Crash

[Logan]

Think it may work.

http://communicator.gm.com/v5/sites/featur...video/crash.wmv

[Cadillac Jim]

Logan -- I can't access the server. If you are logged on at work this might not be a server on the WWW, or it might not have the same URL out here. You might try finding an outside link to the video.

[John Wicz]

I think that this may possibly be the video that Logan was referring to: http://blogs.thecarconnection.com/marty-bl...u-vs-59-bel-air

[Logan]

Yeah, some of that was GM internal...

Try this...you do have to srcoll down for video:

http://blogs.thecarconnection.com/marty-bl...u-vs-59-bel-air

[joeb]

new cars have crush zones. but the 59 driver area was wasted. somewhat surprising. i think even a full on frontal instead of an offset hit would have been just as bad.

[Cadillac Jim]

The exact geometry and velocity of the crash was a worst case for the 1959 model because the collision missed the engine of the 1959 model, as I think it's clear from the video. The older car was designed to withstand survivable head-on collisions, in that the engine would go under the firewall. More modern designs that were just beginning to emerge in the 1960's presumed seat and shoulder belts, then air bags. Collapseable steering columns were still a few years ahead, in the early 1970's. Designs with hard passenger compartments began appearing in the 1990's after air bags made high accelerations in the front seat survivable.

This video is particularly sobering to me because I drove a car identical to the 1959 model in the video for seven years, and the offset front-end collision is far more likely in the real world than the squarely front-end collision that it was designed to protect the front seat passengers. I think that the car in the video had the inline six-cylinder engine, which was still very popular in that model year, as mine did, because I didn't see the large gold V on the front of the hood; this might have been removed to place the little BMW emblems that they use to track sheet metal positions in the analysis of the videos but I also didn't see engine debris from the crushed portion of the Bel Air front end. This gave more clearance for the collision without involving the engine, and made the 1959 model over 200 pounds heavier, all in the front end, and it is about 4000 pounds dry weight. My old car weighted 4200 pounds with oil, gas, and me in it.

Although it seems that the collision depicted was carefully arranged to highlight as much difference in safety in collisions as possible, the points that the video makes are all quite valid. Cars are far safer now than they were in the 1950's and 1960's. I do credit passenger cabin integrity in a 1986 Ford Escort with saving my life when I was rammed in the driver's door on September 11, 1989 at 8:55 AM, PDT. And, a new car with side air bags and body design like the 1009 Malibu and other cars meeting NTSB requirements is demonstrably the safest configuration we have ever had available to us.

[Logan]

Here is another popular youtube video.

Failed crash test of the China Brilliance BS6 sedan. Sold in Europe... They had to go back and redesign a bunch of the vehicle structure.

Looks about the same as the 1959.

http://www.clipjunkie.com/Crash-Test-Failure-vid1443.html

[^Tom^]

hi all

after 3 years i am back here with my "new" 1999 STS with only 8'500 miles on it.

all is working fine exept the air-condition (but no code is set)

i hit with my 1960 cadi 30 years ago at the highway a backwards driving opel station wagon with my right front and fender.

after the crash i was fine. the cadi i repaired, the opel was a wrack.

think: the cadi had/have still no seat belts!

my speed was about 55 miles an hours. the opel was driving about 5 miles an hour backwards and was comming in my lane.

tom;

from switzerland

[Cadillac Jim]

In about 1974 some kid in his father's new Dodge Diplomat came out of a blind driveway in front of my 1969 Chevrolet station wagon and I caught his driver's side front fender with my bumper and headlight. I needed a fender, bumper and headlight. The kid's father needed a Dodge.

[hjb981]

Check this out and compare the two cars - I would not have wanted to be in the Peugeot! Can anyone tell me what cars those are? I would guess that the Peugeot is from the 80s or early 90s, and the other one looks like a GM from the the same period.

For something longer and more sad (from a Cadillac perspective), the below link shows what a 97-99 DeVille (like mine) can look like after having rolled , including when it is flipped back on its wheels. There were alcohol bottles on the scene... The Cadillac appears at 1:53 into the clip.

[KHE]

Check this out and compare the two cars - I would not have wanted to be in the Peugeot! Can anyone tell me what cars those are? I would guess that the Peugeot is from the 80s or early 90s, and the other one looks like a GM from the the same period.

The Cadillac was a 1975-1979 Seville.