9 cars sold with a rear-facing third-row seat

Long before third-row SUVs became the family-hauler default, a run of American and European station wagons squeezed in extra seating by facing it backward into the cargo area. Automakers offered these rear-facing perches as options or standard equipment through the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s, turning five-seat wagons into seven- or eight-passenger people movers. Here are nine cars that sold with a rear-facing third-row seat.

1. Chevrolet Caprice Estate: Eight Seats, One Fewer Cargo Foot

Chevrolet’s full-size wagon abandoned its complicated clamshell tailgate for the 1977 redesign, and the three-seat Caprice Estate lineup kept a rear-facing bench tucked behind the second row. Two extra passengers rode facing the road they had just covered, pushing total capacity to eight in a car most families bought to move people, not just cargo.

The seat folded flat when not needed, restoring the load floor for the plywood, lumber and camping gear that full-size wagons were built to haul. Buyers who wanted the extra capacity paid a real space penalty every time the third row stayed up, since the fold-down bench ate into the wagon’s signature cargo depth.

2. Buick Roadmaster Estate: Extra Seats Beneath The Glass Roof

Buick’s flagship wagon shared its B-body platform with Chevrolet and Oldsmobile siblings, and all three offered a factory rear-facing third-row seat as an option through the run. Riding beneath the glass Vista Roof panels that lit the cargo bay, the extra bench let a Roadmaster carry eight passengers on one tank of gas, backward kids included, when a family outgrew a sedan.

Buyers paid extra for the privilege and gave up a chunk of flat load floor whenever the seat was in use, the same trade-off every rear-facing wagon seat demanded. Buick marketed the feature as family-friendly flexibility, but most owners folded the bench down and used the Roadmaster’s cavernous hold for luggage, dogs and hardware-store runs instead.

3. Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser: A Backward Bench Under The Skylights

Oldsmobile’s raised-roof wagon put its rear-facing third-row seat directly beneath the row of tinted skylight glass that gave the Vista Cruiser its name, so kids riding backward got a better view of the sky than the road. The option turned Oldsmobile’s mid-size wagon into a genuine three-row people mover at a time when minivans did not yet exist.

Parents facing tight rear-seat legroom in a two-row wagon paid extra for the raised roofline and the fold-up bench, accepting a firm, low-cushioned perch in exchange for two more seatbelts. The layout disappeared when GM downsized its wagons later in the decade, folding the raised-roof trick into history along with the third seat itself.

4. Mercury Sable wagon: A Wagon With A Picnic Table

Mercury’s version of the Ford Taurus wagon offered a rear-facing third-row seat that folded up out of the cargo floor, adding two more belts for a car that already carried five in comfort. A locking under-floor bin kept valuables out of sight when the seat stayed folded, doubling as a dry storage well on rainy trips.

A fold-out picnic table hidden in the cargo area let the Sable double as a tailgating setup, a feature few rivals bothered to copy. With the third row and table both stowed, the wagon reverted to a flat, carpeted hold that made it as useful for home-improvement runs as it was for road trips with the whole family in seven or eight seats.

5. Mercedes-Benz W124 estate: Five Seats Or Seven, By Order

Mercedes-Benz sold its W124 estate, badged internally as the S124, with a factory choice of a standard five-seat cabin or a seven-seat layout that added a rear-facing bench in the cargo area. Engineers built the extra seat to fold flush with the luggage floor, so the car reverted to a full-width flat load bay the moment the bench went down.

Buyers who chose the third row gave up some of the estate’s famous cargo depth and paid a premium for two seats used mostly on family trips or airport runs. Mercedes engineered the hinge and latch mechanisms to Teutonic tolerances, so the fold-flat bench remained smooth and rattle-free long after cheaper American third-row wagon seats had worked loose.

6. Pontiac Safari: Standard Equipment, Facing The Rear Window

Pontiac listed a rear-facing third-row seat trimmed in Hartford vinyl as part of the Safari’s standard equipment list, not a pricey option buyers had to seek out. Two children rode facing straight out the tailgate glass, watching the road disappear behind the family wagon on long highway trips.

Making the seat standard rather than optional reflected how central big families were to Pontiac’s wagon buyers in that era, when three kids in the back seat alone was common. The rear-facing bench folded away to restore full cargo space for camping gear and lumber, the same trade-off every wagon in this class demanded of its owners.

7. Ford Taurus wagon: Seven Seats In A New Shape

Ford’s aerodynamic, jellybean-shaped first-generation Taurus wagon broke from boxy 1980s wagon styling while still offering the era’s expected rear-facing third-row bench, an option that folded up out of a recessed cargo floor. The seat pushed capacity to seven, letting a mid-size family sedan-turned-wagon compete directly with bigger, boxier haulers on passenger count.

The rounded bodywork meant less outright cargo volume than the wagons it replaced in showrooms, so the extra seat came at a real space cost when folded up. Ford discontinued the rear-facing bench as the Taurus wagon evolved through later generations, a quiet acknowledgment that minivans and SUVs had taken over the job of hauling extra kids.

8. Volvo 240 wagon: A Jump Seat With Real Seatbelts

Volvo built its reputation on safety, so the rear-facing jump seat it offered in the 240 wagon’s cargo bay came with genuine three-point seatbelts rather than the lap belts common on rival third-row seats of the era. The option turned the boxy 240 into a seven-passenger family hauler without sacrificing the brand’s safety-first reputation.

Owners folded the jump seat away to reveal Volvo’s famously square, flat cargo floor, prized by buyers who hauled bicycles, dogs and IKEA flat-packs in equal measure. The 240’s boxy shape maximized interior volume compared with more rounded rivals, which is part of why the wagon remained in production for close to two decades with only modest styling changes.

9. Ford Country Squire: Ford’s Flagship Wagon For Four Decades

The Country Squire carried Ford’s flagship-wagon badge for its entire 1950-to-1991 run, according to The Henry Ford’s collection records, wearing simulated wood paneling and, like its full-size Ford and Mercury siblings, a rear-facing third-row bench for buyers who needed more than a five-seat interior. Four decades of production made it the longest-running nameplate in the segment.

The wagon shrank along with Ford’s full-size lineup for the 1979 model year, trading bulk for better fuel economy without losing its woodgrain trim or the extra seating that defined the nameplate. By the time production ended in 1991, the Country Squire had outlasted nearly every rival full-size wagon on this list, as station-wagon sales collapsed around it.