| Chapter
6, Mile Post #7 : “Step in, set down and have a
good time” (Click here to read Chapter 5.)
Start Date 10-28-08
The
selection of seating positions, seats, elbow room, butt
room and style is always controversial. It was decided
early on that this car was to be “fun” and
“comfortable” to drive. This required us
to spend many an evening looking at the drawings and
reams of sketches try to solve this question of “How
wide should the body and cockpit be?” Martin (our
English Designer) having experience of three wheelers
in the “old country” wanted the cockpit
to be snug with a race car like seating position and
seat width. Carl (our slightly over weight sales department
guy) wanted much more room and freedom to spread out.
Could we achieve both?
Martin at
first selected a pair of seats which were designed for
video game playing. These were comfortable but narrow,
17” edge to edge at the bottom cushion. Carl opted
for seats which are size #38 which are 21.5” edge
to edge. Both sets of seats were purchased and then
began the chore of making the cockpit size decision.
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Martin’s
17” seat on the left and Carl’s 21.5”
seat on the right, what do you think?
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| With the 17”
seats in place the outside dimension of the chassis rails
was 42”. Snug, as Martin wanted and slim looking.
With the 21.5” seats the dimension was 48”.
A much wider and some-what tubby looking cockpit was the
result. All the points of view were “discussed”.
Carl was in favor allowing lots of room for the long distance
touring driver and maximum space allowed for the passenger.
Martin was more interested the “sporting”
feel for the driver and let the passenger compartment
be a tight squeeze. By the way Martin is only 5’6”
tall so he comes from a certain point of view that may
not be held by most American drivers.
In the end a compromise was reached with the chassis
rails at 46” wide at the widest point (outside).
This resulted in a outside dimension of 49” at
the top rail of the cockpit (elbow level). Glen the
fabricator guy was told to go ahead and install the
21.5” seats and be sure to give full 7”
seat adjustment four and aft.
When
the installation was complete we realized that we had
gobs of leg room and driver, passenger shoulders would
not collide. A few modifications had to be made to the
side rails to allow the seats to run the full travel
on the seat rails. Once this was done a “volunteer”
driver was put into the drivers seat and we checked
that a drivers elbow could be inside the car with comfort
and space.
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Plenty of room for adjustment with this 5’10”
driver.
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Good
up-right driving position with plenty of arm room.
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Strong
1-1/2” square tube rail supports were installed
and we all stood back and saw that it was good. Except,
Martin who still thought that the car was too wide,
and that the 21.5” seats were “ugly”,
a position held by about half of the “Club of
Finger Pointing Designers”. Carl on the other
hand still thinks the cockpit is too narrow by about
2” and will work behind Martins back to get his
way in final seat selection. He was last seen rubbing
his hand together and mumbling something about “revenge”.
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Once
everyone sat in the car they all said “not bad”,
another simple Oregon comment.
Check out the serious look. Smile a little bit “volunteer”!
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More
will be discussed in later chapters about seating and
comfort. In the next chapter we can move along to the
upper cockpit rail and the importance of its location.
- Carl L. Myers
Click here to read Chapter 7.
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