@Cavell and where pray tell do I watch the 59/09 Impala crash you speak of?
Safest car? 1993 Volvo 240 wagon/tank with 238,000 miles versus 2004 Prius/tin can with 28,000 miles
+++ to @VDCdriver / @kmccune and the others who see that modern cars are designed to absorb the force of the wreck and save the occupants. We have rolled up to accidents where the front of the car is unrecognizable and the driver was already out of the car walking around. The crumple zone did itās job. A busted car vs a busted head is an easy choice.
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I think this is the crash test. What a thing to do to a 59 Chevy, even if it was a Bel Aire.
Those 1959 cars had X Frames which boded very badly in a crash. There is a clip of a small late model car crashing into this Impala and the driver would have easily survived in the small car, bur crushed into a ball in the Impala which weighed nearly twice as much.
When I was a kid, I knew someone else of the same age who had been in a car accident a couple of years previously, when his fatherās car was broadsided. This kid looked totally different from one side of his face to the other, as a result of horrific facial scars from his injuries in that crash.
I lost track of this kid over the years, but hopefully when he was older, he was able to get effective plastic surgery. When he was a pre-teen, the right side of this kidās face looked like something out of a monster movieāthatās how bad the scars were.
The car in which he had been a passenger was a Chevy, with that notoriously dangerous X-frame.
If a car buyer opted for any of GMās offerings that were more expensive than a Chevy, the buyer got a much safer vehicle with a full perimeter frame, in addition to one that was more luxurious, butāin the long runāIs there any luxury that is better than safety and security?
While we often think in terms of fatalities from crashes, the reality of the situation is that many people surviveāalbeit with injuries of one sort or anotherāand one of the major differences from the cars of yesteryear to the cars of today is that these injuries tend to be much less severe nowadays.
You simply look for it.
Hereās some more.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=crash+test+old+car+vs+new+car&qpvt=crash+test+old+car+vs+new+car&FORM=VDRE
Keith ,I think you can find it on youtube .The crash was pretty serious and the old Impala seemed to be pretty rusty,I junked one by hand once and it probably from what I could tell wasnt that great at crash resistance (loved that old car(powerpack 283 ,powerglide) the real thing about the styling I didnt like was the busy front end and the evil eye tailights(60 model bullet tailights much sleeker)Have a friend how had a 60 model canary yellow 2 dr convertible(283 punched out to 301) How I would love to have that car now.
If you want to win a demolition derby an old Chrysler ,Plymouth station wagon ,late fifties early sixties are the way to go ,these things are really heavily constructed.
I already posted a link to it a while back.
Among Volvo-Philesā¦that 240 is much belovedā¦ So much so that guys are swapping in modern Volvo Turbo 5ās and 6 cylinder drive trains into the Ole 240ā¦ If they arenāt rotten from living in the wrong part of the countryā¦Methinks it would take more than 2 lifetimes to rot out a proper 240 out West.
As far as Safety? Yeah thatās a toss upā¦ I dont think the 240 is particularly badā¦but we all are familiar with how poorly a big āBoatā of yesteryear doesnāt actually do all that well in crash testingā¦Sure they are heavyā¦but with the level of Origami new cars use with their Steelā¦youād be surprised at how strong they can beā¦and how much safer.
If it were meā¦and I was particularly attached to the Volvoā¦ I would seek out a more modern Volvo Wagonā¦ One of the Turboāsā¦ I believe its the 850 Line of Wagons? They also have the Sport versionsā¦which I am seeking to get my hands on of late.
Newer vehicles will almost always out perform older ones as far as safetyā¦however Volvo has had their head in the Safety game from WAY Backā¦so we all might be surprised how well that 240 would do in a crash test.
This is a tough oneā¦for me anywayā¦ I mean what really compares to that classic old 240 aside from Volvoās later wagonsā¦at least in spirit anyway.
Blackbird
As the proud owner of a ā93 240 sedan (Walter) I can confidently say that the Prius is safer.
When Toyota made that Prius, they used āhigh tensile strength steelā in certain parts of the safety cage, to help prevent intrusion. This steel was not available at the time of the Volvoās manufacture, and alone makes the Prius safer.
But wait, thereās more!
The 240 doesnāt have safety belt pretensioners, ventilated disk brakes, collision fuel pump cutoff, independent rear suspension, traction control or a locking differential, head curtain airbags, or torso airbags. Not only is it more difficult to survive certain kinds of impacts in the 240, but itās also easier to be involved in an accident.
Sheās safer in the Prius.
I however, still take my chances in my 240. Iād rather be caught dead in my Volvo than seen in a Prius.
I would think that this thread from June 2016 has been enough time for the OP to make a decision. 