by Baron » Wed Sep 23, 2009 2:27 am
I saw that video on another forum- and its a 59 Chevy Bel Air, btw, which may seem insignificant until you watch another video that tries to explain away what happened. While it can't deny/disprove that new cars are definitely safer, there is one interesting little tidbit about that particular Chevy. It had a unique frame, called an X-frame, that was about the most unsafe frame there ever was- even in its day. Right behind the engine compartment- about where the passenger compartment started- the two sides of the frame supporting the motor curved in and joined, and from that point one single- yes, SINGLE- unit frame went down the center of the car to split again in time to make the two side frame components needed to mount the rear wheels. Turns out the weakest point was where everything joined together behind the engine compartment. So, basically, as was mentioned earlier, there was very little- and even less than normal, really- frame involved in the accident. That Malibu basically hit nothing but fender metal all the way back to the passenger area.
The opinion on the other forum was that in low speed collisions the huge behemoths of the past would come way out ahead as the victor, but in high speed collisions, they would come out the losers, big time- any of the modern new cars would be much safer for passengers in that kind of collision. I think I would have to agree with that assessment.
btw, even in the video of the Aries crashing, as bad as it looks, the car basically did what it was designed to do- the front end absorbed the impact and crumpled, and unlike that chevy used in the first video, the damage to the car really didn't go past the engine compartment, the passenger compartment pretty much stayed intact. Don't know if I would want to try it at the same impact as the Chevy video, though- which was the equivalent of a 70 mph crash, not the 35 mph crash shown in the Aries video.