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The IIHS still can’t believe A) how far safety features have come and B) how it cool it was for them to destroy a perfectly good car. Oh, and may you meet the Bel Air’s fate if you don’t get the headline reference. [via Autoblog]
33 Comments on “What’s Wrong With This Picture: “You’re Not Wrong, Walter” Edition...”
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B) how it cool it was for them to destroy a perfectly good car.
Should automakers stop crash testing their cars and we can just take their word for it that they are safe. Their the IIHS they crash perfectly good cars for a living.
Boeing snaps the wings off a perfectly good 787 – should they not do that as well?
So, they have proven that, in fact, the sky is blue.
…as well as destroying an example of one of the best designs GM ever came up with.
Now if only we could convince them to smash all the 2010 Camaros with all the remaining 1970 Camaros.
The IIHS testers must have all played with the “Smash Up Derby” set when they were kids.(Crash, bang, smash em up…)
When they repeat this again in 50 years nobody is going to care about the 2009 Chevy…trust me
@jmo….uh,I think the heartbreak wasn’t the destruction of the new Malibu…
The lesson here isn’t simply that cars are safer now than they were 50 years ago. I know many people who insist that behemoths from the 1950s would be safer than today’s cars if they just had airbags and seat belts. And it seems logical, to some extent – big cars with heavy steel frames are quite a bit more substantial than today’s lightweight unibodies. But that’s not the case – the issue is not only strength, it’s energy absorption and distribution. Case in point: the Bel Air’s sturdy frame allowed most of the energy from the crash to pass straight into the passenger compartment, with lethal results. Modern stress analysis can make a new small vehicle design substantially more crash-worthy than a larger old one, even without taking into account modern safety features. Kudos to the IIHS for illustrating this fact clearly.
Oh, and to complete the quote:
You’re not wrong, Walter – you’re just an asshole.
uh,I think the heartbreak wasn’t the destruction of the new Malibu…
They needed to do it to prove a point. If you did a poll and showed pictures of both cars, what % would say they think the old Chevy was safer?
How many people looked at the crash test video of the Volvo 940 vs. the Renault Modus and figured – hum maybe the new cars are a lot safer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBDyeWofcLY
Indeed one could argue that lives have been saved by at least a few people being convinced that a new car is safer than their trusty old “tank”.
Shut the f*ck up Donnie
The passenger compartment integrity of the ’09 Malibu is damned impressive — no two ways about it. The door-off view of the ‘Bu shows also that it is a damned good thing, because there is NO margin for error. The driver’s knees are incredibly close to the dash — something that I have noticed with other newer cars. However, I suspect the passenger compartment of those infamous tin-can Brilliances looked the same way, with the bulging dash and column intruding on what used to be knee space. Going back to the question posed a few days back of what car FEELS safest, I for one wouldn’t mind a both-and solution, i.e. give me strong passenger compartment integrity but give me a little wiggle room too!
Yeah, well, you know, that’s just like, your opinion, man.
They need to do a crash test with Lutz and Fritz, to see if we can learn anything from 2 dummys.
I love it. Lutz and Fritz and in a YuSuburbaHoe. Low-speed rollover will do the trick just fine.
And dispel some more illusions about what’s a safe vehicle.
The problem, besides crashing an antique, is that the Bel Air is a flawed design to begin with. A weak frame compounds the lack of crush zones. Try this test with two 300D’s or something. Christine will pummel the modern version.
I’ve crashed over a hundred cars, mostly Chryslers, over the years, and watched the movies of thousands more, all makes. Most of the people commenting on this issue haven’t a clue what they are talking about.
I suspect the cars the IIHS chose for this rtest were chosen becaus ethey are about equal in weight. Check the numbers.
Note that the Malibu pretty much overrides the frame of the 59. It doesn’t matter whether the frame is an X or a perimeter, or straight. Note the lack of body structural integrity, the penetration of the steering column, the failure of the door latch and door structure. It wouldn’t matter what car you used, any car from that period would probably fail in a similar manner. There was a complete lack of crash testing back then, and a complete lack of interest. Despite Ford’s marketing campaign, in 1956, little engineering was done to make the cars any different than the 55 Fords. Note in the early Ford films, the cars were crashed without the doors attached, showing a complete lack of understanding of the importance of body integrity.
I remember watching the early films of side impacts. It was obvious that the frame had nothing to do with side impact safety. The guard beam system, which GM invented, was the first effective improvement in side impact safety.
I like old cars as much as anyone. There are several in my garage, in fact. But to claim that they are anywhere near as safe as a modern caris ridiculous.
Bob
That Bel Air really tied the room together
@relton,
Those were the days “safety does not sell”, steel dashes, protruding knobs, solid steering columns.
The 59 Chevy with the inline 6 (235 cu.in.) had a lot of empty space under the hood, compared to the 09 FWD Malibu.
In an offset frontal collision there is very little in the front of the 59 Chevy to deform and absorb energy from the collision.
“F**kin’ Nihilists!”
@ relton
Interesting insight. Thanks.
