[DeTomaso] 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air Vs. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu IIHSOffset Crash Test

Will Kooiman wkooiman at earthlink.net
Fri Sep 18 13:45:09 EDT 2009


I agree 100%.

I just wish they'd...

1.  Keep the safety, but drop the 5mph bumper rules.  Let the consumer
decide if he/she wants to deal with expensive repairs from low-speed
collisions.  I'd personally rather do without the heavy shock absorber
bumpers and ugly plastic bumper covers.  I like the look of the 60's chrome
bumpers - front & rear.  Way too much gov't intervention on this one.

2.  Design for looks first, and then aerodynamics.  Cars these days all look
the same.  I picked up a cars-for-sale mag the other day.  Everything looked
the same.  That wasn't true in the 60's when automakers were free to design
cars we could get excited over.

I personally think if they'd start designing for looks, it would get the
world excited about cars again.  Sure, aerodynamics are important, but does
it really matter if everything looks like a big bar of soap?  I'd trade
5-10mpg for an exciting looking car any day.

I'd also be interested in seeing how other 50's, 60's, and 70's cars fare in
crash tests.  It's likely that the testers chose the 59 Bel Air because they
knew it would fail miserably.  I'm not suggesting a Pantera would do better
- we all know it doesn't crash well.  I am suggesting, however, that other
cars might have done okay.

Also - new cars these days have MUCH better brakes & suspension than what
was common in the 60's - in general, of course.  Some 60's cars were okay,
but most had crappy brakes and they drove like boats.

-----Original Message-----
From: detomaso-bounces at realbig.com [mailto:detomaso-bounces at realbig.com] On
Behalf Of Larry Finch
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 12:28 PM
To: detomaso at realbig.com
Subject: [DeTomaso] 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air Vs. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu
IIHSOffset Crash Test

That year chevy was an X-frame.

No frame on the sides by the cabin.  The 59 LF tire was slammed into  
the passenger compartment. the driver would have instantly died.   
Wouldn't have been any different if it was a tree, or another 59.

As much as we love old cars, and know their sheet metal was heavy  
gauge and the only plastic in the cars was the radio knobs, they had  
ZERO safety engineering put into them.

One can complain about Nader and government mandated safety  
improvements all you want, look for missing engines (the 6-cyl was in  
place) and say it would have been different in a direct head-on (not a  
side-to-side).

But bottom line, cars are safer now than 50 years ago.  A LOT safer.

Larry
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