xke safety

series 2 have 3 pts and headrests, but no roll over protection. one way to get a little roll over protection w a roadster is to add the removeable hardtop.
ed

 

If you're worried about crash safety you might be better off with a Volvo.

 

I would laugh out loud three times. Once when viewing it for the first time before a spin. Then upon opening the door. Then when seated.

I always told myself this was not the car to make a mistake in. It was a series 1 OTS.

Crash safety has always been a relevant term and I suppose they were OK fifty years ago.
You would not want to have an incident today, especially with a modern who may not care that you don't have air bags. Or shoulder belts. Heck, my series one didn't have a lap belt.

Lovely cars though.

 

Yes. That looks perfectly stock for cars through 1963.

The metal surfaces have a raised dimple effect.

 

+1 - why would safety be a factor? If it is, consider an Eagle E-Type - a modernized recreation.

I can't possibly believe that an E-Type under any circumstance is "safe" in an accident. It's just not a car you buy for that purpose.

 

I'm restoring my 68 Vette. About the same as an XKE on saftey, maybe a tiny bit safer bcus of a slightly beefier frame

I will installing some sort of door beams maybe as part of a partial cage. I installed a chrome 4 point roll bar & modern racing seats in it as well

 

Vintage car and safety seem to be oxymorons in my view (except for vintage Volvo's). You don't buy an xke for the safety of it, regardless of which series. If the goal here is to be marginally safer, then yes, head rests are better than not, but you've got so much going against you against modern machinery, that I don't see the infinitesimal safety improvement from headrests making any real difference in an accident. Buy what you like and what turns you on.

 

The gullwing car looks pretty good. There is a spot on the underside just behind the driver's side rear wheel that needs to be looked at. It could be dirt or rust. Can't tell from the photo. Dirt's OK, rust would need further investigation. The spare wheel well is an area that is prone to rust, as is the area under the fuel tank. The dealer shows no photos of that area. Also check the oil leakage from the engine bay to make sure the main seals aren't shot. Overall I think it looks nice for a 15 year old restoration.

 

I'll second your statement...

There is a universe of difference between having a 3pt belt and headrests and not.

As an experiment, hit yourself in the face with a piece of rebar moving at 10mph. Now push yourself against a seatbelt at 10mph. If you think "oh, if I know I'm going to get hit so I'll tense my arms against the steering wheel" I've got a bridge to sell you. And whiplash is no picnic either. Even in a low speed impact, your neck will bend all the way back so you're looking at the back seat of your car upside down.

Driving a car without headrests and 3pt belts is simply nuts. They're not that hard to retrofit into most cars and don't alter the car (much).

Things like crumple zones and air bags and such are really nice -- they save lives without question, but 3pt belts (if you're wearing them) and head rests cover the vast majority of accidents that crippled people in 1950 and annoyed them in 1980.

 

I am looking at buying an E-Type in the near future as well, so have been reading up on them. Only the 3.8's have the non-synchro transmission. A Series 1 with the 4.2 engine will have the synchros. The 3.8's seats were the old-school rounded "true bucket" seat. I don't believe the 4.2 seats had a headrest, but the seat was a more conventional, squared off design with a thicker back, and I would imagine you could have headrests retrofitted without too much difficulty and still have them look vintage and appropriate to the car.

 

Are Series II convertible xkes really $30k cars these days? I was / am shocked to see that they've got 2 different nice looking convertible xkes for toyota money. How'd they look in person?

 

1. It is generally accepted that a few of the last 3.8's were fitted with the fully synchro transmission, but I don't have the serial numbers.
2. In 1961 the e-type was a truly revolutionary car in many ways, but the "Moss Box", while damn near indestructible, was old tech.
3. Lots of us own and drive XK's and XKE's with the Moss Box, just takes some skill and a firm hand to drive well.
4. Some of us also swap-out the Moss Box for T-5 5-speeds.
5. XKE's ARE ANTIQUES!

