How Do You Add In Seatbelts To Vintage Cars?
While vintage cars are wonderful in many ways, safety is usually not on the list. The brakes on Plymouth Valiants can need beefing up, crumple zones don’t exist, side impact standards were decades away, and rear seat belts were an option for years! Front shoulder belts were a nuisance from their introduction in the early 1970s until 1974, when they finally reached the modern era. There is good news, though. You can, with some work and imagination, add shoulder belts to front and rear seats. The bad news is that they may not be as safe as the ones installed in modern cars – but we suspect they are better than nothing. Proceed at your own risk, we cannot be held liable for the consequences of reading further. • Mount accurately. The front belts would have to be mounted on the “B” pillar, or on the upper door frame if it was a hardtop. You would have to do some beefing up in the mounting area, especially in the case of the hardtop. • Check the “B” pillar of a model with the shoulder belts
