Autos With Older Drivers In Mind

Power, sex, youth and virility all have been used as marketing tools to sell cars.

But it is not just young drivers who get behind the wheel. As older, more affluent Americans make up a growing market, car makers are turning their attention to the senior driver.

The Society for Automotive Engineers Trade Show in Detroit showed off a prototype for a car designed for an older driver, reports CBS This Morning co-anchor Russ Mitchell.

The Lear Corporation, a supplier of automotive interiors, has outfitted a minivan with equipment to make the road trip smoother for those with mobility problems.

Jim Masters of the Lear Corporation explains: "We took a look at the baby boomer population and how they're moving into their senior years and (integrated) those types of enablers that type of aging process is going to need."

Masters says some changes include the front seats, which swivel 45 degrees to help you move in and out of the car.

For seatbelts, the car has "a four-point restraint that buckles in the middle. You can easily undo it with a couple fingers," says Masters.

Masters adds, there is an outside storage system on the vehicle - a space accessible at the rear fender that opens with the touch of a finger. There is also an integrated shopping cart in the rear storage compartment as well. Masters says, "It's a collapsible shopping cart that pulls out and unfolds its legs by itself."

So, says Masters, you won't have to load and unload the shopping cart.

Masters says although this is intended to be a concept vehicle to show what could be done, some of the features are close to being available today.

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