TrueDelta Reviews the Seat Room and Comfort of the 2021 Land Rover Defender
2021 Land Rover Defender Seat Room and Comfort: Cons
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As a two-row vehicle, the Defender provides plenty of room. But if you want to use the third-row seat (optional on the four-door), the second row folks will need to slide forward a few inches, such that both rear rows end up with marginal legroom.
This shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Ignore the 197.6-inch length on the spec sheet, as ten of these inches are taken up by the external spare. Without the spare, the Land Rover 110 is merely 187.4 inches long--insufficient for three spacious rows. Even with transverse powertrains, three-row crossovers tend to be as lengthy as the Defender with the spare included.
One good way to maximize space in a relatively stubby vehicle is to mount the seats high so legs angle downward rather than forward, and the Defender's second-row seat is comfortably high off the floor. The third-row seat is not. There is plenty of headroom back there, so space constraints didn't force a low seat. There must have been another reason, such as the amount of space available for the folding mechanism. You might think that the third-row seat is intended for only occasional use, but Land Rover has given it seat heaters and its own HVAC fan control.
All of this said, even a tight third row is better than none at all if you need to carry seven people. And none at all is what you can get in the Wrangler, Bronco, or G-Wagen.
If you only occasionally need to carry a sixth person, the Defender alone offers the option of a front center jump seat in place of the console. What's more, this option is offered in the shorter wheelbase two-door Defender as well as in the four-door.
see full Land Rover Defender review
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TrueDelta Reviews the Seat Room and Comfort of the 2020 Toyota Corolla Hatchback
2020 Toyota Corolla Hatchback Seat Room and Comfort: Cons
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The Scion iM / Toyota Corolla iM was engineered primarily for the European market on a totally different platform than the Toyota Corolla sedan. The 2019 Corolla Hatchback shares a new platform with the 2020 Corolla sedan (and with the new Camry and Avalon as well). But it's still a smaller car than the Corolla sedan, with a wheelbase shorter by 2.4 inches. This somehow translates to a foot less rear legroom on the spec sheets, a tremendous difference. Toyota seems to cheat the sedan's legroom specs by a couple of inches--but ten inches is still a huge difference.
Is the actual difference this large? I doubt it. The official spec for the Corolla Hatchback, 29.9 inches, is TIGHT, about a half-foot short of what the average adult male needs. There's more space back there than this spec suggests--but not a lot more. At 5-9, I could sit behind myself, but with only a couple of inches between my knees and the front seat. Put someone taller in either row and, well...
Aside from the lack of space, the Corolla Hatchback's rear seat cushion is higher offer the floor than the Civic's and provides decent thigh support.
On paper, the new Mazda3 offers about five inches more rear legroom than the Toyota. The actual difference is closer to two inches, maybe three. Not huge, but even two inches often could make the difference between people fitting comfortable and not.
Starting once again with the spec sheets, the Honda Civic offers an inch more rear legroom than the Mazda. The actual difference seems larger. Another clear win for the Honda, especially compared to the Toyota.
Focus on perceived roominess, and this Honda win becomes a rout. Although all of the cars are about equally wide, the Civic has a much wider cabin, especially up front. While the other two cars definitely feel like compacts from the driver seat, the Civic feels nearly as spacious as a midsize car. Here the spec sheet doesn't mislead: Honda claims three more inches of front shoulder room than Toyota does.
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