To celebrate its 50th Anniversary, the IIHS crash tested a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air into a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu.
This is the frontal offset test.
This blows a lot of my misconceptions out of the water, unless my father’s ’53 Chrysler was built a lot stronger, which is probably a silly notion. Nothing could touch that thing… other, lesser, cars just bounced off. Which of course leads me to wonder how it would have fared in this test.
Someone should be shot for destroying that Bel Air…
My first car was a ’59 Buick Invicta, had even bigger tailfins than the Bel Air…
davek
“My first car was a ‘59 Buick Invicta, had even bigger tailfins than the Bel Air…”
I hardly see where that would be possible… :shock:
You so knew I would throw my 2 cents in here!
Back in the days, that 59 Chevy was probably a safe car, but you were bouncing like cars off like cars at the time.
Today you not only have higher strength steel in the cars but you also have reinforced areas around the “cabin” (passenger area) and in areas in which crashes most often would happen so the cabin won’t collaspe like it would in the “old” days.
As someone who has seen crash tests in person, they always fascinate me to no end. Probably why I am in Quality.
I so knew you would!
It surprised me, it really did.
I want to watch some crash tests in person – that’s gotta be some serious fun.
I agree! Well, aside from destroying perfectly good cars, yep.
Seeing a crash test in person should be manditory for getting your license.
I already had the fear of god in me to wear my seatbelt just from being in the Restraints department at Ford, but after seeing a crash test dummy flay around in a crash test it really put the fear of god of not wearing my seatbelt.
As sobering as this was to watch on a monitor, I can just imagine!! :shock:
“that was totally wicked!”
