I know it's not exactly F1 stuff, but it is a fascinating comparison between old and new technology.......which car would you rather be driving?

2009 Malibu vs 1959 Bel Air Crash Test

John

Jesus!

The '59. It has better lines.

That's cool. I wouldn't have guessed that the Malibu could scratch the bumper on the '59 if it was shot out of a cannon.

I've seen that video before, amazing video.

FB, I think it just about scratched the rear bumper!

It's OK, you can't see it from the back.

I agree.......but I would rather be in Cleveland as opposed to driving the '59 at that particular point in time.

John

It's sad that cars have to be designed around people driving like that though..

Damn crash-test dummies, they've ruined everything through their crass driving. Probably in cahoots with Ralph Nader...

Before everybody accepts the message from the Insurance Institute it is worth pointing out that ( as far as I can tell) the '57 Bel air did not have seat belts, airbags or safety seats.

All of those things could be fitted to the Bel Air wihout massive change. It would also be interesting to see what a smart enginer with a modern FEA programme could do to re engineer the Bel Air frame front end to get progressive collapse. A retest with those changes might have very different comparative results.

Dont get me wrong, I am not claiming that the Bel Air is just as safe as the Malibu but remember that the chassis design of the Corvette C6 is basically a frame structure with a separate body just like the Bel Air, similarly until very recently most US SUV's were seperate frame designs and they all passed these tests. So I think the video is presenting a very simplified version of a complex probelm where small design changes can make a big difference. If you go way back in history the same US insurance trade body came up with some ludricrous designs in the 1970's which if adopted by Detroit would by now have probably resulted in the complete exhaustion of every oilfield in the world due to their weight and gas usage.

The '59 Chevy could never, ever be as safe as the Malibu. The required redesign would create a totally different car. Don't know if you noticed in the video, but among other things the seat is broken off its mounts and the left door comes off. The '59 Chevy's frame structure is nothing like a C6 Corvette's. '58-'64 Chevies used an X-type backbone frame with no perimeter protection whatsoever. Even in its time it had a well-earned reputation as a piece of cheese.

One thing they were known for: When they got a bit rusty the frame would break in half (just ahead of the rear control arm mounts in the illustration below) on the lift and the car would fall off. I once saw one land on a new Oldsmobile parked next to it. Boy was that guy pissed. Took some time to pry him off the ceiling.

Are you kidding? Watch the video again. The Bel Air dummy gets smashed in the face with the steering wheel and the A pillar. The passenger cell fails very early in crash. Seat belt and air bag would have made little difference.

Yep, fat lot an airbag can do when the dash, steering column and windshield won't stay put. Or seat belts either when the seat mounts fail. There's really no comparison between these two cars. The difference is decades of safety research and engineering and tens of thousands of cars crash-tested.

Is that sand coming out of the right hand side sill?

I didn't notice that first time - weird! Can't be rust, surely... certainly looks like sand, perhaps it was used by a jobbing builder.

I specifically said that I was not claiming that the Bel Air was as safe as the Malibu. The point I was making is that products that have seperate chassis' etc e.g the C6 and many modern SUV's appear , from testing, to be as safe as unitary cars like the Malibu. The test results may hide some other weaknesses but insomuch as the C6 and many SUV's met the test stds they are OK. They are also in may ways a descendent of the Bel Air etc in concept ( frame/body/V-8 etc.)

So I think the point that I was trying to make was that all the years of safety studies and crash tests have benefitted frame/body vehicles as much as unitary body ones. I would think that ultimately a unitary body IS safer than a frmae as the metal is better distributed etc. but nonetheless the C6 passes the required tests .

Maybe they used sand as hidden ballast to get the results that they wanted for the crash test.

You can't trust anyone...

Of course these tests don't test the caapcity of the car/driver to avoid the accident in the first place.... Not that I would try to lead this topic into an off-topic conversation of political values, vibrating engines or some such.

I am pretty certain that is just dirt, as in sediment -- silt, if you will. The car gets dirty, naturally, and car washings and rain wash this dirt down into the bottoms of the door panels, rockers, fenders, and frame. (One reason you should never wash a car from the top down, but from the bottom up.) Looks like a lot of dirt but then this Chevy is 50 years old.

