Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air Vs. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu Collision test

Don't know about Chevys, but current German cars use exceptionally rigid beams surrounding the passenger compartment in the A, B & C posts, door impact beams, rocker panels etc. Tungsten drill bits have a hard time drilling this stuff, I believe there is boron in the steel. BMW approved bodyshops now have to have specialized welding equipment to repair these cars (very high amperage) to penetrate multiple layers of metal when welding structural areas. Interesting thing is the crumple zones are constructed of aluminum and magnesium, even the fender walls and strut towers, but the passenger cage is the hard stuff.
I don't see any reason to doubt the results of that crash test........

Your right!! In 50 years none of the 2,000+ cars will be on the road. Know why? Computer chips! Try to buy a computer chip for you rig that's over 5 years old, all most impossible. Without the chips the car doesn't run. The 50's and 60's car will still be running in 2050 when today's cars will be in the junk heap.

Cars in the 50's, 60's were built to last, just not built to crash. Not sure why anyone with any real automobile knowledge would assume that the body on frame would fair well in a crash with a modern car.

You have thicker sheet metal and a heavy frame but what is holding the sheet metal to the frame? Fenderwashers and frame mounts. You simply can't compare the ability of that system to withstand an impact to a welded unibody with crumple zones.

I have restored late 60's Pontiacs from the frame up. I know every part of 60's GM A-bodys and F-bodys. They were built like brick shyt houses, but there is no way in hell I would want to be in a 1968 GTO or 1969 TA even with upgraded shoulder belts in a head on with a 2005 GTO or 2002 F-body. No way in hell.

Crumple zones have been evolving for 40 years. They started back in the 60's with building in crumple zones in the hood so that it would give in the middle rather than come back and decapitate you.

After working in the auto insurance industry for years, I'd rather be in a $13k Kia than a 10 or 15 year old anything if in an accident. The auto insurance industry works toward improvements every year and those that think the heavy old car is the sh8t in an accident don't understand what is involved in the auto accidents. Moving the impact from the occupant compartment has been amazing in the last decade or two.

edited to add: used to be body shops would bend a hood back straight and then weld a piece of metal across the crumple zone so it wouldn't "fold" so easily...made a nice guillotine <sp> if it were ever in an accident again. Crumple zones have saved so many lives it isn't a number you could count.

That's a neat video to say the least. Sorry a classic had to die in the filming but it's interesting if nothing else.

No matter what car you are riding in, your odds of severe head injury are reduced if you are wearing a helmet. Which we will all be doing under federal law within our lifetimes.

44henry

Saw a video maybe 25 years ago of a very small car hitting a very big car in a headon, with each doing 55 mph at impact. The big Caddy came to a rest, front end totaled. The very small car flew backwards through the air before coming to a stop. Easy to see I'd rather been in the Caddy that weighed probably a ton more.
The two cars in the video seemed to be about the same weight, or one of them would have moved the other backwards. As has been stated above, safety has been built into today's cars in alot of areas.
I would much rather get hit in the teeth with an airbag than a steering wheel.

Safety I'll give the newer cars (air bags, seat belts, design) but I never really thought that was a factor when judging which cars are better built. After all, a car was made to be driven down the highway, not be entered in demo derbies. If "safety" was the only factor, we'd all be driving something like you see at a Nascar race.....safe but hardly what you'd want to drive every day.

What I know is that I have a 1963 International Scout that has slid off a muddy road and into a tree. The only damage was some scratched paint on the fender and door and a smallish dent on the fender (one hit with a rubber hammer and it was gone). The tree actualy had more damage than the Scout!!!!

On the other hand, I've seen "modern" cars recieve $300 worth of body damage from someone just sitting on the rear hood or fender.....and lord help you if a heavy shopping cart runs into a door.

Maybe not a fair test, but for me I'd rather have the "tanks" built in the 50's-60's (particularly "tanky" were the Internationals).

Hey, we found a clue; hat's off to you sir. People just can't seem to get past the physics of the thing. And I understand that it is counter-intuitive. One would think a car that has a fender that weighs 150 lbs should fare better in a crash against something that has a fender that weighs 3 lbs. But it�s very deceptive because the heavy fender classic has nothing internal supporting that fender, so you have to rely completely on the integrity of the fender. With a modern car, the fender is just a skin and provides very little in the way of structure. But under that fender are steels unlike anything they had ever seen in the �50�s & �60�s. And those steels are stamped into structural beams that are computer designed for maximum rigidity. And those beams are attached to a unibody design with crumple zones to soften the impact. And behind that, you have really stiff beams that protect the passenger compartment; kind of a last line of defense. The old body on a frame designs didn�t have anything like that.

As for side impact, the newer car is much safer also, for much the same reasons. Which do you want inside your door? 14ga soft mild steel skin with a similar inner skin�or�A 22ga outer skin over a 4130 chromoly door support that�s welded to door bulkheads, and then mirror matched to a similar cross support on the other side that�s covered by an outer skin that�s padded. I�ll agree that side impact is the weak point of most any car, but if I�m going to take a hit, front, back or side; I hope I�m in a modern car; even if it�s a smaller car than the classic.

But I�ll also agree that a classic is exactly that; classic.

Don't anybody here drive a pickup ?

That's the best use I've seen for two chevy's in a long time.