Dart Wagon 3rd Row Seat?

Alaskan_TA said
Time to upgrade to a C-Body wagon Mr. Brady.

Haha, I know right. Our currently "family" car is a Lincoln Navigator, but we are already planning our move to a full size van eventually. Like I said, the Dart is an inheritance. It was my grandmother's car and I believe was bought new, though I haven't asked my uncle about all the details. I just know when she passed my dad was the only one of the siblings that had a big desire for the car and now that he has passed it goes to me. He never had time to get anything done with it so I am excited to start a small restoration on it with my oldest son (10).

brummett said
3rd row seat was an option on 60-62 Lancer and Valiant wagons. I haven't actually seen pictures of the setup, so I don't know how everything was arranged. Maybe someone can post pictures.

On '63-'66s, the gas tank and spare tire are going to be in the way. Other wagons of the era put the gas tank up against the rear fender, but then it's more exposed to rupturing in a crash. The '85 Caprice 9-passenger wagon we had when I was younger had the spare tire up against the rear fender hidden under the interior trim. To duplicate that, you'd need to fabricate some kind of well for it to sit in in the dead area inside the rear fender, some way to secure it, and some way to get it in and out.

I figured there would be a good amount of fabrication/customization necessary to the rear floor pan as well as getting some sort of support welded underneath from the frame. I hadn't thought about the gas tank at all which would probably be the larger hurdle as far as determining a safe relocation. As far as a spare goes I was actually figuring that if I did this I would either ditch it completely or toss it into a basket on the roof. I will definitely look into how the seat was done in the earlier lancer wagons because that might be the nearest equivalent to what I want. If it turns out to be unrealistic for me then I'll just have to spend that time/money on some extra gofast instead. :burnout: I just thought it might be a cool way to make this project more custom and suited to my family. At least my oldest 2 are just about out of the booster stage which means once I add some good restraints everywhere I can still haul 5 kids in the wagon.