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'09 Malibu Vs. '59 Bel Air Crash Test
theodp writes "To celebrate their 50th anniversary, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crashed a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air into a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu. Hate to spoil the ending of the video, but if you find yourself participating in a similar car-jousting contest, pick the Malibu over the Bel Air. (Not that you'll be complaining afterwards if you don't, or doing much of anything.) Guess there is something to those crumple zones after all."
Right around that year GM went to a wild X-frame design which allowed the door sills to be moved down several inches, making the cars easier to step out of. But the X was not very strong-- there were plenty of news photos showing Impalas broken in half by not very hard accidents.
Also if you look at a 50's car, the bumpers are massive but held up by a couple thin pieces of mild steel stock-- a strong toddler could bend them out of place.
A few people were calling shenanigans, claiming there was no drive train or that the IIHS used a vehicle with a rusted out frame.
So a writer for the NY Times caught up with "David Zuby, the senior vice president at the institute's crash-test center in Virginia"
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/more-details-about-1959-bel-air-crash-test/
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It had the straight six, which you can see on the interior shot shoving the dashboard back violently. The straight 6 engines in those cars offered no protection in an offset crash, and just smashed back through the dash killing the occupants, who were dead anyway.
All you have to do is look at the fatality rates. The number of people who die per mile traveled today is a quarter of the number in the early fifties.
The cake is a pie
Apparently they only paid a couple hundred dollars for this one, it wasn't a polished example.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I realize the crash-test setup and standards continually change, but is there any sort of archive of data tables, or graphs, or something of that sort, showing improvement over time? Like, can I see what the difference in forces on the driver or likelihood of serious injury would be for a 1985 Civic vs. a 2005 Civic going 40 mph into a barrier?
There are details of European crash tests at http://www.euroncap.com/
As al 'almost' example of what you are looking for, please compare the results for a Ford Escort (this model introduced 1990) http://www.euroncap.com/tests/ford_escort_1999/33.aspx vs a current model Ford Focus (introduced 2004) http://www.euroncap.com/tests/ford_focus_2004/204.aspx
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/more-details-about-1959-bel-air-crash-test/
"We didn't want to crash a museum piece," Mr. Zuby said. "We were not looking for one that had been restored for museum or show quality." But the vehicle had to have a solid structure, although a little surface rust would be acceptable.
They found what they wanted in Indiana. "The frame was sound and all the body panels were sound," he said. It had a 3.9-liter 6-cylinder engine and was in driving condition.
The car was bought for about $8,500 and had about 74,000 miles on the odometer, which was broken. It was trucked to the test center in Virginia.
They collide them at an angle because that's the most typical head-on collision scenario. Full head-on collisions are rare.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Arranging head on collisions sounds a lot more like 5th Gear than Top Gear.
But just like the Chevy test video linked to hear, everyone's on YouTube's an expert when it comes to stuff like that.
They've done several like Renault Espace vs. Land Rover Discovery and Volvo 940 estate vs Renault Modus.
I don't recall one with a new and old Espace. The closest I can come to that comparison is the 940 vs the Modus, but that doesn't mean they (or Top Gear) didn't do one with Espace vs Espace - I just can't remember seeing it.
They addressed that, they wanted a car that was structurally sound but not a trailer queen. It drove in under it's own power...an inline 6. So, it was useful to demonstrate the advances without being overly conspicuous in it's consumption.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
They've also contributed greatly to the field of psychology and neuroscience by demonstrating what parts of the brain is responsible for what cognitive function.
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They did: 09 Malibu and 59 Bel Air. RTFA and all that jazz.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
You mean like this? :)
The pictures with the doors removed are simply amazing. Note how, not only is the Bel Air dummy folded up like a pretzel, but the entire body of the car has twisted such that the rear door no longer fits properly. The Malibu on the other hand is almost untouched from the firewall back. What an awesome demonstration of energy dissipation.
How often do two vehicles on the highway hit each other dead-center head on? Front left fender vs front left fender is a more realistic approximation of a highway accident in my opinion. I'd take the Malibu.
Rubbish. kph is a well-known abbreviation for kilometres per hour. It is pretty unambiguous because a) it is really widely used and understood, b) it has no other sensible meaning, c) using 'p' for 'per' isn't in the SI system anyway so you aren't really abusing anything.
