Actually Joe, you are correct. The side impact beams were mandated
in all cars sold in the US after 1 January 1973. Some vehicles had
them up to 4 years earlier. This is defined by FMVSS 214 (Federal
Motor Vehicle Safety Standard).
For further reading, check out:
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/regrev/evaluate/806314.html
Triumph may have not put this into their advertising until 1980,
but they were installed by 1973. BTW, Spitfire history books
have been known to be wrong.
Now, can we put this to rest?
Cheers,
Doug
-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Curry [mailto:spitlist@gte.net]
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 11:51 AM
To: Nolan Penney
Cc: spitfires@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Which year 1500?
Well then I guess I'm WRONG! But if those beams in all the 1500's I've looked
at aren't side impact protection, what are they? Seems to me that there
is empirical evidence that the advertisers may have only started talking about
the side impact protection after the things had been there for a while
and this would not be the first time that Historians have been incorrect!
Could it be that this book to which you refer is, like John Thomason's bood
directed toward Home Market cars and don't cover the US equivalents?
Maybe the side impact bars didn't show up on those models until 1980, but they
certainly did over here as early as 1974 and perhaps even earlier.
All I know is the bars inside these doors well qualifies as side impact
protection since it adds a lot of weight and bulk to the doors.
Joe
P.S. Send me a photo of one of these 1980 door beams and I'll tell you if it
looks like what I took out of mine!
Nolan Penney wrote:
>
> You may well have something in the doors, but side impact beams did not show
>up on Spitfires until 1980. That is well documented in any Spitfire history
>book, or factory literature on the subject you care to read.
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