Completely agree! Discussions of automotive "safety" are only relative. Many crash scenarios that are lethal in a 50 year-old car are walk away incidents in a 2011 car.

If safety is on your mind, please do not buy an E-Type.

 

The top dollar cars are the earliest "flat floor" Series I cars, followed by the late (1966-1967) Series I cars. The Series II and Series III cars have their followers, but it is generally accepted that the simplicity and elegance of the Series I design was lost after 1967. The loss of the covered head lights, addition of large taillights and crash bumpers are the primary styling gripes thanks to the DOT. The reliability of the electronics declined (those darn rocker switches) and the EPA smog mechanics and plumbing turned the under bonnet artwork into a pile of snakes.

Just my $0.02
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the series 2 seat is the same as the series 1, except the series 2 has a headrest added. easy swap out.
btw, the two red e-types above are very nice examples to use as a guideline.
ed

 

I respectfully submit that the foolish statement is yours. If you believe what you state, then you don't know the engineering and physics that go into an accident or the engineering involved in creating a safe seat head restraint system (which cannot be just an add on to an existing seat, it has to be designed with the entire seat structure in mind). What you are seeing in a hospital setting is the result of modern (proper) engineering design on modern seats and modern head restraints. Having a headrest on vintage car/seat provides essentially no additional protection. Why? Because vintage seats (or their restraints) were not designed to withstand the deflection and stresses involved in an accident. The headrest on vintage seats are there to comply with safety laws, but it was not an engineered addition, so it is not designed in such a way as to work with the rest of the seat's structure to the seat to work as an entire system in the event of an accident. And this is just be beginning of the lack of safety protection in a vintage car. Do you think they made any changes to the chassis or bumper guard areas to absorb impacts or provide any additional safety protection? Not on vintage cars they did not. Your example of looking at hospital accident results is not relevant because what you see there is the result of engineered restraints with safety in their design against essentially an add on piece there just basically for looks; just a piece of padding that someone had to add because Washington required head restraints, but which were not designed to withstand any stresses. Do a search in the site and take a look at the pictures of vintage seats showing their metal structures. Do you really think such seats were engineered to provide accident protection in mind? Not a chance. If you look at seat structures between the same car type and brand for the years just before and just after head restraints, you will find that they typically simply took the seat from the year before, added a few pieces of metal and a few welds and voila, instant head restraint addition. There was no consideration of what would happen in an accident. They only added what ever metal they needed to add the simply hold the head rest in place. No more, no less. If you believe they do provide much protection, good luck to you.

I think I'll pass on your generous suggestion about hitting myself in the face with a piece of rebar. I seem to lack your sense of adventure, we clearly have different thresholds of pain, and I fail to see how this would prove your point.

However, retrofitting seat belts and headrest without properly designing them with some sort of consideration of the stresses and dynamics involved in accidents will only provide a false sense of security because if not properly done, they are more dangerous than not having anything at all. Almost all vintage cars I have taken the time to look at in this regard are woefully inadequately designed in this area.

Unfortunately most of the responses along these two lines provided in this thread are confusing MODERN care safety design (which undoubtedly has resulted in safer cars) with VINTAGE features (and I would not call it vintage safety design, because that would be giving them way too much credit for what they were doing at the time; not much design was going on in the safety area early on), which generally lack any basis in engineering or testing, specially in the early, transition years when head restraints, seat belts and some of these other things were initially mandated which is what the original poster was asking about.

Cheers

 

If you own a car you keep yourself alive by driving defensively. Why do you guys think that an accident is going to happen?. Vintage cars definitely require better drivers and as a motorcycle rider, you absolutely can improve EVERY situation by driving/riding defensively.

And yes I agree, that adding anything to an E-type will not make it safer, other than replacing the driver.

Oh and if you tear around the streets in your modern car with not a care in the world, you will soon end up in an emergency ward. Yes they are safer (but people are still injured and killed on our roads), but nothing is as safe as avoiding the accident in the first place!
Pete