I know this thread is old, but i just now got the time to come visit.
I used a Peg Perego rear facing car seat till my son was about 6 months old.. it consisted of two parts, a "base" unit, and the "seat". The base you belted in, and it stayed permanent at all times. The actual seat the baby sat in, you could remove by the pull of a lever.. this was a very nice feature because you could remove the car seat out of the car with baby in it, while leaving the base in there, and then use the car seat in the matching stroller.
Once my son started getting bigger though, it started becoming real tight and looked uncomfortable to me, even though it was made to work till he was one year. Plus i dont think the Peg Perego car seats "breath" real well, b/c he would get hot in it, and sweat. I didnt research car seats real well before i bought this brand. There are other car seats though that use the same base unit feature.
So after doing some research I decided to buy the Triumph 5 comfort touch convertible carseat by Even flo. It is used rear facing right now in my 94 svx, and my son is 1 year tomorrow. I plan on keeping it rear facing for a little longer, b/c it is suggested to keep them rear facing as long as possible b/c it is safer.
This car seat is called a "convertible" because it can be used two ways, rear facing, and forward facing. Other car seats are rear facing only, or forward facing only. They dont do both.
Baby center is an excellant website to look at all the many car seats, because they show all the features of each, and also customers rate the car seat on how well they like it. Its good to see the top 10 best rated car seats(5 stars), and also its good to see any that have bad ratings, because its likely that whatever that customer does not like, you probably wont like either down the road if you were to have bought that car seat.
http://store.babycenter.com/category...rtOrder=rating
that website is great for looking at anything your interested in for your baby! I dont buy from them, i buy locally though.