For safety - original bench or switch to bucket?

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Hilderbrand1983

Hilderbrand1983

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1967 Dodge Dart 270. Doing a total restoration with safety upgrades. We're a LOOONG way off from reinstalling the seats, but I'm trying to plan ahead.

Safety is, first and foremost, my concern with any upgrades. I'd like to make this car my daily driver if it's safe enough. Is the original front bench seat sufficiently safe, or should I switch to bucket seats?

I'm a Catholic priest and, in a previous assignment, I took Holy Communion to a guy's house once a week. He was in his mid-40s (this was about 10 years ago). He was permanently crippled from the neck down because of a fender-bender. Someone tagged the rear end of his car at ~10mph. His car had a front bench seat. It may have been a freak occurrence, but the impact at that speed was sufficient to snap his neck.

If it is safer to switch to front bucket seats with headrests - and I suspect it is - I want to do that. I wanted your input before making that a part of the plan.
 
Good morning Father, bucket seats with headrests are probably your safest option. I would also recommend upgrading the seat belts with a later model version with shoulder straps. 65'
 
If you have a four door, then at least the seat backs are fixed. (On the '67 and early 2 door cars , the seatbacks fold forward and have no latch)
Headrest is definately a good safety feature. You can't go wrong there. While everyone has a different sense of what is "sufficiently safe" if you feel safer driving yourself and any passenger with a headrest, then go ahead and do that. One option is aftermarket bucket seats such Flowfit, Reccaros and so forth. Another is to use a bench seat from a car that came with headrests. Headrests were an option in '67 (rare on US models) and more common starting in '68.
Oddly enough, headrests were not mandatory in trucks and multipurpose vehicles until 1985!

A shoulder belt is another option. I've seen no evidence for '67s having a provision to mount them to the roofline, so thats a little more care is needed to locate and reinforce the mounting. There is at least one company that offers three point belts for retrofitting into older cars.
 
Plymouth 65 said:
bucket seats with headrests are probably your safest option. I would also recommend upgrading the seat belts with a later model version with shoulder straps. 65'
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Mattax said:
(On the '67 and early 2 door cars , the seatbacks fold forward and have no latch)
Headrest is definately a good safety feature. You can't go wrong there.

A shoulde belt is another option.
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Hilderbrand1983 has brought up a good point about the safety aspects of headrests versus no headrests as has Plym65 concerning shoulder belts and Mattax about latches on 67-earlier buckets. Bringing up these concerns has got he thinking about my own 65 Dart 2 door sedan delivery project. I will bring up these points and possible solutions applicable to my project on my resto thread. Thanks to all for bringing these points up.
 
Personal preference for me is buckets, being 6 foot 7 inches tall makes it unpleasant on a bench seat with a driver who is far shorter, (wife is 5 foot 6 inches), plus there are many options with buckets. If you source the seats from a 97 to 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible for example, the shoulder belt is built in to the seat frame.
 
I would think you could work out a practical shoulder belt anchor on a 4-door, somewhere on the B pillar. It might help if you looked at a 70s-era A-body sedan to see how they were attached. It is probably detailed in the factory service manual for any year 1970-76.

I totally understand your thought process because I just finished a restoration of a 1966 MGB roadster. It had non-locking low-back bucket seats and lap belts. I installed locking seats with headrests from a later model, and shoulder belts, because I intend to put a lot of miles on the car. On the other hand, I don't see any practical way to do this on my Barracuda convertible, other than swapping in modern seats with built-in shoulder belts, which I am loathe to do to a very original car.
 
Put in some modern custom Buckets- search Pro-car seats. Many different options
 
A new car in 1967 had more safety features than a new car sold in 1960 (or any other year before 1966). However a new car in 1980 had more safety features than that new car sold in 1967.

If safety is your main priority I would consider not driving around in a 1967 car (relative to any newer car). Bumper design, crumple zones, seat belts, collapsing steering column, etc all factor into how safe a car is.

