seatbelts in classic cars

[bopper59]

i have a '61 ford consul which i am restoring, it has no seatbelts fitted because of the year of the car, will i be able to fit a rear seatbelt for my son but not fit front ones or will they have to be fitted all round?

[bednobs]

hi, sorry i don't know the answer, but i just wanted to ask, where is the logic in wanting your son to survive a crash, but not his parent?

[hc4361]

Older cars that do not have seatbelts:

* Do not need to have them fitted and worn, but cannot be used for carrying children

However if seatbelts are fitted in older cars they must be worn

http://www.lawontheweb.co.uk/seatbelts.htm

[Andyvon]

This is a frequent bone of contention for classic car restorers. If you are presumably restoring a car to it's original condition then don't ruin it with modern fittings. If you are worried about your children then just buy a modern car but don't mess about with an old one.

[Littlejohn]

The main issue regarding fitting seat belts to this model is the fact that Ford did not engineer seat belt mounting points into the Classic. Properly designed seat belt mountings where they exist are part of the structural engineering of the car. Any attempt to try to "engineer" mounting points into a body shell that was not designed to take them cannot be guaranteed to be structually sound, so there would always be the danger that such mounting points could fail under the very stress that would be experienced by the vehicle in an accident, it's a bit late then to find out that the mountings were inadiquate! Best to follow Andyvon's advice and use a modern car for the family transport.