When we think of auto safety efforts, it’s usually things like Ralph Nader, Volvo, the 1966 Highway Safety Act, or airbags that come to mind. Ford’s 1956 promotion of safety devices is less remembered. Originating seemingly from out the blue, and disappearing just as mysteriously, Ford’s “Lifeguard Design” left little impression in North America’s auto marketplace. However, it did leave some interesting marketing materials – this pamphlet on Ford’s optional seat belts being one of them.
Before examining our featured pamphlet, it’s helpful to glance back at the early history of seat belts.
While safety restraints of various kinds can be traced back to horseless carriage days, the modern safety device owes its life to aviation. Early airplane seat belts were, like those on carriages, used to prevent occupants from tumbling out of the craft. Seat belts became common on passenger planes during the 1920s, but it took World War II to shift the focus from just restraining people during turbulence to actual crash survival.
Although North Americans were enamored with aviation, seat belts took a while to transition to cars. Much of this is attributable to automakers maintaining a favorable marketing image. After all, the auto industry largely sold its products on notions of passion and lifestyle: suggestions of safety, or gory accidents, hardly did that romantic perception any favors.
Nash was a forerunner in providing seat belts, making them available in 1949-50. However, that company’s experience was unexceptional. Installed in Nashes with optional reclining front seats, the belts were not promoted in Nash literature. Though Nash installed seat belts in about 40,000 cars, a follow-up one year later showed that only about 1,000 customers actually used them, and Nash discontinued the feature in 1950. One could argue that since Nash barely promoted its seat belts, their commercial failure wasn’t surprising. Yet still, it wasn’t a ringing endorsement of the idea that safety sells.
In the 1950s, consumers could install aftermarket seat belts, but few wanted them. And while a small cohort of advocates pushed automotive safety features, this was often overshadowed by opponents. Many claimed that car seat belts created more harm than good – that they caused internal injuries during crashes, and that motorists could be trapped in their crashed cars. Though considered laughable today, these claims were widely accepted in the 1950s.
Amid this background of ambivalence and hostility, Ford broke the mold. In October 1955, the company announced that for the upcoming model year, its vehicles would come with “Lifeguard Design” safety features. In a world where auto safety was talked about in hushed tones, similar to cancer, this was quite a deviation from Detroit’s typical marketing strategy.
Lifeguard included a few standard safety features, as well as two optional features. A “crash-cushioning” steering wheel came standard on 1956 Fords, as did enhanced door latches – both of which addressed common causes of accident injuries. On the options list were two additional items: Dashboard/sun visor padding… and seat belts, which retailed for about $9 per seating position.
These improvements didn’t just lurk on a list of specifications. Instead, Ford heavily marketed Lifeguard in late 1955 as the new models were hitting showrooms. Ads, dealer promotions, and brochure pages were dedicated to extolling Ford’s commitment to safety, including seat belts.
This unusual promotion is typically ascribed to one man: Ford vice president and division general manager Robert McNamara. At first glance, McNamara seems an unlikely champion of safety. With a ruthless, analytical personality, McNamara often gave the impression of an inhuman automaton. Yet he championed the Lifeguard campaign and pushed it through Ford’s bureaucracy. The question of “Why?” has been asked many times, and received numerous answers. Perhaps because Ford didn’t have many new models to promote for ’56? Or because someone thought the baby boom was shifting customers’ priorities? Or maybe just altruism on McNamara’s part? Whatever the cause, safety became one of the 1956 Ford’s biggest sales themes.
Our featured pamphlet was likely distributed at dealerships or auto shows. It’s small – just 8¼” x 5¼” – and focuses just on the seat belt component of Ford’s Lifeguard system. We’ll take a look at each page here.
Ford emphasized two things in the opening paragraphs – that seat belts boost a driver’s peace of mind, and that they resulted from years of research. The latter was true – Ford and other companies worked with research universities on various ideas for minimizing accident-related injuries. This pamphlet, though, sanitizes that topic and instead of selling customers on a reduced likelihood of fractured skulls, lacerations, or death, it focuses on comfort and peace of mind.
