It's that time... Baby seats in the 911?

[Westfield]

This is a current Recaro ProRide. Infant seats are much easier. I used a Maxi-Cosi Mico which fit with no modifications. The Recaro took quite a bit of sawzall to fit.
..Oh yeah - My wife doesn't ride in this car.

[Mony]

I still think its cheaper to lease / or buy a beater car with all the space. this seems a bit too impractical. Ok you can do it and other have done it, but that doesn't mean you should do it. I don't think thats a comfortable proper why to drive everyday.

[cajun]

I'll chime in.

I have a three year old daughter and another in the oven. Neither of my 911s are "daily drivers", however when my daughter was 1 month old, we relocated to Seattle and brought my wife's Honda and my SC. For about 3 months my SC was my daily driver, and my daughter regularly rode with me. Here are my observations: Rear facing could be made to work in the rear, but the front passenger seat will be useless. Personally, I never found a rear facing car seat base that would fit properly in the seat bottom in the rear of the car. Rear facing in the front is much more practical, but the back seats will be virtually useless. Before you buy a car seat, take measurements... lots of them. Go to a reputable car seat dealer and ask to test fit the seat base in your car. I did this, and until you actually put the base in the car, you really have no idea how it will fit.

I hate to break it to you, and I am sure that others with children will chime in, but you have NO IDEA how much ***** you will be carrying around with an infant. NO IDEA. The 80s 911 won't work carrying around a full car seat, all the crap that you have to have with you to care for a kid, and a pissed off wife.

Now that I have said that, here is the smartest thing to do: Your wife is much shorter than mine so short trips could be made to work with her riding in the back seat or in the front all the way up (my wife is 5-9" and there is no way she would fit in my car with me & a baby seat). You mentioned that you often take trips upstate... Do yourself a favor and just rent a car for those trips. You will all be much happier in the long run.

Good Luck Brother. I have been there!

[twistoffat]

We used something similar to this. The child was facing backwards wedged in between the rear back and front seat. The two point belt went through slits to keep the seat frimly in place and the seat itself came with a five point type belt system to keep the child firmly in the chair. When they got a bit older I used a Römer Prince for Porsche chair.

http://www.dhd24.com/azl/index.php?anz_id=41330852

[MichiganMike]

Find a friend in Manhattan and rent his car from him when you need it! :-) Maybe try peer to peer car rentals like Turo?

[kyngfish]

"I hate to break it to you, and I am sure that others with children will chime in, but you have NO IDEA how much ***** you will be carrying around with an infant. NO IDEA. The 80s 911 won't work carrying around a full car seat, all the crap that you have to have with you to care for a kid, and a pissed off wife. "

LOL. As the new father of a 4 week old baby, I second this statement. All that said, if you're die-hard and don't care about having a stroller, pack a baby bjorn and a backpack and you're good. I've never actually tried to put an adult in one of my rear seats but I can promise my wife's discomfort tolerance is pretty damn low.

[911jettat]

I love that my kids have grown up in the back of a 911!




Based on my experience I think the upper tether mount adds a lot to the overall stability of the seat. I don’t want to argue the crash protection merits of an upper tether point, but the day-to-day stability of the seat (in either 5-point mode or just used as a booster) is greatly increased with the tether. The reason for this is that even though the booster fits PERFECTLY in the seat pocket area, the (Porsche) car seat design is very deep b/c of the transmission. The seating is deep and the seatbelt anchor attachment points are relatively high in relation to the seat bottom (normal cars have a pretty flat seat with belts right there, the Porsche belts start just a little higher and forward).




So in the Porsche, the seat fits perfectly and the seat belts thread through nicely but the triangulated relationship of the belt is altered causing most any booster seat to tip forward. (Sorry for the long-winded detail – see pictures)

When I was first installing the seats, I knew everything was locked down and secure, but given the forward and high location of the seat belt anchoring bolts it still felt tipsy. The upper tether mount completely solves this.

Upper tether mount

[Trackrash]

Can you say mini-van?

Don't get me wrong. My wife and I managed with her VW bug and my 911 with our first child. Back then rear facing seats were not required.

Once our second came around, my wife insisted on getting a van.

I reluctantly bought a Vanagan. That turned out to be a great choice. It was great to drive with the kids. Plenty of room for everything when going camping or to the beach or as you will find most anywhere with small children. What a shame VW stopped selling them in the US, big mistake IMO.

When my children were in grade school, I would pick them, and our neighbor's two, up after school in my 911.

Me and four kids in my 911. I had added an extra seat belt in the rear. They would fight over who would sit on the hump in the rear.

What you should do is get an old VW van as a PROJECT!!!

[Dooodahman]

I tried my best but could not make a carseat work safely in the back of an '88 coupe until he was old enough for a booster (which still needed the bottom reformed through the use of a heat gun), never mind trying to cart around all the stuff a baby needs. Accept the inevitable and don't waste time in an unsafe situation.

[autojack]

I just recently bought my first 911 and thought I would have no trouble putting my kids (1 and 3) in the back. Boy was I wrong. I was able to fit a Britax Roundabout, front facing, into the back seat, but from what I've researched here there is almost no way to put a rear-facing seat in there. At a minimum you will need the passenger seat all the way forward.

This guy did it:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/842912-rear-facing-infant-seat-1988-carrera-coupe.html

but he essentially engineered his own restraint system in the process. In my opinion, that's not a safe solution. It has never been crash tested, so just because you think it's wedged in tight doesn't mean it is safe.

