Land vehicles: bodies and tops – Bodies – Seats with body modifications
Patent
1986-01-07
1988-03-29
Pedder, Dennis H.
Land vehicles: bodies and tops
Bodies
Seats with body modifications
297349, 414921, B60N 104
Patent
active
047339039
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to swivellable seats for motor vehicles.
A conventional motor car has forwardly facing seats with access provided through side doors. Entry into and exit from such vehicles can be difficult, even impossible, for elderly or disabled persons.
To enable a passenger to enter or leave a vehicle with greater ease it has been proposed to provide vehicles with swivellable front seats of the type comprising a seat bearing for supporting a seat for rotation about a vertical swivel axis. When a passenger enters or leaves the vehicle the front seat is swivelled so that it faces laterally outwardly. Once the passenger is seated the seat is swivelled into its forwardly facing position and locked.
Even where a vehicle is provide with a swivelling front seat of the type referred to, however, a disabled passenger can still have some difficulty in getting into the seat when it is in its laterally outwardly facing position, particularly where the headroom in the vehicle is restricted. The present invention seeks to overcome this difficulty by providing an improved swivellable seat for a motor vehicle.
According to the invention there is provided a swivellable seat for a motor vehicle of the type referred to, characterised in that the seat bearing is itself carried by a cantilevered support having a hinge for attachment to the vehicle body to enable the seat when mounted to be moved between a stowed position inboard of the vehicle and an outwardly projecting position in which the seat is outside the vehicle body.
A passenger can get into or out of the seat when it is supported in its outwardly projecting position outside the vehicle. The seat can be swivelled into any convenient position for access by the passenger. Once the passenger is seated the seat support is moved into its stowed position and the seat swivelled on the bearing into its forwardly facing position for normal use.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention the seat bearing is carried by a cantilever arm one end of which is provided with a hinge for connection to the vehicle body, permitting rotation of the cantilever arm about a hinge axis substantially parallel to and spaced from the swivel axis, so that the seat can be swung on the arm through a door opening of the vehicle.
In some passenger cars the floor of the passenger compartment is formed by a well in the underbody of the vehicle, so that the door openings in the body have deep sills. To enable the cantilever support arm of the swivellable seat of the present invention to swing over such a sill it may be desirable in practice to arrange the cantilever arm for pivotal movement about a horizontal axis, in addition to its swinging movement about the hinge axis, so that the arm can be lifted sufficiently to pass over the sill of the associated door opening. For example, the hinge may be connected to the vehicle body through a pivot connection having a pivot axis perpendicular to the hinge axis, actuator means being provided for rotating the hinge, and therefore the cantilever arm, about the said pivot axis so as to raise and lower the seat bearing selectively.
It addition, the cantilever arm may be cranked vertically to allow the seat to occupy a horizontal position of a floor well of the vehicle when the seat is lowered.
The swivellable seat according to the invention would normally be provided with releasable locking means for locking the seat in its inboard forwardly facing position, for normal use of the vehicle. Where the seat bearing is carried by a cantilever arm the locking means for the seat may include interengagable locking elements provided on the floor of the vehicle and on the seat, these elements interengaging when the arm has been swung inwardly into its stowed position.
The seat bearing employed in the present invention may take a number of different forms. In a preferred embodiment the seat bearing comprises a bearing plate or ring carried by the support and concentric with the swivel axis, and a swivel plate attachable to the seat and resting upon the bearing pla
REFERENCES:
patent: 2266200 (1941-12-01), Hedley
patent: 2864431 (1958-12-01), Eaton
patent: 3191400 (1965-06-01), Swenson
patent: 3236556 (1966-02-01), Lathers
patent: 3593954 (1971-07-01), Ritchie et al.
patent: 4133437 (1979-01-01), Gates
patent: 4155587 (1979-05-01), Mitchell
patent: 4170368 (1979-10-01), Southward et al.
patent: 4306634 (1981-12-01), Sangster
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