One of the best things about adventuring and exploring is sharing it with others. Bringing friends and family along enhances the experience and creates lasting memories. Accommodating those extra passengers can be a challenge. Think of all the times you wished you could fit a couple more people in your vehicle.
We have a great vehicle we use for adventures into the backcountry, cross country drives, running around town and venturing into the local mountains, but it has limited seating. In stock form it seats five people and is really comfortable for our family of four including two kids. But, when friends and family come into town, or when each of our kids wants to bring a friend, we need to use multiple vehicles.
Luckily we found Little Passenger Seats. A family owned company based in California that makes DOT approved third row and fold down seats for over 24 vehicles makes including Jeep, Toyota, and Land Rover. See the list here: They make their seats to be safe, comfortable and look like they came from the OEM factory.
The Little Passenger Seat provides a third row, three person seat giving us comfortable seating for eight people. Granted, three of those people need to be under 5-foot, 5-inches tall to have comfortable head clearance in the back of our 2006 Range Rover, but other vehicles may have different accommodations.
When ordering our third-row bench seat the company gathered some information about the vehicle and then sent us fabric samples for color matching. We selected a base fabric and piping colors that are a perfect match to the OEM interior. About three weeks later the seat arrived and was amazingly simple to install.
The seat uses two lower brackets that align with the factory cargo area tie down points. The initial installation took about 15 minutes and with some practice removal and reinstallation can be done in under 10 minutes. The seat can be mounted forward facing with access through the rear passenger doors or rear facing like an old station wagon rumble seat with access through the fifth door.
The Little Passenger Seat is a perfect fit and looks like it was a factory option. And yes, with more people comes more gear. There is enough space behind the new seat to store a basic emergency kit plus a personal backpack or small duffel for each occupant. For larger adventures requiring more equipment we use a Thule Sonic XL rooftop storage box or a Rola Adventure System hitch mounted cargo box.