Point 2 here discusses an issue that folks don’t think about much now, but sliding across a flat, slippery bench seat during a turn wasn’t much fun. “You’ll enjoy driving far more and so will other members of your family” insinuated that your wife and kids won’t complain about your driving as much if they’re belted in.
Point 3 relates to getting tossed around your vehicle when it hits a chuck hole. I’m surprised to see “chuck hole” here, as I associate that term more with covered-wagon days, and it seems that by the 1950s, the term “pothole” had taken over. Maybe a simple colloquialism helped lighten the mood here.
Taken together, these all-important first pages make a soft sell. Undoubtedly this was more acceptable to a general audience of the day, though one wonders if this was enough to get the point across.
The next pair of pages demonstrate how easily seat belts can be buckled. Many customers probably never used a safety belt before, so the demonstration that it’s a quick and easy procedure was a necessity. These are important bits of advice, both for comfort and safety.
This demonstration impresses upon readers that unbuckling can be done “with one finger,” and that the belt immediately releases. While obviously an appeal to convenience, this also sought to delicately allay people’s fears of getting trapped by the seat belt in a crashed or burning car.
Our last two pages here tie up loose ends. Page 6 reassures customers that seat belts are attractive, and will not wrinkle people’s clothes. Ford does have a point on the attractiveness issue, since the belts were available in five colors –four more than what’s available these days.
The final page provides a diagram of how Ford’s seat belts were anchored into a vehicle’s floor, as a gentle reminder that purchasing genuine Ford accessories from the dealer is better than having aftermarket belts installed elsewhere.
Finally, since airplane analogies were considered marketing gold in the 1950s, we have a reminder that seat belts were not only aircraft-inspired (they’d been required on US civilian aircraft since 1926) but that Ford belts were stronger than those found on planes.
Overall, this brochure is thin on details, but its historical interest lies in the subject matter itself. Just a year or two before, such a promotion would have been unthinkable. Or, as it turned out, two years later, too. Ford’s safety thrust had a brief lifespan.
Seat belts appeared in most 1956 Ford brochures, from station wagons, to Thunderbirds to trucks.
The safety ads, brochures and other promotions faded away after just a few months. Plenty of theories exist as to why. An often-told story claims that General Motors executives contacted their Ford counterparts and persuaded Ford that safety was an inappropriate topic for car promotions. Others say that Ford’s relatively lackluster 1956 sales were taken as proof that safety didn’t sell cars. Still others maintain that safety simply took a back seat when Ford had more exciting products to promote. Whatever the real backstory, the project was quickly truncated and McNamara took this as a punch to the chin.
McNamara was determined to have the last word, though. In November 1956, he revealed that one in seven Ford buyers that year ordered seat belts (and 43% ordered the optional safety padding). If accurate, those figures were far from a failure for a novel product whose concept had hardly been mentioned by the car industry before.
If Ford wished to carry the safety campaign on to future years, it could have. But – for whatever reason – the motivation wasn’t there. Safety returned to the back seat for the next decade (or two or three), and the 1956 Lifeguard campaign remains a curiosity. Meanwhile, this small pamphlet provides a glimpse of Ford’s brief optimism that safety would sell, in fact, in the 1950s.
My ’61 Valiant I ordered with seat belts, have used them to this day. My ’64 Plymouth Satellite hardtop!,I put a shoulder harness in. Have used them since. This was a really set up. The seat belt was a normal set up, but the shoulder harness was a separate belt that ran from the base of the back seat over my shoulder to a second buckle. I did the same for my ’67 Dodge Coronet, but the ’72 Matador had a fairly complete system for its day,one buckle only. Safety to me has always meant wider tires, premium rubber immediately changing factory tires. I had Michelin tires on a ’56 Plymouth that had tubes in them. For me, safety sells
Excellent topic, writing, and illustration, Eric!
Your description of how the Ford brochure explained how to latch and unlatch the belt reminds me that to this day everyone who flies commercially still has to listen to instructions about how to operate a seat belt. And it sounds like we’re coming up on the 100th anniversary of having seat belts in commercial airplanes. I guess either some traditions live forever, or perhaps safety studies show that endless repetition of known facts is somehow advantageous to recalling them in an emergency.
Also…
And still in New Hampshire. At least among the law makers. NH being the only state where seat belts are not required for passengers or drivers over the age of 18. The reasons given for not wearing them are pretty much the same nonsense widely accepted in the 1950s.
