Hoorah for the Land Crab. That was a great wagon and we had one when the nippers were tiny.

I too did the bolting of the seats ... quite a lot of people at that time just used to cart their small people round on their laps ...

It's an interesting point though. The old-style rear facing seats as used by Volvo and the very early Saabs were probably pretty good in the case of normal front-end collisions and even in side collisions. They may well not have been particularly popular as it's difficult for the people in the front to check what is going on right down the back, particularly with regard to seat-belts, general misbehaviour and car sickness.

The rear facing seats may well have been problematic for rear-end shunts both from the point of view of leg injuries and actually getting people out if the tail gate got distorted.

The current "people carrier" third row may be better on a number of counts, but is probably slightly worse in the case of a front-end shunt, particularly if the little blighters undo their seat-belts to play about. And if all the seats are occupied there is very little luggage space left.

Were those the Camrys with double rear wipers??

An answer to the origninal question: My family had a couple of Volvo 240 estates over the years. My parents bought them second-hand as 5 seaters but Volvo would install the 7-seat kit, which folded into the existing underfloor compartment. This retro-fit option was one advantage over cars like the Renault Savanna/ Citroen CX/ Pug 504/5 where you had to search out an existing 7 seat model. I'm afraid I was too young to realise the implications on insurance etc! I'm not sure if Volvo still do it, probably not.

I guess safety was compromised compared to todays models but this was a good few years back and at least Volvo provided seatbelts for everyone, which at the time, not all manufacturers did. On big holiday trips we also had the added "protection" of at least 3 bikes on a rack at the back! Those cars herocially lugged us round - they were proper rigs!