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Classic Cars (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would the pointlessly ruin a 1959 Belair? It's not like they make those anymore.
Re:Classic Cars (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Classic Cars (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Classic Cars (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Classic Cars (Score:4, Informative)
You mean like this [autoblog.com]? :)
The pictures with the doors removed are simply amazing. Note how, not only is the Bel Air dummy folded up like a pretzel, but the entire body of the car has twisted such that the rear door no longer fits properly. The Malibu on the other hand is almost untouched from the firewall back. What an awesome demonstration of energy dissipation.
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Re:Classic Cars (Score:5, Funny)
Good news for the Bel Air owner though: the fuzzy dice looked like they survived mostly intact, although I think the string connecting them got ripped or cut.
Seriously, points to IIHS for including the dice. You can see them flying around the cockpit at 1:03 to 1:09. They look like they might present a hazard of as you are crashing, they might hit you in the eye, potentially causing you to blink and miss the carnage right before you die.
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Re:Classic Cars (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Classic Cars (Score:5, Informative)
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/more-details-about-1959-bel-air-crash-test/ [nytimes.com]
"We didn't want to crash a museum piece," Mr. Zuby said. "We were not looking for one that had been restored for museum or show quality." But the vehicle had to have a solid structure, although a little surface rust would be acceptable.
They found what they wanted in Indiana. "The frame was sound and all the body panels were sound," he said. It had a 3.9-liter 6-cylinder engine and was in driving condition.
The car was bought for about $8,500 and had about 74,000 miles on the odometer, which was broken. It was trucked to the test center in Virginia.
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Re:Classic Cars (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Classic Cars (Score:5, Funny)
I bet it was the "which was broken" part!
If I'm the only one who bids, do I win? Like on eBay?
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Re:Classic Cars (Score:5, Insightful)
If the frame stays intact, but the body shears away in a shrapnel of sharp metal, then the frame is useless. The frame of the car in the video could have stayed 100% intact, but all the bodywork and engine and all crashed inside the passenger compartment ... then all of them are dead anyway. A tank is useless if in a 30 mph crash the engine flys off inside and kills all the crew.
Modern cars are safer by miles. Deal with it.
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Re:Classic Cars (Score:5, Insightful)
And no-one expected a Bel-Air to last 51 yeas either. If they did, why do we have all these complaints about wrecking a car that is so rare? Could it be that overwhelming majority of 51 year old Bel-Airs are in the heap, and only few are still around? I bet same thing applies to modern cars in 50 years. Overwhelming majority are gone, and few remain.
People look at old things and think "they build those things to last!", while they fail to understand that most of them have failed over time, and only handful remain. And since the thing in question (be it car, radio or whatever) is so rare, the few remaining are taken good care of, giving us the illusion that they are somehow more durable.
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Re:Classic Cars (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Classic Cars (Score:4, Funny)
They shoulda used a 1958 model, considered to be the only non-classic late fifties Chevy.
Which is why I have one.
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Speaking as a non-car-freak (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Speaking as a non-car-freak (Score:5, Funny)
The brown car had such an angry mouth, so it was probably not a very nice car. But the gray car looked friendlier.
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Re:Speaking as a non-car-freak (Score:5, Informative)
How often do two vehicles on the highway hit each other dead-center head on? Front left fender vs front left fender is a more realistic approximation of a highway accident in my opinion. I'd take the Malibu.
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Re:Speaking as a non-car-freak (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, no, it wouldn't.
Notwithstanding the extra weight of the iron-block, iron-head inline 6, the Malibu's motor is still a substantial chunk of metal that can be considered essentially solid. You certainly aren't going to force the I6 motor THROUGH it.
What you will do is load up the engine mounts - which are much, much stronger on the Malibu, and designed to crumple in such a way that the passenger cabin is minimally infringed.
A more likely case in a 100% head-on collision is the Bel-Air's engine coming to rest in the Bel-Air's back seat, having been forced through the cabin by the Malibu.
DG
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Re:Speaking as a non-car-freak (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Speaking as a non-car-freak (Score:5, Informative)
And you are wrong about what would happen. My guess is that the engine would be stopped by the Malibu, and the Bel Air would end up collapsing around the engine, making the test that was fatal for the driver suddeny fatal for all occupants of the car. The Malibu, a leg injury for the driver, would turn into a foot and leg injury for the two front passengers. If you did the test they did with a full car, you get one dead person in the Bel Air and a minor injury in the Malibu. Make if full frontal and you get two minor injuries in the Malibu and five dead people in the Bel Air. And yes, though never employed as such, I have taken classes in traffic engineering and accident reconstruction.