+1 re excellent topic, writing and illustration.
I understand from evacuation trials in aircraft, where people are under stress, that passengers reach down to try to find the buckle where they’d find it in a car, rather than flipping the metal plate catch in the centre of their aircraft lap belt. So it is perhaps worth trying to remind people how everything works.
The demonstrations also make sense from the point of view that it’s always someone’s first time (and it keeps the lawyers happy).
Incidentally, I was interested to see that the belt fitting instructions (image B, ‘Just pull gently and it’s adjusted’) refer to placing the belt between the hips and waist, not directly on the hips. I don’t think that would be the recommendation, these days.
I interpreted Ford’s recommendation on belt fit was that the metal buckle should be placed away from the hip, not the entire length of the belt webbing.
Thanks!
It’s interesting to read just what some of the justification was on the anti-seatbelt front in the 1950s. There were numerous “studies” of animals in simulated crashes – things like strapping dogs into body harnesses of various kinds, dropping them off of high platforms, and observing the injuries. In looking at those studies, they seem like poor reproductions of human injuries from car crashes. For example, the dogs were often harnessed around the belly, so of course the harnesses caused internal injuries. I feel that often these studies were conducted by researchers affiliated with carmakers, so there was little objectivity. Still, people widely believed the “experts.”
Getting thrown clear was a topic that just refused to go away. The justification was usually observational (and likely often apocryphal) – like the recounting of an accident where a driver was “thrown clear” and walked away unharmed.
I didn’t realize that any state didn’t have seat belts laws by now. My (probably unpopular) take on New Hampshire is Good For Them. Despite being a lifelong seatbelt-user, I’m ambivalent on mandating these sorts of things (seat belts, helmets, etc.). But that’s a whole other discussion…
“And still in New Hampshire. At least among the law makers. NH being the only state where seat belts are not required for passengers or drivers over the age of 18. The reasons given for not wearing them are pretty much the same nonsense widely accepted in the 1950s.”
New Hampshire state motto, only slightly revised: “Live for free or die!”
I recall in Lee Iacocca’s autobiography he brought up the 1956 safety campaign, where to demonstrate the softness of the new padded dashboards he would climb a few steps on a ladder and drop an egg on it and it wouldn’t break. Well at least it didn’t when it was first tried when only a few Ford execs were watching; during the real demo, the egg splattered all over the dash. Somebody at Tesla should have read about this before demonstrating the bulletproof glass in the Cybertruck. Hey, it didn’t break when we tried it before, what happened? I still don’t think the Cybertruck looks right without bullet holes in the window…
(oops, not a bullet, a metal ball thrown at it)
In IBM this was known as the Watson Effect, after the former corporate president. A product demonstration would go off without a hitch in the laboratory but when performed for the executives it would fail miserably.
Egg shells vary widely in thickness….and age of the egg is a factor also
Not even Bing could keep people interested in safety.
Well, I’m appalled that he apparently thought that it was a fine thing to make his dogs ride in the trunk! 😉
“Chuckholes” was the term used by our local newspaper in the Seventies, as I recall. It stuck in my mind because it didn’t seem clear where the term came from. Woodchucks? I’m thinking I also saw “chugholes” in print. Whatever you call them, Knoxville, Tennessee still has a bounteous and ever-expanding variety to choose from.
Regarding seat belts, well into the Seventies there would be people claiming they knew someone who survived a terrible crash because they were “thrown clear” of the wreckage. It makes no sense, but they wanted to believe it, I guess.
I’ve never heard the term “chuck hole” until today…
It was commonly used in my world in the 60s and 70s and undoubtedly beyond by some. Maybe it was a regional thing.
Paul’s likely correct here. It’s probably a regional thing. In the Baltimore area, they’ve always been called potholes as far back as I can remember.
And the “thrown clear” argument is just dumb. I can’t believe there are people that still believe this, including someone I know.
I’m just about 30 miles south of Baltimore where I also only heard “pothole”.
