Nissan and suppliers provide special seats for Sunderland's adopted submarine HMS Anson

The car giant has teamed up with Tier 1 suppliers Lear and Adient to produce seats for HMS Anson.

Nissan provided Zero Gravity Seats which will be used for by the Submarine Commander and Senior Engineer.

The specially designed seats use ergonomic technology to alleviate fatigue and pursue the ideal posture, using the NASA-measured “neutral posture”, to make long journeys more pleasant.

‘Extremely proud’

Nissan Production Control Director Keith Chambers said staff at the plant were ‘extremely proud’ to have been asked to help: “It’s fantastic to team up with Sunderland City Council and two of our long-term local suppliers to add a flavour of our region’s automotive manufacturing excellence to the development of this state-of-the-art submarine.”

Adient produces 100,000 seat sets every year from its plant on Wearside. Vice President Customer Group Mick Flanagan said: “It’s a privilege to be able to gift seats for this remarkable submarine.

“At Adient we pride ourselves on being at the forefront of industry trends and technologies and the technology in this vessel is truly cutting edge.”

Gideon Jewel, Lear President Seating Europe, Africa and Middle East, added: “Lear always aim to offer support to the communities in which we do business. Lear Sunderland is a high performing operation with a strong and diverse team supporting Nissan.

“We are delighted to have had the chance to provide seating for a submarine of this calibre that like Lear has a strong affiliation with the city.”

‘We are very proud of our affiliation’

HMS Anson’s nuclear reactor does not need to be refuelled during her 25-year service period and the ability to purify water and air means its range is limited only by the amount of food onboard, making it capable of circumnavigating the globe without resurfacing.

The project has been supported by the business investment team at Sunderland City Council, which helped bring the group together.

Council leader Coun Graeme Miller said: “As a city that built ships for the world and now builds cars on a global scale, it’s great to see Sunderland’s past and present specialities combine on this amazing piece of engineering. We are very proud of our affiliation with this state of the art submarine.”