….to claim that they are anywhere near as safe as a modern caris ridiculous.
In my experience that’s not what people say, it’s more along the lines of “my truck is twice the mass of that sedan so I’m twice as safe”. This get’s further contorted to forms of “my (body on frame) 1990s SUV is safer even now than cars of today because it’s soooo much heavier”.
jmo‘s post of the Volvo 940 vs Renault Modus video addresses the prevailing and frighteningly common thinking.
Try this test with two 300D’s or something. Christine will pummel the modern version.
Do you figure that a 300D is that much stronger than a 1990’s Volvo 940? Because the Volvo didn’t do well against a modern car either…
I’m not quite sure why the Volvo 940 keeps being brought up, I guess because of Volvo’s safety image… but it’s a late 70’s design when it came out in the form of the 700-series. It’s still body on frame, a big inline engine, and relatively thin panels (the doors aren’t very thick. It’s a bit safer than any of it’s contemperaries, from 1982 to the early 90s ( I wouldn’t say until it’s demise in 1998). But, a modern unibody is going to best the Volvo in a crash test, and it would be favored against the 59 Chevy.
This is where our hard-earned insurance $ goes, either to these IIHS clowns to destroy perfectly good cars, OR to this SICKENING bombardment by STUPID Gecko ads and even more boring ads from its rivals.
You can bet if the two above did not exist, your auto insurance would INDEED be lower. $1,000s lower every year.
Smokey, this is not ‘Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.
It should be noted that the X frame of the Bel Air was substantially weaker than the ladder type frames used in Fords and Mopars of that day. I don’t think that IIHS chose it for that reason, I think they just wanted to match a new Chevy against a 50 year old Chevy. I still think the new car would come out the better of the two even if they used an old ladder frame vehicle.
If the cars in this test are close in weight, that’s sad commentary on how little we have progressed in reducing weight to increase mileage. I would like to see a Bu, Fusion, or Cadcordima crashed into a big 50 year old Imperial, DeVille, or Town Car/Continenetal (new-smaller vs. old-bigger). That would settle the “old-bigger/BOF is better than new-smaller/unibody” argument once and for all.
You can bet if the two above did not exist, your auto insurance would INDEED be lower. $1,000s lower every year.
Geico spends 6% of revenue on marketing. If your premiums are $1060 you may be right.
Try this test with two 300D’s or something. Christine will pummel the modern version.
Christine was a Plymouth Fury.
It went great. Dude’s car got a little dinged up.
I see the 59 Chevy and inmediately remember the ___________ (fill the blank with a chinese car) crash test.
People at that time didn’t stand a chance.
@relton. I sadly haven’t had the opportunity to see any crash testing. Would be very interesting. You made a good point.
Happily technology and methods have progressed.
Has everyone not realized the silver lining of all this: that working at the IIHS in the crash testing department must be the best job EVER, if you’re still a kid at heart? Plus, it’s morally a free pass to awesomeville:
“What do you do for a living?” “I smash cars together — to save people’s lives.”
“What do you do for a living?” “I smash cars together — to save people’s lives.”
That’s cool and all – but shooting things into jet engines would also be fun.
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/jet-engine-test
Or there is always moose testing SAABS.
http://www.sover.net/~cbrandon/cbrandon/moose.html
The movie industry destroys nicer cars than this every day for nothing more than a few seconds of celluloid. At least this sacrilege had a purpose.
Weight as a factor in safety is only one element. For example, smash an Indy car into a Malibu; you will be less likely to be injured in the Indy car. They design the car to fly apart to dispel energy. Sure, it is totaled, but the driver walks away.
The old Chevy probably sold for less than a day in intensive care.
@jmo – thanks for the smiling memory jog. I was a co-op engineering student at Allison Gas Turbine in Indy when GM still owned it. On a test lab tour we saw chicken sized silicone figures (hmmm, now that’s a picture) ‘tossed’ into the engines. Of course, the experienced engineers told us the pre-PETA days stories of live chickens, geese, ducks and teased our olfactory imaginations…
Back on topic – where did the Bel Air’s rear fender skirt go?
TEXN3 wrote:
I’m not quite sure why the Volvo 940 keeps being brought up, I guess because of Volvo’s safety image… but it’s a late 70’s design when it came out in the form of the 700-series. It’s still body on frame …
What? The 940 might be rear wheel drive, but it’s most certainly not body-on-frame. I don’t mean to blow your mind, but Volvos have had unibody construction since the 444 in 1947!
Actually that Volvo model was very carefully chosen to make a point. All 940s that were ever sold in North America had at least a driver’s side airbag (and the vast majority had a passenger bag as well), whereas the model shown in the crash test had none. Also, shortly after replacing the 740, the 940s were modified to incorporate the SIPS (Side Impact Protection System) developed for the 850. A 940 that was a year or two newer (or even just a North American spec model) would have faired much better in that test. And an early 90s 850–with a full complement of airbags, SIPS, laser welds, a transversely-mounted engine (to spread the impact) and a front crumple zone specifically designed for offset crashes such as this–would have almost certainly demolished the Renault.