Spitfie MKIV Seatbelts

[Nigel MK1V]

When I bought my Spitfire MKIV thirty years ago it had Spitfire MK3 belts fitted. It is a very early MKIV built in February 1971.

Some of the floor mounted eye bolts were seized in, giving the impression they had been there a very long time.

Do you think that Triumph may have used up reamaining stocks of MK3 seatbelts on early MKIV cars?

John Thomason in his book  mentions that the MKIV was the first car to have factory fitted belts but does not mention if dealer fitted belts applied to the UK.

My car was sold by the Triumph dealer in Belfast which had me thinking if dealer fitted belts were still fitted in Northern Ireland at this time and the

dealer has remaining sets of MK3 belts in stock. Thanking everybody for any thoughts.

 

[Colin Lindsay]

3 hours ago, Nigel MK1V said:

When I bought my Spitfire MKIV thirty years ago it had Spitfire MK3 belts fitted. It is a very early MKIV built in February 1971.

Some of the floor mounted eye bolts were seized in, giving the impression they had been there a very long time.

Do you think that Triumph may have used up reamaining stocks of MK3 seatbelts on early MKIV cars?

John Thomason in his book  mentions that the MKIV was the first car to have factory fitted belts but does not mention if dealer fitted belts applied to the UK.

My car was sold by the Triumph dealer in Belfast which had me thinking if dealer fitted belts were still fitted in Northern Ireland at this time and the

dealer has remaining sets of MK3 belts in stock. Thanking everybody for any thoughts.

 

Seatbelts became compulsory in NI from 1968 but in the UK in general cars had to have mounting points from 1965 even if no belts were fitted. Given the production dates of the MK3, when this legislation came in, then some would have had to have seatbelts but other earlier cars wouldn't, and they would be taken off the shelf as required using the standard mountings of the day. The replacement model, the MkIV, would have had to have seatbelts from day one but it's entirely possible that existing stocks intended for earlier cars were used first to save costs. Therefore seatbelts on eye-bolts would be readily available before the bolt-through versions would have replaced them. 

If you want to upload a photo no doubt someone will be able to tell if they're the originals of either type, or replacements.

[DanMi]

As far as I know the MK3 left the factory without seatbelts and they were fitted by the dealer post 1968 as standard (optional before), the MK4 had them factory fitted so I would doubt them having been fitted to use up stock as the factory never fitted the Britax Excelsior ones so would not have had stock. I would suspect they were changed later