And yes, “thrown clear” assumes so many things that are unlikely to happen. The windsheild has to break, really come loose altogether rather than just have a hole in it as the latter will lacerate your skin. Then your body has to travel across the hood for a few feet, assuming that’s possible with a crushed front end, then either fall onto the ground and scrape the road or into the car or fixed object you struck. Very poor odds you’ll come out alive or at least not with major injuries. The only collisions I know of where the driver was thrown from the car without major injuries were out of an unlocked or compromised front door.
My mother from northwest Ohio and later northeast Indiana always called them “chuckholes”. As I think about it, neither the term “chuckhole” or “pothole” makes any sense – isn’t it just a hole?
Don’t forget the optional “Child’s Safety Jacket”, only available on 1957 Mercurys. I’m still trying to find an actual picture of one:
Here you go. It’s apparently pictured in the 1959 (I didn’t find a 1957 Accessories brochure) Mercury Accessories brochure. I’ve not yet found that brochure online to browse, but there are several people selling it ( https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1959-mercury-accessories-car-dealer-3603014878 )and it’s possible to screen grab a picture (page 16). There are a few pages devoted to safety equipment.
I do see it mentioned in the 1957 brochure, but not pictured. Then it’s pictured in this 1959 brochure. So I guess it was offered more than one year?
I’d thought that maybe the jacket was about visibility (sort of like the School Patrol’s browning belt), but it appears that it was something that attached to the seat belts and held the kid down. I’ve seen similar things sold nowadays for dogs. I can’t imagine that they sold a lot of them.
How does it “attach to regular seat belt”? I can see a couple of dangling straps at the bottom but tying them to the seat belt every time you take the kid somewhere would seem complicated.
Seat belt vests are still made – appears that they’re marketed largely to special needs providers, though manufacturers do market them to the general population as well. But for a non-special needs situation, this seems awfully cumbersome to use regularly.
Here’s another picture. The boy in this photo apparently won a go-kart race, and a “Child’s Safety Jacket” was his prize, courtesy of the local Lincoln-Mercury dealer. (Goodness, I wonder what second place prize was?).
It’s a bit tough to figure out just how the jacket attaches to the seat belt – the men in this photo are both holding buckles that appear to be sewn to the bottom of the jacket, so I presume that the car’s adult lap belt attaches to these somehow. I feel this kid’s enthusiasm for his prize likely wore off pretty quickly.
The full-page black-and-white Lifeguard Design ad has a Tad Burness quality to it. Wonder if he got his inspiration from an ad like this. He would have been 23 at the time this ad was released, but I can’t find anything that indicates he did promotional work for Ford. His illustration career took off in 1966.
McNamara might have sold Ford on the idea that seatbelts restrain people during an accident and that keeping them alive is a requirement for future sales. Perhaps a car accident took the life of someone close to him and was the impetus for him to push hard for something considered frivolous at the time.
Click the link below for a funny physics lesson.
It’s the Roller Disco Truck scene from Jackass the movie.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DwpaKBt7VOFc&ved=2ahUKEwj5qJLqmvGEAxVEw8kDHTpHC9sQwqsBegQIBhAG&usg=AOvVaw1Ld6AtbrXKasBlYLnymGDY
There was an incident with this type of undertone to it. In the mid-60s Arjay Miller, a Ford executive, was rear-ended in his Lincoln and the car burst into flames. It was the impetus for him to try and promote safer gas tank designs. Evidently, that went nowhere.
I’d never seen the brochure, and it was interesting to read–as with any product, how is it to be sold, in words and images?
Oddly enough, I went Googling for “Lifeguard Design” in Ford ads, and it reappears a bit in 1967—the era of dual master brake cylinders, mandatory seat belts, etc. Here’s a little corner of a Thunderbird ad:
I never noticed that before researching this article, but it seems that Ford used the term “Lifeguard Design” sporadically into the 1990s. Surprising, considering that the whole 1956 episode probably wound up being a headache for the company, but I suppose “Lifeguard” is a great marketing term for safety systems.
Here’s an excerpt from the 1986 Taurus brochure, that mentions “Lifeguard Design.”
