A DT reader--we'll call him Joel--has a problem. It's not his wife Lana who, by insisting he get that low-mileage, late model Porsche 928 GT, sounds like what every white boy off the Lake wants.
No, Joel's problem is sharing the joys of lakeside driving with his 2-year-old daughter. Sometimes you just have to say, "WTF?" but driving around with an uncarseated kid in the back seat of your Shark is not one of those times.
I've posted about official, rebranded Porsche car seats [since gone MIA], and airbag-disabling car seat installations in Boxsters [since sold], and strollers that fit into 911 luggage compartments [Quinny Zapp, just barely] before.
But does anyone know of car seats--for toddlers or infants, for that matter--that meet contemporary safety standards, and that fit into the 14-inch wide, nominally seatbelted, bucket-shaped indentations that pass for rear seats in a 928?
On paper, the Sunshine Radian 65, which clocks in at just 14.5" at the base [and which is also reported by some to be slightly convex] looks like it should fit. Has anyone tried it? Has anyone found a car seat of any kind--EU, JP, US, ETC.--that can be successfully installed into the rear confines of a 2+2 coupe? Please share your match-up/mashup expertise below. Otherwise, Joel will have to wait until the kid's like 6, and by then, Family Porsches will be everywhere, and the magic will be gone.
The Britax Roundabout works well in the rear seats. I'll send you a pic of what that looks like, Greg. And I heard from somebody at USA Baby that the owner of that store just picked up a Fisher Price Safe Voyage for their 997 and it fits fine. Given the size of the seats back there, I'm guessing that would also fit in a 928. Another "hack" I've seen done is to remove the rear seat cushions to install the carseat. Also, since most sharks predate airbags, you can also install the carseat if you so wish.
I have 2 Sunshine Radian 65 in the back of my new bettle convertible, and they fit fine. Bit hard to get the LATCH in, but they are good and tight.
[and also of Porsche lineage, I might add. -ed.]
There's a bunch of 996/993/911 rear child seat installation examples discussed here and elsewhere. I've secured off-the-shelf child seats in both 2002 and 1973 rear seats using the methods described there.
And in fact, other 928 owners are trying to figure this out as we speak...
From the pics I think the hardest part about the 928 installation might be the seat belt location -- the stock belts are probably not effective in securing the child seat. They might have to find an anchor point, place eye bolts there, and use the LATCH hooks to secure the seat.
[Yeah, there was a guy on rennlist that had some brackets from Northern Tool, all you need to do is grind them down a bit and &c &c. -ed.]
Plan B would be to just fix a five-point harness to one of those rear seats (we put one into my cousin's 911S when we added a roll cage) and that should be fine. Given the size of the seats and all of the side bolsering, those seats in the 928 are basically "factory-installed childseats" as it is.