Pedant.
I'm an orthopaedic surgeon, and wind up taking care of a lot of people from car accidents. Even a 10 MPH crash is enough to cause whiplash.
Car repairs are much, much cheaper than hospital bills, and there are some things that we aren't still good at fixing like cartilage damage, and whiplash - who likes chronic pain?
..........FULL STOP.
The 59 Bel-Aire wasn't that big a classic. Now crashing a '57 would have been a crying shame!
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
I guess the 2CV is unibody
No, it had a separate chasis, that is why they could build derivatives like the Mehari (OK, based on the Dyane, but that was derived from the original 2CV)
Ah, Youtube. It's the place that makes all but the stupidest Slashdot comments look intelligent.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Modern cars are much more crashworthy and safer than old cars. But this video is a bit of an intentional misrepresentation of reality. Starting with the 1959 models, GM went to a modified unit body construction, eliminating the two, heavy, car-length frame rails that ran the length of the car, and instead mounting a small front frame to attach the engine and transmission to a newly designed unit-body passenger compartment. The aim was to lower the car's profile and to improve head-on collision crash survivability. In the new design the front end was designed as a crush zone- no more instant stop for the passengers when two rigid-frame cars collided head on. Also the engine would no longer end up in the passenger compartment when it broke loose from the frame in a bad accident; instead the engine would absorb much of the front end impact and then slid slide harmlessly underneath the passenger compartment when the subframe collapsed (that was what the wide "hump" in the middle of the floor of the 1959 car was all about). One result of this new design was to make the 1959 cars more dangerous in one type of accident, a "corner to corner" collision, one where the impact was head on but the two cars overlapped a bit but not enough so that the engines absorbed the impact- it was a design tradeoff. The Insurance Institute, which is, after all, a self-congratulatory lobbying group, reproduced that one type of accident here on purpose to showcase the results it wanted you to see. The Institute moved the impact point so that only 40-45% of the cars would overlap (see the overhead view at 1:16-18 in the shockwave flash cited- http://www.autoblog.com/2009/09/26/pics-aplenty-iihs-reveals-before-and-after-of-malibu-bel-air-cr/ ). This is enough overlap to make full use of the new car's unit front end, roll cage and air bags (note even the windshield stays in and absorbs energy), but the overlap is small enough that the old car's engine and transmission, designed to absorb energy in a head on collision, were just outside the accident zone and did not absorb any of the impact energy. If the institute had shown a real head on collision the results would have been very, very different, with the damage much more equal. And a 1958 Chevy in a corner-to-corner would have performed much better. New cars are nifty, but this is a piece of propaganda designed to "educate the masses".
When those things wreck, they disintegrate. The whole car seems to come apart, and you are amazed the driver could survive. However, it is BECAUSE they come apart like that that the driver survives. They have a rigid cage enclosing the driver, and a compliant body. That way the body takes the massive energies involved in the rapid acceleration to a stop, rather than them being transferred to the person.
That whole pesky F=MA thing applies to cars just as well as anything else. When a massive object like a car rapidly accelerates to a stop, there is a shit ton of energy. How that energy is dealt with and dissipated can be the different between a person having a bruise, and dying from their internal organs being destroyed.
This is a 2*40 mph (80 mph) collision. This is roadway speeds, not highway.
Highway would have been WAY worse.
-=Lothsahn=-
You are partially correct, but the equivalent speed is not 80 mph or 40 mph, it is 56.7 mph
The total kinetic energy absorbed in a collision is equal to the sums of the kinetic energies of the objects involved
Assuming a 1500 kg car travelling 18 m/s (40 mph):
E_k = 1500kg * (18 m/s)^2 = 486 kJ
Two 1500kg vehicles travelling 40 mph: total energy = 486 + 486 = 972 kJ
Assuming one vehicle hitting a stationary vehicle with same total energy, solve for velocity
v = SQRT(972kJ/1500kg) = 25.515 m/s (56.7 mph)
Each vehicle absorbs 486 kJ of energy
If you replace one vehicle with a "brick wall", yes everything changes again because the "brick wall" absorbs very little energy
In this case, the vehicle can be assumed to absorb all of the energy of the collision, and the equivalent speed is 40 mph
So these are all equivalent:
1 vehicle @ 40 + 1 vehicle @ 40
1 vehicle @ 56.7 + 1 vehicle @ 0
1 vehicle @ 40 + brick wall
You made the false assumption that if a car doing 40 mph hit a stationary car, the stationary car wouldn't move. This is only the case if the stationary car it itself butted up against a brick wall.