Thanks for finding these ads and instructions. In Rhinebeck, NY is The Rhinebeck Aerodrome. In one of the hangars there is an airplane and a board with explanation of an aviatrix who in 1919 was performing stunts and was not belted in. When she turned the aeroplane over, she fell out and to her death. The explanation continues with information as how since then pilots use their safety harnesses. I did not know that since 1926 that seatbelts were installed on passenger airplanes. So, there is much precedence for this including in automobile the 1948 Tucker. SEATBELTS SAVE LIVES! I never go anywhere without first buckling up, since my first new car in 1966.
By 1956 only a tiny percentage of Americans had ever ridden in an airplane and would have ever used a seat belt, or even seen one. I was one of the few, first flight in 1955.
Funny or not: In the first picture, there is a child seated in the front passenger position. OOPS! Not any more!
Ford advertising did not entirely abandon safety and seat belt promotion after 1956 as demonstrated at 1:30 in this video where Tennessee Ernie Ford presents a safety pitch for the 1958 Ford that includes optional seat belts.
Also, IIRC in the documentary film The Fog of War Robert McNamara provides a fairly full discussion of his reasons for getting Ford involved in auto safety. He was interested in the ongoing research at the Automotive Crash Injury Research Center, founded in 1952 by John O. Moore at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory and supported by Liberty Mutual Insurance that culminated in the building of the Cornell Safety Car in 1956 that featured improved door locks, energy-absorbing steering wheels, padded dashboards, and seat belts, et al.
McNamara was an objective guy, and not the classic “car guy” who was obsessed with flash, power, etc. It would be consistent with his personality to be objective about the realities of car safety and see that it was an issue that the industry really needed to address. The industry was of course in utter denial about safety, and even talking about it was considered taboo. I give major props to McNamara for bringing this issue out of the closet, where it had been locked up for far too long.
Thanks, I was waiting for you to write.
There are standard Detroit guys and then there are guys like Loewy, Romney and McNamara. These guys were contrarians. All of them approached auto design with an interest in society. Cars were tools for them to use towards a more modern, better society. They understood the impact autos had on modern life and were interested in using auto design to enhance life.
McNamara and Loewy looked towards Europe for ideas. Romney looked inward towards his Mormon social roots. It is not surprising to me to see Bob McNamara pushing auto safety anymore than it was to discover how important auto safety was for both Volvo and Mercedes. McNamara didn’t look to Detroit – he looked overseas. His tenure at Ford makes sense and his work in the Kennedy Administration fits him as well.
Both Romney and McNamara ended up in government. Again, not a surprise. Both were classic liberals, McNamara as a conservative Democrat, and Romney as a liberal Republican. Romney grew a new executive cabinet office – HUD, and McNamara took on the Vietnam war.
So I do see McNamara pushing for auto safety at Ford. It fit him.
You state “McNamara was an objective guy, and not the classic “car guy” who was obsessed with flash, power, etc.” I agree. William Manchester writes in Death of a President about McNamara’s arrival at Bethesda Naval Hospital to support Jackie during the autopsy of JFK: “…his arrival at the hospital was typical of McNamara, to the annoyance of Admiral Galloway and Captain Canada, who thought the secretary should travel in an official limousine, with an escort, he drove a dark blue Galaxy[sic], the last model manufactured by the Ford Motor Company before he resigned its presidency to come to Washington. He had bought it in October of 1960, he was proud of it, and he refused to be shunted into a gleaming Cadillac.”
I’ve spent decades reading about and studying these men and I think it’s a real tragedy that McNamara ended up working with LBJ on foreign policy and war. He became obsequious and fawning in the name of service to and affection for Johnson, an attitude and manner that JFK, ultimately objective, rational, and skeptical of the military, would not have wanted or tolerated. At the same time it became clear to McNamara that we were on the wrong path in Southeast Asia but he became trapped in his role and relationship with LBJ. The result damaged McNamara’s career, psyche, and relationship with his own children and ended in great tragedy for the country. The film Fog of War is a fine documentary of what happened to him and the country.
TV wasn’t entirely against belts. In this ’58 or so episode of Highway Patrol, Mathews is looking over a crashed ’56 Dodge, and says “They’d be alive right now if they’d had seat belts”.
Shocked some people still do not buckle up and get killed. In 1967, I was a passenger in a new 1967 Camaro. A drunk driver pulled out in front of us, at night with no headlights, and we t-boned him at 55 mph. Two dead, two seriously injured, myself only moderately injured (had to be cut out from back seat). From that day on I have never been in an auto without using a seatbelt.
