that in mind, the Saab 95 represented a real packaging triumph, and Saab was wise to highlight this in its brochures with this comprehensive diagram:
Okay, so we have four main configurations: basic wagon (five seating positions, rear cargo area), cargo-hauler (two seating positions, rear seat folded flat to make long cargo platform), then people-hauler (seven seating positions, cargo area taken up by people in rear jump seats), and then the one I want to discuss in detail — the Paradox: four seating positions (two up front, two in jump seat) with a cargo area in between.
So, my fundamental question: Who the hell wants this? I mean, look at it:
Nothing about this arrangement makes any sense. The 95 was a two-door, so that green cargo area there would be really, really difficult to access; you’d have to either get out and fold the front seat forward, or get the people out of the back and fold down the jump seat, then crawl inside to the folded back seat to get whatever the hell you have in there. Nothing is convenient here!
Why, exactly, would one choose this arrangement over the normal wagon layout? That basic layout gives more room for people and cargo, and gives better access to the cargo area, too. The only advantage I can possibly think of is that in this case, all passengers have direct access to a door of some kind, but that rear hatch doesn’t have an internal release accessible from the rear area, so someone would still have to get out of the car to free whoever is in the back.
Are there any contexts where this setup makes sense? Maybe you’re the driver, and you have such overwhelming contempt for your passengers that the only way you can stomach driving them is to get them as far away from you as possible, facing the opposite way?
Maybe you need an inaccessible cargo area in the middle because you have a rabid Pitboodle mix stuck in the middle there and you can’t risk it getting free?
Really, I can’t figure this one out. I suppose it may just exist solely because it’s possible to do it, so they’re going to show it, dammit, whether it makes any sense or not. I get that.
I’m also open to your suggestions; what could this layout be ideal for? Safe transport of a Gorgon head without the risk of turning to stone? Mobile priestly confessionals? I have no idea. You tell me!
Articles on my favourite cars! You’ve got me.
When I was a kid, my two younger brothers and I rode around in the back seat of my folks’ Datsun 310GX coupe. My youngest brother always, ALWAYS got motion sick–like, on every ride–leading to having to clean up puke out of the carpet and off the fabric seat covers. This seems like a great way to (1) induce extra motion sickness in the back-seat passengers, while (2) confining the mess to an easily cleaned metal-floored bin.
I think the fact that this is a 2-door is the key to the answer. You’re on a long trip. You load up the luggage in the middle, and put all the passengers as close to the doors as possible with the rear passengers next to the tailgate. When you stop for gas and a pee, nobody’s climbing around the front seats to get out.
I have twin 4 1/2 year old boys and there are days that I long for this kind of third-row arrangement in my wife’s Sorrento.
They don’t seem to argue as much when they’re in the back of my 900, but perhaps I just can’t hear them as much over the wind noise…
Put the cooler in the middle, so the driver and rear seat passenger can both easily reach for sandwiches and soda. Or empty soda bottles, for relieving oneself (just make sure to put those in the second empty cooler next to the main cooler that has the bottles with soda in them)
100%, getting your dumb wiener kids as far away from you as possible. It’s a single step down from a separate soundproof bubble dome with optional restraints and muzzles. Your kids can go all “Lord of the Flies” in the back while you remain blissfully unaware with piles of luggage between you and whatever the hell they’re doing back there.
yup. Exactly. Young kids WANT to look out the back and make faces at the car behind.
Also kids in the 2nd row kids can play with the windows, possibly open the doors while car is moving. I don’t know about the Saab but the way ba k was a prison you ain’t getting out until the warden saysso.
Am I the only person thinking marketing in a marketing brochure? It showed another option. Look at how many options we have.
I have a 72′ 95 I daily, we call it swamp thing. It’s a fantastic car. Very practical car as long as your moving small children and shoe boxes. When the rear hatch is closed anybody sitting in the rear facing seat who is over 4 ft will be tasting tempered glass.
Also that seat is directly over the gas tank. As in it folds up and onto of the gas tank which is normally covered by the rear seat back when it is folded down.
The saab 95 and 96 all have flat belly pans so when you jack the car up there is almost nothing to fiddle with, it’s all on top. No brake lines fuel lines etc. It’s all run through the interior of the car.
Easy. The kids all the way in the back, and cargo in the middle because you can just throw shit behind the driver’s seat
Echoing what everyone else said about the kids – we actually did this in a Chrysler Town & Country we used to have with Sto-n-Go seating. We stowed the middle seats, leaving a big flat area in the middle and put the kids all the way in the back. It allowed us to put whatever we wanted them to have access to in the middle (Snacks, toys, etc) and it gave us that valuable buffer zone so we didn’t have to hear them screaming and they didn’t have to listen to our music.
Came here to say this. As kids we called it the biggity-back. You at the front seat, the back seat and the biggity back. It was a more coveted position in the car than the backseat, which was always relegated to children in normal cars
I didn’t think this was that odd? Ford Taurii wagons had this, so did my dad’s mid 80’s Volvo wagon and I THINK his 93 Caprice Classic wagon did too (That thing was awesome… LT1 that did CRAZY smokey burnouts.)