Bench seats suck if you want to go around a corner at more than 1mph. As much fun as they are with a potential date on the other side, most of the time you didn’t have that and you either slid across the empty seat or had someone of the same sex slamming into you if you went around a corner even vaguely spiritedly, or took a curvy road for driving enjoyment.
Front bench seats suck.
I've never owned a car with bench seats but a seat belt, which could be installed for $5 by Chevron stations (about 1963), must have improved things, right?
Back then we took corners at 0.5 MPH.