I have often wondered how many of the low production, high performance “sports” vehicles imported into the United States manage to meet crash and emissions standards…Do Lambo’s , Ferrari’s, Maserati’s get crash tested?, The Benz AMG models? Since it has been revealed that Bosch wrote the emissions cheating software, perhaps other manufacturers had access to it also… I think the EPA will be very busy over the next year or so…
Actually they do. Beware, there’s sad, but educating crashtest halfway through the clip.
I think that’s right, they do have to meet the US regs. That’s one reason we don’t get some of them here.
They absolutely have to comply.
There are very specific exemptions for an extremely limited timeframe for a very limited quantity allowed in order to enable foreign manufacturers to bring concept cars in, but they come with severe restrictions, and these vehicle cannot be sold or driven on public roads.
but they come with severe restrictions, and these vehicle cannot be sold or driven on public roads.I'll bet this is correct. You won't be able to sell the vehicle without this fix being made.
That new impala made mincemeat of the 1960, didn’t it? Somewhere else, someone posted a clip about a newer, “lightweight” car crash tested into an old “tank” of a Volvo, with similar results.
The mid to late fifties were interesting times for the American motorist. Until the V8s started coming out, most moterists were used to slow, heavy cars. All of a sudden, the new cars had powerful V8,s but still were eqiupped with those skinny drum brakes. My second car was a 1958 Pontiac Star Chief. 372 cu in, 4 sp hydro, and scary, scary brakes. If you needed to make an emergency stop, make the first one count, because that’s the only chance you were going to get.
From the looks of the video the exotics seem to hold up pretty well in a crash. Makes sense though, they are often constructed with the latest and greatest in lightweight but strong materials that dissipate energy well ( like carbon fiber).
It isn’t only the exotics. More than one video is available on the internet of old iron being crashed into new cars. The new cars always win by a large margin. There really has been a great deal of progress made in this area. The old engineering gave no consideration whatsoever to what happened to the energy of a crash. The vehicle could crumple and fold however it chose. Needless to say, new designs are highly focused on where the energy goes and how to keep it out of the passenger cabin.
I’m sure everyone has seen crashes in race cars wherein the car flips over numerous times starting at speeds approaching 200mph, throws parts all over the track, and is totally decimated, yet the driver walks away. Much of what’s learned there, combined with what’s learned in in-house crash tests, goes into mass-produced passenger cars. The evolution in passenger protection has truly been amazing… yet not highly visible.
Now if someone can only figure out how to fix the loose nut behind the steering wheel…
“There really has been a great deal of progress made in this area. The old engineering gave no consideration whatsoever to what happened to the energy of a crash. The vehicle could crumple and fold however it chose. Needless to say, new designs are highly focused on where the energy goes and how to keep it out of the passenger cabin.”
+1
And yet, there are still people who say that they want a lot of extremely rigid sheet metal surrounding them. Apparently they never studied physics.
Perhaps these are the same folks don’t use seat belts because “you’re better-off being thrown clear from a collision”. I guess that those folks live in a world where the roads and shoulders are covered with Tempurpedic mattresses, have no broken glass, and where there are no other vehicles to hit you while you lie injured on the pavement.
Agree, but that’s why insurances costs are higher now too-at least for the collision portion. My old 59 Pontiac would hardly have given an inch in a crash, it was so rigid. But my 09 would collapse like an accordion in the same collision. So the car would be destroyed but not the occupants.
With all due respect, I think your 59 Pontiac would have been destroyed in a crash, just like that classic Impala
I’ll go even further
I believe if you were to crash your 09 against your 59 head on . . . like in the video . . . the 09 would go right through the 59, killing the hypothetical driver and passengers of the 59
It always puts me in mind of an unfortunate mouse that was in a culvert pipe we were getting ready to install the pipe got dropped and the mouse was bounced around inside(almost instant death)the pipe wasnt harmed in the slightest.
The structures need to absorb energy,the Engineers,know what they are doing.
It’s my opinion that if there’d been live people in that '60, they’d have been intantly killed. Did you see the way the firewall and windshield structure completely collapsed?
It was a 59 model,I junked one of these one time and chopped the frame to pieces with a mattock,it had a nice square tubing frame(but the metal was soft) and it was mostly bolted together,there wasnt that many bolts holding the body to the frame,they claimed the fins on those things were dangerous to other cars(they would slice right into the other car and had a tendency to get light in the rearend at high speeds,but on the other hand the 59 Chevy had good drum brakes and the old small block engines were pretty powerfu.for their size .Also manually dismantled a 57 Ford(frame was very tough)a 49 Chevy(laminated frame,almost impossible to cut with a hacksaw and mattock)older cars were certainly built different
Comparing crashing a car to literally chopping up the car is comparing apples to oranges, yes?
In a crash, I’d much rather be in the current model Impala, versus the 1959 model
I think what I was trying to say was,that things arent always what they seem,a soft frame will probaly bend easier and as I said the body wasnt attached that well(the unibodies are well consolidated)and I had a little first hand knowledge of the consruction of the older cars,gimme the newer too.
Learned something new today, never heard mattock, looked at images, I had always mistakenly called it an adze, but an adze is only half a mattock!
I might cry a little if I saw a Ferrari crash test… Just saying.
“I might cry a little if I saw a Ferrari crash test . . .”
I wouldn’t
I also wouldn’t cry if I saw a Viper, Lamborghini, McLaren, etc. crash test
They’re just vehicles, and exclusivity, value, historic importance doesn’t change that
What I’m wondering, if VW used software to overcome an emissions problem, other car makers might be tempted to try the same thing (on gas powered models). When one car maker discovers something successful, it usually isn’t long before ALL the car makers copy the new idea or technology…It must be very difficult to get high-performance stick-shift cars to pass emissions certification tests…The temptation to rig the ECM to pass emissions tests would certainly have great appeal…