This sediment is a major cause of rustout on big old American cars like this, as it tends to plug the drain holes in the doors and fill up the acute angles in the fenders and chassis. The silt and other gunk trap water and rot out the panels from the inside. Judging from the color of the dirt, looks like the car came from the South or the Southwest... the best place to find clean, original old cars like this one. I was watching for chunks of body filler to come flying but I didn't see any. Nice old car. Sort of made me cringe to watch it get wrecked, but it's only a lowly four-door sedan. Its market value was surely less than the new Malibu also smashed up.

Sullen lot too, aloof. Keep only to themselves.

Funnily enough Australia got the 59 Chev but only the four door sedans and I think that most of them had the 6 cyl engine. I am sure that our ones didn't get the X member frame, they got the old ladder frame. The 58 Chev and 59 Pontiacs in Australia were only different in the outer panels.

My brother had a 59 Pontiac which was a Canadian import and it was a lot different to the 59 Pontiacs that Holden assembled but they were both a lot different to the US "Wide Track" 59 Pontiac.

The '58-'64 GM X-frame was sort of a strange ranger... to me, a sort of half-step between BOF and unitary construction. You can see how the body would need stiff rocker boxes and so on to have any rigidity at all. However, the separate chassis permits a traditional body drop, etc. Chevy used it for the full run but Pontiac and Olds stepped off early and went to a perimeter frame in '61. However, Buick used it '61-'64 if I have all the years right. All these cars used two and three-piece driveshafts with double-yoke CV joints and carrier bearings to get the shaft through the frame tunnel.

Among other things, the X-frame created a high, flat floor, as the floor pan sits atop the frame rails with no step-down. Between that and the extreme windshield wrap-around, the '59-'60 Chevrolet version also featured the kneecapper front door opening. Not too bad with a two-door but on the short-door bodies (four-door, wagons, El Camino) ouch. Used to bang my knee every other week on an old El Camino.

I know absolutely zero about Holden-assembled cars, but the Canadian full-sized Pontiacs were essentially Chevrolets with Pontiac-ish sheetmetal. Not interchangeable with U.S. Pontiac as the panels were often dimensionally different due to variations in wheelbase, etc. but same lines and identical jewelry -- lamps and bezels and so forth. For example, the '55-'56 Canadian Pontiac looks identical to the U.S. Pontiac but is the same wheelbase as the Chevrolet. So when you look a bit closer the front fenders are shorter between the wheel house and door cut than a "real" Pontiac. Mix 'n match.

Here in the Great Lakes area of the U.S., Canadian-spec cars were not uncommon. Led to some WTF moments at the body shops and parts counters, etc. An everyday thing in Australia, I expect. Every car you had over there seemed to be a platypus of some sort. Interesting place to live for a car guy, provided you are into all this trivia. I love going to Australia just to see all that stuff driving around.

The other wonderful place to see mixed up autos used to be Brasil. I only went there twice in the 1980's and in 1997 but then the strict import rules and relatively small market meant that the usual group of global manufacturers had to collaberate. So I think it was Ford ( IIRC) who worked with Renault. GM was big but it semed to build cars which used bits of Detroit and Opel at the same time. V-8's were not common but straight sixes propelled the bigger luxo wagons and some "GT"style cars. I beleive the same was true in Argentina, certainly if you go over to the Nostalga forum there is a great thread on the 1970's Argentinian single seaters with a chevy straight 6. It is funny to see a formula car with such a long engine etc.

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=71916

Sherlock Holmes was a mere amateur... Do you think it was generally parked, in the open, facing East, so dust was driven through the worn door seals by the usual southerly winds, drifting against the right hand sills, to be washed into the rockers by spring rains?

Todays car are design to absorb the impact using crumple as cusion for the passenger cell but with the Bel Air it seems the entire vehicle is a cushion. Human safety cell concept has taken car safety to a new level.

Not really. I've just worked on a f**kload of cars over the years. When I started there were still plenty of '59 Chevrolets in everyday use. The current collection of junk around here ranges from 1926 to 1995, not including daily drivers. I have seen that same cloud of fine dirt a thousand times. Whenever you remove a fender or drop a crossmember you can get a faceful of it.

