Our three point belts in the front of the Mehari are fitted to the roll cage. Its 40mm steel box section mounted behind the 2 front seats with triangular braces, through the tupperware and bolted to the chassis.

We've also got those flappy plastic penels that the rear side panels attach to bolted to it so they flap less, thus, when we take the roof off, the roll cage and windscreen are connected by two steel poles either side of the 'cab'

Thanks all.

Yes, I realise that the 2CV is the last car you'd want to have an accident in! Hence, I never take the kids on a motorway in it, and I always drive very defensively at other times.

Any likely impact will be low-speed - unless the other party is doing something really silly...

I did fit rear belts in my ol' Marlin, and that involved a fair bit of metal in the boot - a 45mm box section coming up from the rear suspension top mounting, and a 3mm thick steel strip tying this back to a rearward chassis mount. The shoulder point was bolted to the top of this, and it was very strong!

I don't fancy that much work and metal in the 2CV, tho'. However, I am not happy with static lap belts - absolutely nothing to prevent the kids from rocking forwards - so I'm looking for an 'improvement', not a 'perfect' solution.

I shall certainly give some thought to mounting the shoulder point on top of the rear seat but 'tied' backwards using 50mm wide, 3mm thick steel strip to the very back of the boot floor - the chassis should provide bolt-on points where it continues to the rear bumper mountings. This should remove any forwards-acting force from the seat, so it shouldn't want to move forward. The only force the rear seat will experience will be a downwards compressive force as the belt is pulled forwards, and that will only be a fraction of what is experienced by the belt itself; if the seat ever suffers enough force to make it collapse downwards, then it will have been one hell of an accident...

I'm not convinced the 2cv is all that bad in an accident, they tend to bounce out of the way and in a forward impact the passenger compartment tends to remain pretty intact whilst the chassis and engine/gearbox fold up and absorb most of the crunch. Admittedly, I wouldn't want to take a range rover into the drivers door, but because if thier light weight they tend to absorb the impact and bouce out of the way.

No car is ever safe, an accident is a random happening and never, ever predictable.

Of course, I understand your concern regarding carrying children in the car, 3 point belts are a good idea in my opinion, I think you could make an upper mounting reasonable strong between the roof and the rear side window, it will of course mean paintwork and welding, but having looked at the solutions other folk have come up with, that's how I think I'd do it.

I've seen a car fitted with a 40mm box between two plates bolted to the rear inner wings which were in turn reinforced. Onto this, the upper seatbelt mount was attatched. I quite liked this as it was hidden behind the rear seat and rather neat, but i was concerned about how low the upper mounting was.

*ding*

I've had friends walk out of utterly trashed 2cvs uninjured.
I've had a friend killed in a minor impact in a EuroNCAP 5* new car.

Thanks Russell and tm2CVs.

I'll explore the possibilities and see what I come up with.

Of course, every accident is different. As you say, Russell, I wouldn't like to suffer a side impact in a 2CV or, even less, a roll-over .

I'm not paranoid tho' - honestly! The car is being enjoyed by all. As I said, the types of journey I tend to do with the car are local country lanes - it would take something really weird before that would deliver a 'serious' accident.

I'm just not happy with basic lap belts, so will definitely be improving on them. Making the belts retractable will be an improvement too, just for convenience sake - fed up of the laps falling out the car and landing in the gutter....

I was involved in a drivers side impact in my old '76 drum brake, about 14 years ago. I turned right out of a junction & was T-boned by a Lada Riva (a comedy car crash if ever there was one!) It was dark & raining, the Lada driver didn't have his lights on & the speed on the impact was between 35-45 mph - the Lada hit square-on the front & rear doors...

I ended up in the passenger seat & was extremely surprised at how well the car stood up to such an impact. I was taken to hospital were i underwent many x-rays etc & it turned out i had 3 fractured ribs, pelvis & pubic bone - I was out of hospital the following day, but not before i could prove the the Doctor i could walk the corridor, climb the stairs & find my way back. It was the thought of days of hospital food that gave me the strength to do it!

which reminds me - if anyone needs a nice Orange Tenere bootlid, i have one in my shed!

Nice one, Neil!

Neil, I take it there was nobody in the passenger seat?