As the title suggests I have reservations about driving my son in my 911.
First the Install of my car seat.
I have installed a Target Grayco car seat in my 1975 S. I removed the rear passenger side seat bottom, both the seat belt receiver and blade on the passenger side the receiver on the rear driver side seat. I put one racing eye bolt on the outer part of the passenger side seat and one on the center portion of the driver side rear seat. In each eyebolt I put a quality carabiner in each eye bolt. (I bought the ones with the highest strength ratings). The car seat clips went into the carabiners and I tightened it up as tight as I could. As for the top teather, I was not comfortable using the existing teather point connection. It appears to be merely screwed into the rear shelf which is nothing more than pressed cardboard. Instead, I drilled (yes drilled) a slot in the rear shelf and put a U Bolt. Underneath in the engine compartment, I put a wide metal plate which contacted solid anchor points. From that U Bolt I connected the top teather, tightened and the seat was secure. See attached photos.
Now my reservations:
I have owned my ‘75 911 for a long time and am very meticulous about maintenance and repair. It runs very well. One day my son and I were running errands around town when I began to smell something burning and the cabin started to fill up with smoke. Driving about 45 MPH I tried to pull over while avoiding traffic. At that point I wish I had a third arm. Trying to operate a manual window crank (for fresh air) while steering and down shifting was difficult. The pleas of my son saying “daddy it stinks in here” wore heavily on me as I wondered, “Are we on fire?” and “will I be able to get him out of the car before something happens?” As a Vet, I flashed back to events that occurred to me in the Middle East during the war and I was scared, not for myself, but for my son.
Fortunately my 1975 911 does not have a steering wheel lock (when you shut off the car and/or remove the key the steering wheel still has full steering capability) and the car does not have power brakes so I had full braking ability. Once I got clear of traffic I shut down the engine and coasted safely to the side of the road. I got him out of the car seat and put him 20 feet away from the car and directed him to “STAY HERE.”
I returned to the car and armed with my fire extinguisher (which I keep behind the driver seat) looked for smoke or fire. Other than the residual smoke smell there did not seem to be any trouble. Engine compartment clear, no unusual hot spots were noticed on the car.
I called my brother to pick up the boy (didn’t want the wife to freak out) and I had the car flat bedded home for damage inspection.
The problem was an electrical short from the brake light which caused a hot wire (which was run inside the cabin) to burn before the fuse could trip. (Bad wiring hack job done by previous owner).
I love my 911, but a 42 year old car does have its limitations, it lacks modern safety features and quite frankly even properly installed equipment will fail after 40 years. A few years ago I was T Boned in my 1983 911 SC Cab and though I was able to walk away pretty unscathed, the poor car was totaled.
Of course the 996s 997s and 991s afford modern safety features my 1975 S doesn’t have so those cars are a completely different story.
Occasionally my son and I still go out in the 911, but as you can imagine, I’m on edge the entire time.
That’s my 2 cents take it for what it’s worth.