never heard of this one - great article.
Wow…two posts involving Joan Claybrook in a week! LMO: what do you think???
Another good one is the Pininfarina Sigma concept from the '60’s:
do you agree that if it didn’t look like a Pacer we’d have saved lives? or was the politics too strong regardless…
The “safest car ever built” and they put gullwing doors on it? Perfect for trapping you in the burning wreck of the car in the event of a rollover. No wonder they went to the crusher- the material would have been put to better use in beer cans.
SCott: They did mention in the article that the gullwing doors were for style only (they copied Bricklin and Delorean). The real innovations were the seat mounts and plastic materials for the body. I’d love to hear more about the frame.
BTW, I believe that most cars still have seats that can break and recline in accidents. I know that my Focus and some Mercedes had better seats, but it’s hard to know how far it has spread.
As for the plastics, we still need more development in building cars that are aesthetically appropriate and can withstand small impacts. US law requires an impact of 2.5km/h to be withstood without damage. Canada 5km/h. The safety car suggests it was good up to 10km/h. Anyone that ever goes through the IIHS (insurance highway safety institute) data will know how expensive small impacts can cost consumers. I remember some SUVs with the wheel on the outside of the door being $5k + to repair damage from a 5mph impact (windows broken and significant body damage).
That would be a major fail on the crash test, so probably not, at least under crash test conditions.
As for the plastics, we still need more development in building cars that are aesthetically appropriate and can withstand small impacts. US law requires an impact of 2.5km/h to be withstood without damage. Canada 5km/h. The safety car suggests it was good up to 10km/h. Anyone that ever goes through the IIHS (insurance highway safety institute) data will know how expensive small impacts can cost consumers. I remember some SUVs with the wheel on the outside of the door being $5k + to repair damage from a 5mph impact (windows broken and significant body damage).
Those current US and Canadian standards are MPH, not km/h, but the Canadian test protocol is less stringent. In practice, Canadian and US cars use the same bumpers. The US standard used to be 5MPH back in the 70s, which is why cars started getting huge chrome bumpers. They supposedly determined that the costs required to meet the 5MPH standard didn’t add up over the lifetime of the car when you take accidents into account. Everybody has to pay for the bumpers, but not everybody gets into a low speed accident.
SUVs don’t have to meet the NHTSA bumper standards at all. Probably the bigger issue is the lack of bumper height compatibility. A Miata could have a 20 MPH bumper, but if some yahoo in an Escalade on 22s runs into it, he’s not even going to touch the bumper.