Since their inception, almost all American cars were equipped with
bench seats, like those in carriages, which permitted multi-passenger seating. As European cars became more accessible to Americans following World War II, bucket seats became associated with sports performance and luxury. Bucket seats then spread to American manufacturers, beginning as "sporty trim packages" in the late 1950s and later appearing as a standard feature. The popularity of front bucket seats began with sporty compact cars, pioneered by General Motors in 1960, with production of the
Chevrolet Corvair 900 series Monza Club Coupe with standard front bucket seats. By 1962, more than one million U.S. built cars were factory equipped with bucket seats; often, these were fitted with a
center console containing a
gear shifter and other features such as
ashtrays, a
cigarette lighter, storage compartments, and
power window controls between the seats. Large luxurious front bucket seats (and contoured "bucket-style" rears) made their debut in American
personal luxury cars with the debut of the 1963
Buick Riviera in late 1962 as a 1963 model. In 1964, Ford introduced the Mustang "pony car", following the success of the sporty Corvair Monza further popularized the idea of standard front bucket seats – although a front bench seat was an available option. With the introduction of subcompact automobiles in the U.S. in the early 1970s, such as the
Chevrolet Vega and
Ford Pinto, bucket seats were used for the same reasons they had originally appeared: lack of seating room and floor-mounted levers for the gear shifter and parking brake. While bucket seats continued to gain popularity among compact and sporty cars, the bench seat remained the preferred front seating arrangement in larger cars and trucks until the late 1990s. Increasingly, mid- and full-size domestic cars, as well as trucks, offered front bucket seating options for customers who wanted a sporty image or more personalized car. In the following decades this trend spread, with the last sedan to come with a standard front bench seat being the 2011
Lincoln Town Car, and the last to offer it as an option the 2013
Chevrolet Impala.
SUVs spread widely during this time, universally with bucket seats in front. As of 2015, only some
pickup trucks and SUVs retained the front bench seat. == Rear seating ==