The Bench Seat

I recently read an article called "Benched, The End of an Era" about the bench seat going away as an option.  The author, Larry Jewett, said he was the owner of a 2003 Buick Century with a bench seat and that, with the arrival of the new 2014 Chevy Impala, the last automobile with the bench seat as an option is going away.

Really, there was a car offered with a bench seat in 2013?  You could actually buy a car in 2003 with a bench seat in it?  Wow, I thought the bench seat had died a long time ago.  The last vehicle I had with a bench seat was a 1989 Ford Ranger with the split-bench.  I can't remember another car  since the 1994-1996 Chevy Impala / Buick Roadmaster with a bench seat in it (Although a land yacht, I still think the 94-96 Impala SS is a cool car).

I have to admit that there's some nostalgia lost with the bench going away.  I remember going out on dates with my Mom's 1970 Maverick with the column shift and a bench seat. I also had a 1978 F150 that had a bench.  One of the many things that young adults will never experience with their cars and therefore never bond with their vehicles like my generation did. 

There's a sort of symbolism there...no more bench seat and the world gets that much farther apart.


I was in a restaurant the other day and a couple sat down in the table next to us.  The guy immediately broke out his iPad and the girl started pecking away at her iPhone.  They didn't say a word until the waitress showed up.  These weren't kids either...if I had to guess they were in their mid-thirties.

Look, I'm not a guy that has rose colored glasses when looking at the past, especially when it comes to cars.  I've owned a 1967 Firebird and a 1966 Mustang, great cars that I truely loved and miss, but current cars are more reliable, more fuel efficient, more powerful, more...well just about everything.  Cars are infinitely better than they used to be despite what the majority of old timer car junkies my age and older will tell you.

What the new cars lack is character and soul.  Two things that you can't explain to someone who isn't a car nut.  There was an emotional attachment that grew over time with those older cars.  Don't really know if it's because the cars have changed or that people have changed.  Back then, if you wanted to keep your car for an extended period of time you had to care for them...even love them.  Now, people buy a car with an extended warrantee, never open the hood except to add windshield washer fluid, and trade it in once the warrantee is done.  The guy down at Jiffy Lube is the only fingerprints on the dip stick and oil filler cap.  The brake fluid cap has likely never been touched. If you're the average person under 25, you probably don't know how to change a tire and haven't taken anything off the car that required a tool (with the possible exception of swapping out the stock radio).

I knew things had changed dramatically when my younger son told me that, in drivers ed, he was instructed to hold the wheel at 8-4 instead of 9-3 to avoid getting hurt when the air bag deploys in an accident.  Never mind that having your hands at 9-3 gave you a better shot at avoiding the accident in the first place. If you have no idea what I'm talking about...you're proving my point.  The automobile has become a rolling entertainment center and the basics of actually driving have been lost.

Of course these days the proper hand positions while driving is one on the wheel and the other holding a cell phone.