What do you think of this headrest design?

[zzmac]

Originally Posted by Flygirl

I feel like, if your head moves back far enough to contact the head rest, your neck would likely already be hard against the rim of the cockpit and it might actually cause your head to pivot backward, making the whiplash worse. But if it were positioned farther forward, that wouldn't be an issue.

The plan is to extend it out to the edge of the rim.

When I'm sitting in the car, the rim is what actually concerns me the most as it's lined up with the middle of my neck. Although I believe your head can hit the rollbar in a rear end collision, it looks like the neck would take a big impact first with the rim. I had an opportunity about a month ago to test out my theory when a woman came to a screeching halt inches from the rear of my car while I was stopped at a light. She was watching another accident that had happened on the other side of the road.

[Buzz]

Cobras by nature and design will never be "safe" cars and efforts to engineer safety in and to festoon them with multiple bars, pads and bulky bodies with extra long wheelbases might work, but eventually you end up with something other than a Cobra - sort of like bolting training wheels, bumpers onto a motorcycle.

At that point, one might begin to question whether they wanted a Cobra at all, or just some car with cool bulging fenders, sidepipes and a big opening in the front.

Having said that, a roll bar pad like the one you're designing looks good and makes sense from a practical point of view and I also like the SPF seats with the discreet, removable, period-looking headrests. Far nicer than the incongruity of cramming in a pair of huge, modern high back seats.

[xlr8or]

I think all the headrest designs that attach them to the rollbar look horrible. If you want a head rest just put a Kirkey high back seat in the car. It's a race car with a license plate, putting a racing seat in there is the most natural looking way to go.

[mreid]

I like the look and the functionality. I worry more about my noggin cracking on the roll bar than about whiplash, although both are big concerns. When I had my accident in the coupe, it was a front end collision. I was wearing my harness, yet still hit the back of the kirkey seat after my head first snapped forward, then back. My wrists were sore where they gripped and twisted the steering wheel and the back of my head just slightly bruised where it hit the aluminum bead at the top of the kirkey seat. Obviously, a helmet would have prevented my head bruise, but who wears one on the street. The other concern was the roll cage. I used rollbar padding on all the bars as they are hidden under the roof of the coupe, but I think this is asthetically undesirable in my cobra. My point is that the rollbar is a hazard in any kind of accident and your head just inches from it. The pad needs to be far enough forward to protect against both whiplash and your head impacting the rollbar, solidly mounted so it doesn't move (no velcro), and look good. What you have meets the last, but not sure about the first two. Just my .02!

[zzmac]

The velcro bit was a joke started by a guy with padded rollbars.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by zzmac

The velcro bit was a joke started by a guy with padded rollbars.

Actually it was not a joke. Not too long ago a fellow Cobra Club member, who obviously is in the business of fabric/plastics/etc., sent me some custom Velcro strips that he had cut and sewn together on what looked like an industrial sewing machine of some sort. The idea was to see how well removable roll bar padding would look and whether it would hold up. Suffice to say that it was quite nice and much easier than the low profile zip ties that I'm currently using. It's very strong, and looks quite nice. If the idea is to have a headrest that's easily removable, I would not dismiss the Velcro notion summarily. Of course, that friendly member shall remain nameless unless he or she chooses to step forward.

[Tonkin NZ]

I have the Australian-style headrests, they look great but rub on the body with the seat right back. Within 3 weeks I was through to the glass and having to repaint so do not use them except for decoration.