Hey guys, I have been wondering when exactly whoulder belts because standard or opional for the matter. The readon... My '68 roadrunner that I'm restoring had just lap belts, BUT it has the clips on the sun visor mounts to hold the shoulder belts up and out of the way. Also, the welded nut is in the roof support, but the headliner was never cut for it (looks to be orig.) and no belts present. Were they optional in '68 and standard in 69? I'm just wondering if my car is a mess up or not. Thanks.

Never seen a `68 anything (cars) without them. My `68 runner had `em.

Jan 1 1968 as I recall.

If I'm not mistaken, '68 cars built in '67 didn't have them.

I am 99.99999999% sure that 1970 marked the first shoulder belts

My 68 Charger had em. 2/68 build date

Shoulder Belts required on ALL vehicles begining 1 Jan 1968
This is from the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and Regulations:

"Standard No. 208 - Occupant Crash Protection

Passenger Cars ( Effective 1-1-68)
Lap or lap and shoulder seat belt assemblies for each designated seating position.
Except in convertibles, lap and shoulder seat belt assemblies are required in each front outboard seating position.

Frank

I ordered my 68 Sport Fury in Feb of 68, it was delivered in January with shoulder belts and my 68 Coronet R/T was built in Jan of 68 with shoulder belts.

you could get a 68 charger with a REAR shoulder belt too.

This is interesting, my father had two 68 birds, (don't remember the build dates) neither had shoulder belts. My car has a build date of april '68, had the provisions, but no belts. So, whats up with that?

Must only apply to cars, and not trucks (until a later date)? My '72 W200 has the mount points up high for shoulder belts, but just has lap belts.

If I can find a set of shoulder belts I wouldn't mind swapping them in.

As already stated, shoulder belts were mandated on Jan. 1 1968, but they were optional before that. My 68 Charger was built on Dec. 15, 1967 and it had the optional shoulder belts. I have seen a lot of 68 cars that were built before Jan 1, and they have a hole in the roof, but I have never seen one that had the threaded insert unless it had the belts. The Chrysler corp. would have been in violation of federal law to build a car after Jan 1 1968 without shoulder belts, so I think it's a safe bet that the headliner had been replaced in the car that this post is about.

My fastback had threaded inserts for the rear seats in addition to the installed front shoulder belts. Seems like they were hedging their bets or rear shoulder belts might have been required for export. I don't know but the inserts are there.

Back in 67 there was probalby a few months of work in process, so they were probably putting in the holes and nuts in all spotweld assemblies so they would not be trying to figure it out on Jan 1.
Or possibly since it was an option, they were putting them on all the cars so final assembly could put belts in any car that the customer wanted.

My 68 GTS (8/28/67 SPD) did not have shoulder belts, and they were available on convertibles in 68 (I've got a buddy with a 68 GT convertible with them). They were available as early as 1966.