I would like to see a test on both cars, with both being rear-ended by a semi-cab at thrity miles per hour; that might actually tell somthing.
I knew the frame on that Chevy was pee-poor and for another forum looked up info on the cahssis of U.S. cars of that period (I no longer have the web site) and one pretty much said that a Chevy of those years was a death trap comparedto Fords of that particular time.

Bah. People in classic cars assuming they are not going to have an accident. Who would crash into such a beautiful car?

I would! I want to check out the dirt...

Actually Demo Derbies have ben a test on all these cars. All those flat fin Chevs and Pontiacs were quite fragile in comparison to a lot of cars. Barge Fairlanes particularlty the Ranch Wagon were the kings of demos. And most were so rusty that they had holes everywhere but it seemed to make no difference.
Though that test could be skewed anyway. The car travelling faster will sustain far more damage than the slower one.Also ofcourse the Chev is 50 years older and is sure to be rusty and fatigued in comparison to new.
The other interesting thing is that the 59s wrap round screen while obviously weakening the shell at least has good visibility. Most modern cars are abysmal with those great fat A pillars. They must cause accidents as they are a major visual obstruction.I get out of my modern Ford Falcon into my 71 Ford Galaxie and I can actually see to my right [Aussie RH drive car]
Very sad bending classic metal though these days

Your right. All our Aussie cars were CKD from Canada and even then had differences. And the RH drive conversions left a lot to be desired too. No power steer until about 63 either unlike the US cars that had powersteer optional in 55.
GMH managed to sell a lot of Fords with their abysmal Chevys and Pontiacs.
All our Aussie cars were 6s though some dealers did import American V8 cars.

I'm 99% sure that's not the case - as long as the relative speed between the cars is the same, then it makes not difference as to what speed over the ground they are doing as such.

You don't think this test was meaningful then? Why not?

They make excellent Demo Derby cars, especially if you wash out the "dirt" receptacles and refill with concrete.

Stationary car hit by similar car travelling at 70 mph. Stationary car - broken headlamp, moving car - written off.

i would like to see proof - or at least the rationale behind that one.

We had a similar discussion a while back on Dr Karl's science forum, about the head-on collision between two cars and the energy involved.
I initially argued that the second car made the energy go up as a square, but then I realised it was 'only' double that of one car hitting a brick wall. The thought experiment I devised that helped me was that if you had two symmetrical cars hitting head-on, but they had a sheet of paper between them and they hit perfectly, the paper would not be broken. (not practical I know, but it's just a thought experiment)
So in a two car head-on, the energy experienced by one car is the same as if you'd hit a solid brick wall, not four times as much.

So same reasoning here - It doesn't matter if the car being hit by the other car is stationary, it's just the relative speed between them. Real world, yeah I know is a little different but it's still pretty close to theory.

Also well off-topic but you reminded me of some interesting crashes.... Pocono Raceway originally had retaining walls not of concrete but of steel plate. I have no idea why they chose steel, but when a car hit the wall a great red cloud of rust and scale would be thrown into the air.

The steel walls were one of the reasons the Indy cars stopped running there. (That and it was really bumpy.) Drivers felt the walls were dangerous -- as they saw it, cars were "grabbed" by the steel plate instead of sliding or rebounding.

That was the sales pitch when the 180-degree windshield was introduced, but unfortunately the laminated glass had the optics of a fun-house mirror. Drivers could lose a pedestrian or even a car turning into them in the curvature. So the wrap-around windshield was actually one of the early casualties of the original auto safety movement.

Two of the earliest improvements were in door/latch integrity and rollover protection. It was very common in a high-speed impact for the doors to be torn open and occupants (who were not wearing seat belts, of course) thrown right out of the vehicle. Rollover concerns did away with the "cantilever" hardtop and also killed the convertible first time around.

Enthusiasts generally don't like to admit it but Nader was right. The cars were deathtraps.

Early production cars and early racecars had one thing in common - you wouldn't want to crash one. Some years ago three of us built a Pre '65 racer from a Ford Cortina - it was about as strong as a Kleenex box compared with current cars. My earlier comment about Ralph Nader was not meant seriously - people like him have a tendency to rub certain sectors of the community up the wrong way, but he was right to campeign for major changes in auto manufacturing.