They did the test that way, not because they were rigging it, but because that's their standard offset crash test. It was done to simulate their crashes. The NHTSA did full-frontal crashes against a stationary barrier for years, and the IIHS called bullshit on that test. And the IIHS was right and the government was wrong. This test is a recreation of the offset crash test. That's much more likely to happen in the real world, and much harder on the cars.
And you are wrong about what would happen. My guess is that the engine would be stopped by the Malibu, and the Bel Air would end up collapsing around the engine, making the test that was fatal for the driver suddeny fatal for all occupants of the car. The Malibu, a leg injury for the driver, would turn into a foot and leg injury for the two front passengers. If you did the test they did with a full car, you get one dead person in the Bel Air and a minor injury in the Malibu. Make if full frontal and you get two minor injuries in the Malibu and five dead people in the Bel Air. And yes, though never employed as such, I have taken classes in traffic engineering and accident reconstruction.
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Your physics makes no sense. Why is this modded informative? The ground is not a magical reference point!
If two cars travelling in opposite directions at 40 MPH slam into each other, that's exactly equivalent, in terms of energy dissipation and momentum transfer, to one car travelling at 80MPH slamming into a stationary vehicle. Each vehicle, in its own reference frame, sees another vehicle travelling at 80MPH.
Think about it: if two identical cars crash, and one is stationary, then for a moment (before they come to a stop due to friction against the pavement) they'll be moving together at half the speed of the moving car before the crash. One car goes from 80MPH to 40MPH (40MPH difference); the other goes from 0MPH to 40MPH (40MPH difference).
This is exactly equivalent to going from 40MPH to 0MPH (40MPH difference).
When you're working out simple kinematics like this you should be starting with momentum, which is linear with velocity. You can work out how much energy is released afterwards; you'll see that it works out:
(1/2) * (1500kg) * (36m/s) ^ 2 = 972 kJ - Amount of kinetic energy in the moving car at 80MPH
(1/2) * (1500kg) * (18m/s) ^ 2 * 2 = 486 kJ - Amount of kinetic energy left after the crash: 2 cars at 40MPH
972 kJ - 486 kJ = 486 kJ - Amount of kinetic energy dissipated in the crash
(1/2) * (1500kg) * (18m/s) ^ 2 * 2 = 486 kJ - Amount of kinetic energy in 2 cars at 40MPH
(1/2) * (1500kg) * (0m/s) ^ 2 * 2 = 0 kJ - Amount of kinetic energy left after the crash: in 2 cars at 0MPH
486 kJ - 0 kJ = 486 kJ - Amount of kinetic energy dissipated in the crash
(Yes, kinetic energy is 1/2 mv^2, not mv^2!)
Reading TFA, they paid $8500 and made sure the engine and frame were in good order.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
There were a lot of vehicles from that era and earlier where the vehicles would have survived an accident intact - but the passengers would not, having been thrown around in the vehicle upon impact. Typically stronger steels were used, and designs were such that the vehicles were like tanks - but without passenger restraints it killed the passengers any way.
Another issue is that in those older vehicles, no special attention was paid to reinforcing the passenger compartment. The whole vehicle was stronger, but if enough force was applied to start crumpling the frame, it was more likely to crumple the passenger compartment than the engine compartment.
In contrast, modern vehicles provide a strong protective cage around the passenger compartment. Even that cage may not be as strong as a 1959 vehicle's frame, but it is quite strong, and outside of that cage the modern vehicle is designed to collapse, dissipating the force of the collision so that the cage stays intact, as seen in the video.
Add to that the fact that the crumple zones allow a more gradual deceleration of the passenger compartment, reducing the forces applied to the passengers, plus safety belts to keep the passengers inside that protective cage and reduce their collisions with the steering wheel/dash/seats in front of them, plus air bags to further cushion those collisions. Yes, 50 years of research into automotive safety has made collisions much more survivable.
Now if only we'd made similar improvements in the safety of *drivers*...
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