The odds of not being injured or seriously injured are a lot higher the moment you decide to drive off in an older car relative to a new car. We never plan on getting into accidents but I think it will be hard to quantify how much safer bucket seats are compared to bench seats. Having a head rests on either helps but the lack of crumpled zones, bumpers with shock absorbers, etc all play a role too. Safety advanced a lot from the late sixties to the mid 1990’s. Heck the government mandated head rests on all cars built after Jan 1, 1968.
 
Get a new 2019 model year car..... that is the best peace of mind.

Old cars are dangerous, there is no way around it.

I daily drive a 68 dart that is totally stock, I sometimes think about how not safe it would be in a bad accident but I still drive it because i believe the odds are very slim.

If you are that worried, get a new car. Once you start modifying the old car with new equipment that was never made for it, you are taking away from what it is and try to make it into something it will never be.
 
I don't think there is a safety difference between bucket and bench. Like everybody else said, its the additional safety features such as headrests and shoulder belts that make the seat safer. You might consider swapping in a later bench, say from '73-'76. That would maintain the original look (its a seat designed to fit that body) while giving you some added safety.
 
Rani. That's a bit presumptous. Just because the OP asked doesn't make it an either or situation for him.
 
mvh said:
I would think you could work out a practical shoulder belt anchor on a 4-door, somewhere on the B pillar. It might help if you looked at a 70s-era A-body sedan to see how they were attached. It is probably detailed in the factory service manual for any year 1970-76.

I totally understand your thought process because I just finished a restoration of a 1966 MGB roadster. It had non-locking low-back bucket seats and lap belts. I installed locking seats with headrests from a later model, and shoulder belts, because I intend to put a lot of miles on the car. On the other hand, I don't see any practical way to do this on my Barracuda convertible, other than swapping in modern seats with built-in shoulder belts, which I am loathe to do to a very original car.
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Survival not likely in a 66 MGB. I figure I’ll die in the fire if rearended.
 
mvh said:
I totally understand your thought process because I just finished a restoration of a 1966 MGB roadster. It had non-locking low-back bucket seats and lap belts. I installed locking seats with headrests from a later model, and shoulder belts, because I intend to put a lot of miles on the car. On the other hand, I don't see any practical way to do this on my Barracuda convertible, other than swapping in modern seats with built-in shoulder belts, which I am loathe to do to a very original car.
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Post some pics of the MG B! That’s one of the good years before they stuck the ugly side marker lights on the fenders and British Leyland took over and most of them were lemons!
 
Mattax said:
Rani. That's a bit presumptous. Just because the OP asked doesn't make it an either or situation for him.
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Indeed - just because it is *less* safe doesn't mean that it is *unsafe*. There are certain safety upgrades (e.g., airbags and ABS brakes) that can't be done. That's fine.

Others - like 3-point belts and disc brakes - are not only possible, but reasonable. In fact, it would be unreasonable to take that car out on the road without them. It wouldn't only be my life at risk; I'd potentially put others at risk, too. Although I might be at greater risk of getting bruised and dinged up in an accident, with some basic upgrades I'd be at a much lower risk of being crippled or having my teeth knocked out by my steering wheel.

And besides, if safety were my only priority, I'd trade in my '18 Challenger R/T+ for a Camry.
 
(And to add - if it weren't a safety risk, I'd keep the bench seat all day long. There's a nostalgic element to it. I practically grew up in my grandfather's 1982 Dodge Aries. It had a beautifully hideous mustard-yellow interior and a front bench seat with ashtrays built into the back.)
 
Should be easy enough to source a bench from a later A body with headrests built in, possibly even from a Volare or Aspen, no idea if these would fit but some basic measurements should determine whether or not it's possible. Also as mentioned above there may be a way to utilize shoulder belts from a later model sedan as well. Most anything is possible with time and ingenuity.
 
In fact, 74 to 76 Dart Special |Editions and Valiant Brougham 4 doors sometimes had high back bucket seats with a steel lock attached to the seat back and base to prevent them from folding forward, and center "buddy seat". I used a set from a Dart Special Edition in my 1970 Dart, simply removed the locking bars and installed release levers
 
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