That sounds reassuring. The wagon we have been looking at is a 123, but I have also seen one or two 124s advertised that don't have the third seat, so we have been thinking if we can't find one maybe we could add the seat to whatever car we buy. I have an aftermarket seat in my landrover that gives us seatbelts for 8, but it is a bit of a pain when you want the cargo space - you have to fool around taking it in and out, so I was hoping with the Mercedes that we could install one that would be just like factory. Dave would you say yours is ? i.e. when you fold it down it's basically gone and you have the normal back cargo area of the wagon? We would be using the third seat pretty much all the time so we'd like it to be as beautifully engineered as the original! Thanks for the info - now the challenge will be finding a seat and a car?!!