THE PORTAL HUB - Pinzgauers, Haflingers, Volvo 303s and more!

I thought I would pass on a minor customization I performed to my Pinz. While I sometimes have full-sized adults riding in the back of my 710M, more often it is filled with my young kids and their friends. There are times when I wish I had a little more seating room to accommodate more passengers, such as when we are driving around slowly looking at Christmas lights in the neighborhood. My solution: Add some removable seat cushions to the sides of the standard seating cushions. Along the front and back of each standard row of seats is a small area that is not cushioned.

Attached is a pic showing the left rear cushion I added in the area in between the original cushion and the back of the vehicle. I did the same thing at the front. By adding another seatbelt on each side and adjusting the spacing, I can increase the seating to 10 kids in the rear.

To do this, I made some plywood seat bases that matched the thickness of the adjacent metal seat bases and cut them slightly smaller than the unupholstered area. I got some foam that was similar in thickness and some fabric that was similar in color to the adjacent seat cushions. Then I used a sewing machine to sew up the 4 sides of the fabric, turned it inside out, inserted the foam and stapled this onto the plywood bases.

It actually matches better than these photos indicate. It gives more "butt room" to my passengers, no matter how many or what age.

Smart!
I tried to use this space with a "fat fifty" ammo box on each side, held by a strap, as I found out that these particular boxes seem to be designed to fit there and can house one pair of snowchains each (Konig Polar).
This has the advantage of putting the heavy chains out of the way and over the rear axle. The main drawback is that with the weight of the chains, despite the strap they tend to jump quite a bit over bumps...