If I were you I would explore alternative cars.

[Jgordon]

Well, I went ahead and did it. Noodled on the topic for a while, and finally figured out a fairly elegant solution. I had envisioned some sort of ratchet strap system, but when I was on Pelican buying my Dansk "dad" muffler to replace my M&K, I saw an ad for simpson harnesses. Initially thought I could jerry-rig a six-point harness, but they had lap belts for vintage racing.

The seat is a Cybex Aton 2. One of the best (and smallest) car seats on the market. Crush foam, secondary crush pieces on the frame, all sorts of good stuff. As a bonus, it adapts to my stroller (Bugaboo Cameleon).

I pulled the rear passenger-side seatback (an easy affair with four screws). This gave me a few inches of rearward travel. I pulled the bolts out of the seat belt anchors on either side of the seat pan, and installed race-grade harness anchors in their place. I then put two simpson lap belts on the anchors. One goes over the car seat, and one goes around it. This is a configuration known as the "Euro" mount. It dispenses with the base.

These harnesses and bolts are built to hold a 200-lb man in place in a full race-speed crash. With this system in place, I can rock the whole car using the car seat. I've trusted my life and my wife's to this car for a decade; I trust my child's to it now.






By the way, Jack was born on Tuesday. He says hello.

[OneMore]

Jack looks soooo cool.

I guess by now he has become a little man.

Congrats

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

[theenico]

I like your solution.

The "clip in" bases are really just a convenience item.

[racer]

997.2

Good luck. As seen, it "can" be done but is a serious compromise to everyone's comfort, especially as an only car. While not a member of the safety police (I let my kids sit up front in my SC in their front facing seats and grew up as one of 3 boys who crammed into the back of a 911 many times in the 1970's, I am intrigued by your other half's willingness to play along with the idea that a 30 year old sports car is the safest/best practice for the family. We all know, kids only get bigger as they get older. Then, be sure to check out the size needed for all the accompanying items.. diaper bags, stroller, food etc and then whatever the adults need too.. so be sure to look for roof racks

[RNajarian]

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.

[DanielDudley]

Enjoy the adventure. These are the best days of your life.

[Url]

This is how we roll As we have twins, they have to sit in the back although I prefer the front seat if I just take 1 of my kids. (3-point in the front, 2-point in the back)

I've only started taking them for rides in the Porsche recently ( they are 2,5 years old) due to the forward facing seats.
They are both the Britax / Romer Porsche branded seats. (1 grey, 1 blue with cars/bears)



And don't forget the hearing protection, SSI with 2 in 2 out makes quite some noise

Enjoy!

[Jgordon]

It's a year and a half later, and I'm happy to report that we've survived and flourished with the infant seat in the 911. I honestly don't get the tisk-tisking that occurred here. I could obviously get a suburban and put a roll cage in it, along with foam, but I've never felt unsafe in the 911. As I said above, I'm a fairly risk-averse person, and I take great precautions with my son, but I really never felt that I was compromising his safety. I've even gotten secretive requests for my parts list and step by step instructions, but I won't out anyone.

By the way we had him, his car seat, his stroller (full size bugaboo chameleon), diapers, wipes, clothing, etc. etc. etc. and all of our stuff for a week's worth of vacation in the car. Took some logistics but everything fit. These cars are much more versatile and capable than people give them credit for.

Things are a bit more complicated now, as I'm searching for a toddler seat. I feel fairly confident about fitting a front-facing seat in the car, but it's the rear-facing I'm concerned about. He's more or less outgrown the infant seat, but kids apparently don't have enough neck strength to withstand a hit while front facing at this age. I'll likely do the same thing and take the base off, then use my race belts to secure the seat in place. I may just stretch the infant seat time until I feel comfortable putting him front-facing, but ideally we'd find a way to do it while following all guidelines.

Any suggestions on good, compact-yet-safe, current toddler seats?

Thanks again to those who contributed thoughts and suggestions. It's been rewarding to be able to use the car throughout mine and his lives, and to contribute to something that means so much to me (and obviously to others) here on the forum.

[Jgordon]

Originally Posted by Url

This is how we roll As we have twins, they have to sit in the back although I prefer the front seat if I just take 1 of my kids. (3-point in the front, 2-point in the back)

I've only started taking them for rides in the Porsche recently ( they are 2,5 years old) due to the forward facing seats.
They are both the Britax / Romer Porsche branded seats. (1 grey, 1 blue with cars/bears)



And don't forget the hearing protection, SSI with 2 in 2 out makes quite some noise

Enjoy!

Are these seats still sold? I wish I could get ear protection on him. He won't tolerate anything on his head, whether a hat, sunglasses, or ear muffs. No hoods either.

[Trackrash]

Originally Posted by Url

This is how we roll As we have twins, they have to sit in the back although I prefer the front seat if I just take 1 of my kids. (3-point in the front, 2-point in the back)

I've only started taking them for rides in the Porsche recently ( they are 2,5 years old) due to the forward facing seats.
They are both the Britax / Romer Porsche branded seats. (1 grey, 1 blue with cars/bears)



And don't forget the hearing protection, SSI with 2 in 2 out makes quite some noise

Enjoy!

Nice picture. I have fond memories of my two in the back of my 911.

I think the regs nowadays are a little over the top, as far as how long a child needs to be in a seat. Probably has to do with the s**** air bags in all new cars.