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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."
All I can say is "You bastards! You murdered a car with tail fins! Have you no heart?
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.
Now this is a story all about how my life got flip turned upside-down. I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, I'll tell you how I totally destroyed a classic car in the name of science.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
The comments on the video are rather telling. A number of people claim the video must have been faked, because "The Chevy would have barely gotten scratched."
Notably, a number of the panelists on the hearing about the sinking of the Titanic expressed serious doubts that mere ice could have torn iron. In other words, time marches on, but ignorance of physics remains a constant. (Also see, "This is the first time in the history of mankind that fire has melted steel.")
Actually I am a lab rat in an elaborate plot to take over the world.
A recent TopGear did something similar: they crashed an NCAP (European crash standards body) 5 star+ rated (the highest rating) car (Renault Espace) into an earlier model of the same car (a 1998 Espace I think it was) at 35 mph.
The crash investigator they had evaluate the results said the driver of the older car would have had multiple broken bones, including both femurs, and even if he'd survived the crash he would have bled to death by the time they could extract him, which would take 30-40 minutes as the car was so badly deformed.
In contrast, the modern Espace's computers decided the crash wasn't bad enough to deploy the air bags! Only the seat belt pre-tensioners fired. The investigator thought everyone in that car would have walked away from the accident uninjured.
Their conclusion was that modern crumple zones and stiffer chassis work but because they are stiffer older cars suffer much more when colliding with a modern car.
What always surprises me is how much damage is done to any car, old or new, at these low speeds! Really says to me that any speed limit over 40 mph on any single-carriage way road is just insane.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
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!
Top Gear tries to stay away from useful facts and info as much as possible.
And the idea of Top Gear having TWO cars that cost below $40,000 on the screen at the same is pretty far fetched.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
One reason that the door crumpled so readily is the crazy wraparound windshield. The windshield pillar contains a free-hanging right angle, which is not the way that a structural engineer would have done it. It also bangs the knees.
The big problem with older cars is that the body shape was sculpted from clay in a studio separate from the rest of the car designers, rather than being designed as part of an automobile. The end result being that the body shape had no basis in sound mechanical design.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
My friend, many motorcyclists care deeply about their bikes, but that does not prevent surgeons from referring to them as "organ donors".
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
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 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.
What part of "74,000 milse on the odometer, which was broken" did you overlook?
There's nothing like $HOME
If the frame stays intact, but the body shears away in a shrapnel of sharp metal, then the frame is useless. The frame of the car in the video could have stayed 100% intact, but all the bodywork and engine and all crashed inside the passenger compartment ... then all of them are dead anyway. A tank is useless if in a 30 mph crash the engine flys off inside and kills all the crew.
Modern cars are safer by miles. Deal with it.
And now, it's just a little bit rarer.
Good news for the Bel Air owner though: the fuzzy dice looked like they survived mostly intact, although I think the string connecting them got ripped or cut.
Seriously, points to IIHS for including the dice. You can see them flying around the cockpit at 1:03 to 1:09. They look like they might present a hazard of as you are crashing, they might hit you in the eye, potentially causing you to blink and miss the carnage right before you die.
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.
Fucking classic-car-driving zombies...