Hauling kids in your classic cars
 

I'm curious what you guys are using to safely haul your kids or grandkids around in your old musclecars. Booster seats require shoulder harnesses and that's hard to come by for rear seats in 1st gen Camaros. My daughter is 5 and I need to decide whether to buy a particular seat or add different rear belts. Thanks.

John.

I would think you'd be able to put a booster seat in the front passenger area since there's no airbag.

Yeah, that was an idea except our 68 only has lap belts in the front. I've considered installing shoulders up front but the interior is Ivy Gold which is a challenge any way I look at it.

Our boy grew up in classics. Never used any type of shoulder belt to retain the child seat, just a lap belt. The seat had it's own shoulder belt (5 point harness) to keep him in the child seat.

Was pulled over a few times (for other things) and never once did this method of child seat retention ever enter the discussion. Usually the officer was curious why I didn't have a shoulder belt on and then realized I had a lap belt on after he approached the car.

Are new child seats today only made to work with a shoulder belt style retention??

We bought a pair of "convertible" child seats a few years back for the twins. They are now six.

When they were smaller, the seats had their own harness system, and only needed a lap belt to hold the whole seat in. Now that they are bigger, they just use the bottom, so no harness set up. If the car doesn't have shoulder harness, it will not work on those.

I find it strange that the bus they ride to school has no restraints of any kind.

Isn't that interesting? We live in a world that pushes safety and big deals are made about shoulder belts, seat belt laws, etc... Yet school busses that shuttle millions of children back and forth every day still don't have seat belts.

My son never road the bus, took him back and forth every day myself. So even as he got older and was only retained with a lap belt in our classics it was still more than the school busses had.

Not sure if this info helps. But in 1972 (I was 6 years old) I sat on the rear floor pans of my Uncle John’s brand new Heavy Chevy Chevelle while he was power shifting on Playland Parkway Near my parents house. In his defense he did yell “ Hold on Kid” Rob

Federal law only requires seat belts in school buses that weigh less than 10,000 pounds, and historically, regulators have opposed such federal mandates on coach buses. But at least 18 states, including Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Virginia, are currently considering such legislation. Washington is the latest to join the club after the state senate transportation committee held a public hearing Tuesday on a bill that would require all newly purchased public and private school buses to be equipped with seat belts. So far, only six states—California, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, and Texas—have a variant of such a law.

This should fix it.

I've used these before to install into the package tray, simple through-bolt anchor point with a plate washer below, for a top-tether child seat.
It does require a discrete hole to be drilled, and I used a cheap reproduction package tray panel to avoid piercing an original, but small price to pay to help the kids travel safer.