The very first seat belt in a production vehicle was introduced by the Preston Tucker Corporation in the Tucker 48 in 1948. The Tucker 48 was equipped with a lap-type seat belt as an option, while a four-point harness was added as optional equipment in 1949. Other car manufacturers followed suit in the early 1950s, with Ford offering a lap belt in the Ford Thunderbird in 1955, and General Motors offering seat belts as an option in most of their models in 1956.
However, it was not until the late 1950s and early 1960s that seat belts started to become standard equipment in most cars. In 1966, the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a federal standard that required all new passenger cars to be equipped with lap belts, and in 1968, the NHTSA required that all new cars also be equipped with shoulder belts.