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the wunnerful 50's, not (Score:5, Informative)
Right around that year GM went to a wild X-frame design which allowed the door sills to be moved down several inches, making the cars easier to step out of. But the X was not very strong-- there were plenty of news photos showing Impalas broken in half by not very hard accidents.
Also if you look at a 50's car, the bumpers are massive but held up by a couple thin pieces of mild steel stock-- a strong toddler could bend them out of place.
Re:the wunnerful 50's, not (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:the wunnerful 50's, not (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:the wunnerful 50's, not (Score:4, Insightful)
I was in an accident in it, a guy in a 1981 Toyota ran a red light and I t-boned him, going about 30mph. His frame was bent, axles were snapped, all side windows, the windshield, and rear window were broken. The frame damage snapped a few of his engine mounts, and also broke his radiator. His car was totaled. My car had the frame holding the headlight pushed back about half an inch, and scuffed the chrome bumper.
My observations were that I'd much rather be in an old tank like that in a minor accident. Anything major, and I'd rather be in a modern car with things like seatbelts, crumple zones and air bags.
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Re:the wunnerful 50's, not (Score:5, Informative)
My observations were that I'd much rather be in an old tank like that in a minor accident. Anything major, and I'd rather be in a modern car with things like seatbelts, crumple zones and air bags.
"Minor" accidents can be much more severe if your body is taking the jolt instead of the crumple zones. Injuries like whiplash are extremely common in "minor" accidents. You might be able to get your Ford's frame straightened, but you can't get your neck fixed anywhere as cheaply or easily.
30 mph is not a minor accident, by the way. That's like falling out of a second story window (taking into account conservation of momentum leading to smaller forces on your body)
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Re:the wunnerful 50's, not (Score:5, Funny)
My observations were that I'd much rather be in an old tank like that in a minor accident. Anything major, and I'd rather be in a modern car with things like seatbelts, crumple zones and air bags.
Yep, that's why before getting involved in any traffic accident, I always carefully choose the car I own which would be best suited. Now if you'll excuse me, I might accidentally run over my neighbour in his backyard while I'm on my way to the store. I think I'll pick the Hummer, it's the better one to get through wooden fences.
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Re:the wunnerful 50's, not (Score:5, Interesting)
It's just one of those things car designers learnt from trial and error, like where to put a petrol tank so it doesn't explode and why not to use metal steering wheels.
I tried to find the European NCAP rating for the Malibu but wasn't able to so i have no idea on how safe the car is. But a while back on Top Gear they felt so safe about a 5 star NCAP car a presenter crashed it into a wall at 30/40MPH he came out without a scratch. Admittedly they'd wrecked the car, but the presenter didn't even have whiplash, you just wouldn't do that in a 50's car because chances are you'd end up with broken legs or internal injuries (generally from the steering wheel). Sure you were fine, but those changes happened because most people wern't ok.
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Re:the wunnerful 50's, not (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:the wunnerful 50's, not (Score:5, Insightful)
Old car crash: $50 to mend scratch on bumper, $7500 for head injury, untold lost earning power because now you're an idiot, total: $7550+
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Car repairs are cheaper than orthopaedic surgery (Score:5, Informative)
I'm an orthopaedic surgeon, and wind up taking care of a lot of people from car accidents. Even a 10 MPH crash is enough to cause whiplash.
Car repairs are much, much cheaper than hospital bills, and there are some things that we aren't still good at fixing like cartilage damage, and whiplash - who likes chronic pain?
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'52 Citroen DS (Score:4, Interesting)
I see the problem. (Score:5, Funny)
Now this is a story all about how my life got flip turned upside-down. I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, I'll tell you how I totally destroyed a classic car in the name of science.
YouTube Commenters strike again (Score:5, Insightful)
The comments on the video are rather telling. A number of people claim the video must have been faked, because "The Chevy would have barely gotten scratched."
Notably, a number of the panelists on the hearing about the sinking of the Titanic expressed serious doubts that mere ice could have torn iron. In other words, time marches on, but ignorance of physics remains a constant. (Also see, "This is the first time in the history of mankind that fire has melted steel.")