Most people did not want to wear seatbelts in the 50’s, 60’s, and ’70’s, They had their own dismissive ideas about being “thrown clear,” but probably just didn’t want to think about the possibility of a serious crash. Not logical perhaps. I started wearing seatbelts with our ’64 Tempest wagon, equipped with red, color coordinated belts. Lots of folks would stuff them down the seat cracks to get them out of the way! I wore a helmet when I started riding motorcycles, then quit for a time as I started identifying with the “biker” faction. Not too logical or smart, though I later started to wear a full coverage helmet, even before the helmet law was enacted in Calif. Thankfully cars are now safer than ever, with three point belts as well as numerous air bags. If only drivers would quit texting while driving and slow down a bit, things would be even better!
Growing up with Volvo’s I got used to seatbelts at a very young age. But I disable the seatbelt buzzers if possible. Unlike recent Toyota’s, Ford makes this very difficult to do on our 2020 Transit unless I used 3rd party Forscan software to “hack” into the system. If I start the car before buckling my belt, which is my normal practice, it dings at me. And then, if I put it in gear before releasing the parking brake, again my normal practice, it dings again until I release the brake. So Ford is still guarding my life in 2024. Or at least annoying me.
I recall not wearing belts and then gradually starting to wear them, as I increasingly remembered to do so, prompted by TV adverts. Even so, more recently, when buying a new car, I didn’t bother to specify the extra airbags package, so old habits die hard.
Here are some more Lifeguard adverts / safety demonstrations.
My first encounter with seatbelts was in my uncle’s ‘57 Ford station wagon. My family’s ‘57 Plymouth did not have belts but the ‘61 Olds that replaced it did have belts. My uncle, the owner of the Ford with belts, was an aeronautical engineer and worked on building the de Havilland Mosquito during the war, so his background in aviation might have influenced his decision to fit the seat belts to his station wagon.
I wouldn’t want to bet on being thrown clear in an accident.
There was one accident that I believe the State Patrol had photos of to illustrate the folly of being thrown clear.
A van went into the ditch, hit a road approach and the driver was thrown “clear” thru the windshield, unfortunately his trajectory was a little different then the vans path. He landed in the ditch and the van landed on top of him.
Re. not wearing a seat belt/being thrown out of the car argument: it did make SOME sense – if one was driving an open top racing car or a skimpy roadster with zero roll-over protection and fuel systems which were likely to leak and catch fire upon impact; there are enough examples of racing drivers who survived huge crashes because they were thrown out (or managed to abort – yes that was advised also) from their cars. This is totally inapplicable to modern race cars and, in fact, forbidden. However in prewar vintage racing the old rule still applies – no seat belts are obligatory and most race without them. The below is the famous Hans Hermann’s huge accident in the 1959 German GP, he’d have dies had he stayed in the car for sure.
Dad, an aircraft engineer, bought our ’63 Rambler with front seatbelts and headrests. He had rear seatbelts added at our local Sears auto center.
I knew someone would post up that 1956 Ford safety film, they used to show reels like this before the movie started .
If nothing else, the ability to better control the vehicle when firmly belted in place sold me on seat belts as a child .
-Nate
Having been involved in an offset head-on collision (not my fault but that doesn’t make it better), I am thankful that the car had seat (and shoulder) belts, and that I had the sense to wear them. I know it’s anecdotal evidence but considering how I was hurt, I have no doubt I would be pushing up daisies had I not had them on. They don’t protect against everything, and I still believe they contributed to some of my injuries, but they could have been so much worse. If you haven’t been in a bad wreck (count your blessings) you have no idea of the forces involved.
I remember my mother pushing seat belt use from the time I was a tot. I believe we had front belts in our 61 Olds F-85 wagon, and I know we had front belts in our 64 Cutlass, and whenever I sat in the front seat it was a rule to buckle up.
I also remember belts in my friend’s family’s 60 Lark, and my own 59 Plymouth was equipped with them. However, the 61 Thunderbird I owned in the 80’s was not equipped – and I felt naked on those relatively infrequent times when I drove it.