The History of Seat Belt Usage in Italy, Part 1

I know that among those of you who are American, the thought at the forefront of your minds as you've been reading these last few posts has been: "Are they wearing their seat belts?"

The answer, as you might guess, is: Not.
Or, more accurately: What seat belts?

Did those cars even come with seat belts? I'm not sure what Fiat was doing in those days. But if cars did in fact emerge from the factory with seat belts, the belts were so unused that they withdrew into the recesses of the seat's crack within a few weeks of purchase, never to be seen again. Until.

(more later...)