Re:YouTube Commenters strike again (Score:5, Insightful)
The YouTube stupidity wasn't limited to claiming it was faked. Here we have an actual YouTube commenter trying to draw a comparison between Hitler's Eugenics program and the engineering principles behind car safety. It's like crazy in a can.
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Re:YouTube Commenters strike again (Score:4, Funny)
The YouTube stupidity wasn't limited to claiming it was faked. Here we have an actual YouTube commenter trying to draw a comparison between Hitler's Eugenics program and the engineering principles behind car safety. It's like crazy in a can.
You must be new to the Youtube comment section. Welcome.
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Re:YouTube Commenters strike again (Score:4, Insightful)
All cars now also come with seat belts and most people wear them.
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TopGear (Score:5, Interesting)
The crash investigator they had evaluate the results said the driver of the older car would have had multiple broken bones, including both femurs, and even if he'd survived the crash he would have bled to death by the time they could extract him, which would take 30-40 minutes as the car was so badly deformed.
In contrast, the modern Espace's computers decided the crash wasn't bad enough to deploy the air bags! Only the seat belt pre-tensioners fired. The investigator thought everyone in that car would have walked away from the accident uninjured.
Their conclusion was that modern crumple zones and stiffer chassis work but because they are stiffer older cars suffer much more when colliding with a modern car.
What always surprises me is how much damage is done to any car, old or new, at these low speeds! Really says to me that any speed limit over 40 mph on any single-carriage way road is just insane.
that would be Fifth Gear (Score:5, Funny)
Top Gear tries to stay away from useful facts and info as much as possible.
And the idea of Top Gear having TWO cars that cost below $40,000 on the screen at the same is pretty far fetched.
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Re:that would be Fifth Gear (Score:4, Insightful)
Is *anybody* here under the illusion that watching Top Gear will help them choose their next car? Sheesh.
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Re:that would be Fifth Gear (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly. Top Gear is about fun and entertainment. And they're doing a very good job in that department!
Fifth Gear is the boring but useful relative.
It's like with women: They need the latter, but they love the first one. And while the second one helps as much as he cans, just to be loved, the first one is loved specifically because he is exciting rather than useful. Poor Fifth Gear. Will he ever realize what the problem is? ;)
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And some follow up comments (Score:5, Informative)
A few people were calling shenanigans, claiming there was no drive train or that the IIHS used a vehicle with a rusted out frame.
So a writer for the NY Times caught up with "David Zuby, the senior vice president at the institute's crash-test center in Virginia"
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/more-details-about-1959-bel-air-crash-test/ [nytimes.com]
Re:And some follow up comments (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, so if you have a collision, you have kinetic energy that WILL be dissipated. It's is going to go somewhere; it cannot just be swept under the rug.
If you make the car 100% rigid and ensure that the driver is tightly secured - as some NASCAR feeder series cars were in the late 80s and early 90s - then that energy is fed into the occupants. Subject them to 50Gs and you start ripping hearts loose in chest cavities and inducing massive concussions as the front of the skull decelerates the brain. This is suboptimal for survival.
So the car's structure has to be designed to dissipate that energy to a survivable level. Plus street cars don't have the luxury of securing the occupants as tightly as race cars (and putting them in helmets and HANS devices) so secondary impacts within the cabin are a real concern.
A properly-engineered crumple zone not only dissipates the energy of the crash, it crushes the structure in such a way that nothing intrudes into the passenger compartment, that doors remain closed, but yet the door frames remain mostly intact so the doors can be opened more-or-less easily post impact. Granny in the back seat isn't going to be crushed by a flying engine block that winds up in her lap, and little Jimmy isn't going to bleed to death while the EMS crew watches because it takes a hydraulic ram to wrench the door open to get at him.
The crash engineering really is amazing. It is incredible just how well the structures are tuned to maximize occupant survivability.
And pedestrian survivability as well. Almost a third of "Unsafe at Any Speed" (credit the devil, Nader wrote a groundbreaking book) was dedicated to discussing vehicle-vs-pedestrian impacts, and how decorative designs like the "missiles" on the hoods and bumpers of the cars at the time were inflicting horrible wounds on people struck by them. While being hit by a car is always going to be a serious, traumatic event, you are much better off being struck by a modern car than by a "classic".
