Older cars are safer, right?

[DavidS]

WRONG!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHp1GAFQzto]YouTube - IIHS 50th Anniversary Crash Test[/ame]

 

[Zoom-boing]

Safer? No. Better looking? Absolutely.

 

[manu1959]

tell you what....you get in your smart car and i will get in my 59 caddy.....

 

[007]

tell you what....you get in your smart car and i will get in my 59 caddy.....

Old Caddy's are chick magnets...

I know. I had a '69 Coupe Deville and '70 Fleetwood Brougham.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Safer? No. Better looking? Absolutely.

Howev4er......if you have a lot of time and a good amount of cash, you can make a 50's car as safe as a '09 car.

But.......it's gonna cost you.

Something to realize by the way, if it wasn't for the government getting in our hair and forcing the auto industries to develop safer and better cars, we'd still NOT have airbags, safety glass, crumple zones and all the other stuff.

Sometimes, government interference is a good thing.

 

[Midnight Marauder]

Who ever claimed they were safer?

Sounds like another DavidS straw man erection!

 

[ABikerSailor]

Current cars ARE safer than 50's and 60's cars.

Size does NOT mean safety.

 

[judyd]

Safer? No. Better looking? Absolutely.

Definitely better looking--I don't understand why they don't go back to some of the old designs--like a 59 Impala--beautiful! Otherwise, no they weren't safer--and when people crashed, many times the engines would land in the front seat. I think cars are built to withstand things like that, but otherwise, they are boring to look at.

 

[Mr. H.]

I just bought a '70 Beetle as a restore project. Maybe I could weld in a roll cage, beef up the bumpers, and add air bags.



Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa......................

 

[Big Black Dog]

I nearly broke my elbow in a 1957 Chevy Belair when my knee slipped off the back seat while I was having a very close conversation with a pretty young lady. Although I've only done it a couple of more times in a later model car, I never slipped. Is it fair to label older cars "unsafe" because of this incident?

 

[ABikerSailor]

That's because in the 50's and 60's, most of the cars had vinyl seats.

Remember sitting on them in the summer? OUCH!

Nowadays? We've got cloth, which is much less slick, but, the trade off is the stains............

 

[froggy]

I nearly broke my elbow in a 1957 Chevy Belair when my knee slipped off the back seat while I was having a very close conversation with a pretty young lady. Although I've only done it a couple of more times in a later model car, I never slipped. Is it fair to label older cars "unsafe" because of this incident?

but you had plenty of room for the activity tho.

 

[froggy]

tell you what....you get in your smart car and i will get in my 59 caddy.....

Old Caddy's are chick magnets...

I know. I had a '69 Coupe Deville and '70 Fleetwood Brougham.

and look at ya now.

 

[sitarro]

Gee, a 40 year old car with it's 40 year old welds and bolts and skin against a brand new fresh car, seems like there is an advantage there. I'm sure that in the name of science that was a full frame up restoration on that 1959 unit.

 

[Single Dad]

One of the main errors so many people make in determining whether or not they believe a car is "safe" is based on how much damage (and repair expense) a car has after a given accident. For example.....

A modern day car hitting a pole at 10 MPH vs. a 1972 Buick Electra 225 hitting a pole at 10MPH.

There will be far more damage to a modern day car because they are designed to crumple up on impact and absorb much of the accidents energy so less of that energy is transferred to the occupants. As a result the car "looks" more damaged and in some peoples eyes "less safe". The ideal situation for the occupant in for the car to totally crumple up as much as possible and leave the occupants as uninjured as possible.

 

[froggy]

the 59 did exact what it was designed to do the winshield popped out to lessen injury both passenger compartments held up the same if wearing the seat belt in the 59 there shouldn't have been that much injury. and why wasn't there a dummy in the 59?