After observing the horrific images of the stock bench seat being destroyed along with the occupant, there is now a somewhat disturbing trend in thinking as it relates to safety issues concerning the consequences and/or wisdom of putting a LSx/6L90 combo in a '56 Chevy.

Odd........in past years, I have not dwelled on such alien concepts of associating danger with Hot Rodding........so it now seems that a new reality of what old age has become for me...........confronting the issues of finite time, mixed with thoughts of the inevitable, yet somehow trying to hold on to what may be left.

Nah......that's rubbish.......where is the GMPP catalog and my beer?

John

That's what I like to see! Age-induced common sense and self-preservation over-ruled by blind optimism and alcohol.

Watch for an interesting announcement from GMPP at SEMA on Tuesday.

Oooh/wow.....sounds exciting!

Thanks Mac!

John

The asinine clip is supposed to show how dangerous cars were, verses how incredibly safe a new one is and that is bs.

A few years back, I t-boned a GM compact at about ten miles an hour when the the yout decided to pull out and stop in my lane.

I caved in the side of his car, and had I hit him at even thirty miles an hour, he would have been in a serious world of hurt.

When the cop arrived he first communicated with the person I hit, privately, and then came over and said, "I guess this is your car?", pointing to a car sitting there with a cruched front-end.

I said no this was just sitting here, I have no idea whose it is, my car is over there and I pointed to my '74 Ford full size.
He said "OH. Any damage?"
I told him I think the front bumper moved back an inch or two but go have a look.

In the end, the boy's mother's new car was totalled and I got a check for one hundred dollars from her insurance company.

As I said, the clip shows nothing.
Bob

PS--Many years ago, whilst driving in winter; I to tried to turn into a down-town alley way. The alley was covered with ice and I slid into the brick building bordering the alley.
I do not know the speed, but I hit the corner of the building dead-center in the front bumper of a '50 Chevy Deluxe.
It put about a three-inch deep vee into the bumper, and took out apprx. six inches of building brick.
I backed-up and kept on trucking. (I worked in the next store down)

Try that with any of new econo-box fwd crap and you have thousand of dollars of vehicle damage.

Modern cars are generally much stronger, both the crumple zone and the safety cell, but specifically the safety cell. As a result of that the deceleration in a crash is usually higher in a modern car, so seat belt tensioners are used to compensate.

But you don't need to go 50 years back in time to find big differences between a modern and an old car.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBDyeWofcLY

I have seen it in practice any number of times. A slow moving car will normally sustain less damage than the faster moving one. This is true in both motorsport and road crashes. Normally in chain collisions the rear car sustains more damage the the one hit. My main road business has seen me with the results on a weekly basis for years as they happen out the front in peakhour. Though the rear end damage is usually more expensive to repair.
As for those Chevs being ok for demos, sorry the bum folds down on the ground and tyres and they do not move any more. The Fords and Chryslers go up and usually go until the tailshaft breaks or falls out! Unfortunatly I have seen far too many demos in my life, not by choice but as a part of speedway meetings.

All you demonstrated here is that cars are more vulnerable to damage in the doors than in the front bumper. If the sub-compact ran into your door the results would be essentially reversed. Now, obviously a sub-compact is going to come out the loser in a fender-bender with a '74 LTD, but that is totally irrelevant. The goal of safety engineering is to protect the occupants, not to keep the vehicle looking pretty. In a 30-mph side impact I would much rather be in a current sub-compact than a '74 Ford. No comparison. '59 Chevy, forget it. No door beams, no perimeter frame, no side impact protection to speak of. A hardtop or convertible would be even worse.

Did you notice that in the video, the '59's windshield is torn out and tossed into the air? So with no seat belts or steering wheel to stop him or her, the right-seat passenger could be launched right out over the hood. It happened every day with these cars in impacts like this. The cars were deathtraps compared to what we have today. I hope we are not going to argue about it because really, there is no argument. Sure, current cars are more expensive and difficult to repair after an accident. BFD. The stupid car can be replaced. People can't.