In every measurable way, modern cars are so much better than cars of just 20 years ago that it is utterly amazing - and cars 50 years ago are, in comparison, steam locomotives.
DG
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I drive a 58 Chevy... (Score:5, Interesting)
One reason that the door crumpled so readily is the crazy wraparound windshield. The windshield pillar contains a free-hanging right angle, which is not the way that a structural engineer would have done it. It also bangs the knees.
The big problem with older cars is that the body shape was sculpted from clay in a studio separate from the rest of the car designers, rather than being designed as part of an automobile. The end result being that the body shape had no basis in sound mechanical design.
Re:Patiently waits (Score:5, Funny)
Top 10 Ways American Cars Would be Different if Ralph Nader Had Never Been Born
10. Dashboard hibachis
9. Seat belts made of piano wire
8. Windshield replaced with ant farm for kids
7. Strobe headlights make oncoming traffic look like old time movie
6. 50-foot antennas allow you to broadcast while driving
5. Optional front-seat hammocks
4. Wiper fluid reservoir routinely filled with thousand island dressing
3. New York City taxis would be exactly the same
2. The paper Buick
1. Speedometer replaced with electronic voice chanting "Punch it! Punch it!"
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And this repels morons? (Score:5, Insightful)
My friend, many motorcyclists care deeply about their bikes, but that does not prevent surgeons from referring to them as "organ donors".
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Re:And this repels morons? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Pointless Sensationalism (Score:4, Insightful)
And why do they collide at an angle, because that definitely favors one style of construction over another - frame, engine placement, driver's side vs. passenger side, body materials, bumpers, etc.
Because in the real world, cars collide at an angle just short of 100% of the time. Getting an actual, straight, head-on collision is a very difficult task that requires a great deal of setup and effort on the part of the people doing the testing. In the real world, drivers don't arrange their crashes with such mathematical precision. "at an angle" is pretty much a given...
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Re:How about some REAL bumpers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mainly because they don't look as nice.
That said, a car accident has a massive amount of energy involved even at low speeds. That energy has to go somewhere. In a new car the energy goes into destroying the vehicle or parts of it. In an old car the energy goes into throwing the driver around. Essentially, at some people people decided that losing a car is preferably to losing their life or suffering life long disability.
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Re:Where's the engine? (Score:5, Funny)
The straight 6 engines in those cars offered no protection in an offset crash, and just smashed back through the dash killing the occupants, who were dead anyway.
Fucking classic-car-driving zombies...
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Re:Combined speed? (Score:5, Informative)
Your physics makes no sense. Why is this modded informative? The ground is not a magical reference point!
If two cars travelling in opposite directions at 40 MPH slam into each other, that's exactly equivalent, in terms of energy dissipation and momentum transfer, to one car travelling at 80MPH slamming into a stationary vehicle. Each vehicle, in its own reference frame, sees another vehicle travelling at 80MPH.
Think about it: if two identical cars crash, and one is stationary, then for a moment (before they come to a stop due to friction against the pavement) they'll be moving together at half the speed of the moving car before the crash. One car goes from 80MPH to 40MPH (40MPH difference); the other goes from 0MPH to 40MPH (40MPH difference).
This is exactly equivalent to going from 40MPH to 0MPH (40MPH difference).
When you're working out simple kinematics like this you should be starting with momentum, which is linear with velocity. You can work out how much energy is released afterwards; you'll see that it works out:
(1/2) * (1500kg) * (36m/s) ^ 2 = 972 kJ - Amount of kinetic energy in the moving car at 80MPH
(1/2) * (1500kg) * (18m/s) ^ 2 * 2 = 486 kJ - Amount of kinetic energy left after the crash: 2 cars at 40MPH
972 kJ - 486 kJ = 486 kJ - Amount of kinetic energy dissipated in the crash
(1/2) * (1500kg) * (18m/s) ^ 2 * 2 = 486 kJ - Amount of kinetic energy in 2 cars at 40MPH
(1/2) * (1500kg) * (0m/s) ^ 2 * 2 = 0 kJ - Amount of kinetic energy left after the crash: in 2 cars at 0MPH
486 kJ - 0 kJ = 486 kJ - Amount of kinetic energy dissipated in the crash
(Yes, kinetic energy is 1/2 mv^2, not mv^2!)
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