Bostrom

Bostrom Seating was founded in Wisconsin in the 1930s, dating itself from 1935, and earned its reputation in the American truck industry with innovations such as the torsion suspension and the hydraulic suspension seat. A British company, Bostrom Manufacturing Co. Ltd, was set up at the Weedon Road Industrial Estate, Northampton, and by the 1960s both parent and subsidiary belonged to the Universal Oil Products group: in August 1968 UOP Bostrom Manufacturing Co. Ltd of Northampton introduced the Bostrom Air Viking air-suspension driver's seat to Britain at the Commercial Motor Show, a low-pressure rolling-lobe air spring with a 4 in ride zone and, like other Bostrom seats, a double-acting shock absorber. The founding date of the Northampton company has not been established.

Land Rover's approved-equipment booklet (Pub. 658/E) listed the Bostrom suspension seat, an individually contoured seat with built-in suspension of springs and a hydraulic shock absorber for rough-country comfort, with matching covers for the standard Land-Rover seats, made by Bostrom Mfg. Co. Limited, Weedon Road Industrial Estate, Northampton.

UOP sold its seating interests in 1985 to Bostrom Acquisition Corporation, which became Bostrom Seating Corporation; that business relocated to Piedmont, Alabama, pioneered wide-cushion truck seats and is now part of Commercial Vehicle Group. In Northampton the name lived on in Bostrom Vehicle Components Limited (registered at Stone Circle Road, Round Spinney, Northampton, dissolved 17 August 2010) and Bostrom Limited (dissolved 8 July 2014), both non-trading by the end.