Continental style coach seats for UK
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A BRAND new design of coach seat announced today is the first product of a UK company specifically et up for the purpose of marketing psv seating. The company is Diplomat Technic° Ltd, of Lutterworth, Leicestershire, and its managing director is Mr A. D. Raven, former technical director of Willowbrook Ltd.
Mr Raven says that he has aimed at producing a Continental style of seat but at a price and weight more in keeping with the British market. The seats themselves — available as both fully reclining and fixed — are built to a module con struction method. The seats have folding armrests and use Pirelli suspension webbing to support both the cushion and the squab. This is mounted on an all-steel welded frame designed to give maximum energy absorption in case in impact.
Both cushion and squab covers are replaceable and extra covers can be supplied with a new coach. There is no metalwork visible, which is said to make cleaning easier and to improve the appearance.
Much effort has been spent on designing the reclining mechanism. This is Controlled by an easy-tooperate lever mounted on the right-hand side of the seat. This allows the back of the seat to recline to several different positions.
Dimensions of a double set of seats are: height, 1,042mm (3ft 7in); width, 977mm (3 ft 21/2 in); length, 665 mm (2ft 21/4 in); length fully reclined, 789 mm (2ft 9 in); weight complete, 26 kg (571/2 lb).
The seat frames are being made by Intalok Ltd, of Nuneaton, Warwickshire, one of the country's leading car seat manufacturers. That company's facilities have been used for exhaustive studies of the frame design and also of a complete frame unit. Endurance testing of the reclining mechanism has been completed. The seats are designed to have a 500,000-mile life.
The first set of seats will be fitted to a Willowbrook coach for export but all the major coach builde rs are said to have expressed interest in the seats which are claimed to be competitively priced. It is expected that at least one set will be on show at Earls Court in September.