Automotive rear seat and seat assemblies play an important role in automobile design and functionality and an ever-increasing role in customer satisfaction. One desired feature is that the seating be adjustable. Adjustability has been limited by the style of vehicle and the available rear seating clearance between the cargo area and forward seating area.
One type of rear seat is a slouch rear seat that moves between a design position and a forward position. Such seat designs are typically used in premium cars where cabin space is designed to allow for linear travel. Slouch seats are a type of seat typically used in the second row in a premium application. Such seats provide a passenger with the ability to sit in an upright position or in a semi-reclined position Therefore, any given slouch rear seat must be carefully designed to accommodate the spatial requirement of a given automobile design. In some prior art designs, the slouch seat includes a moving back frame and a fixed back frame. Relative movement between these two frames occurs during positioning of the slouch seat from the upright and semi-reclined position. In other designs, slouch seats are mounted on rails positioned on the passenger compartment floor. This designs work reasonably well except when the vehicle floor is not flat.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved slouch rear seat designs that are adaptable to vehicle compartments with a non-flat passenger cabin floor.