1959 Chevy Crash Test

[VintageBuzz]

Maybe it is a good thing that they don't make them like they used to back in 1959? ~VB
YouTube - 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air Vs. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu IIHS Offset
YouTube - Crash test: 1959 Chevy Bel Air

[webby]

Wow.... I have to admit I am a bit surprised.

I would have guessed the old (heavy) Chevy would have simply destroyed the little Malibu.

[Olen McGuire]

I bought a '57 Chevy brand new and I thought it was built pretty solid, but I had a Friend that bought a '59 Plymouth that sounded like a tin can when you slam the doors shut. I think the auto industry started cutting back on metal around that time for some unknown reason.~Olen

[Mitch G.]

Almost everything auto makers have learned in the safety dept., they learned from auto racing, and it's technology in crumple zones, energy distribution, energy absorbing materials. Old cars tend to collapse when the frame structure is compromised in any way. I don't have video, but in 1988 I was living in Edgewater, Co. Late summer, early fall I can't remember, but right at the intersection of 20th and Gray st. a 1967 Plymouth Fury t-boned a brand new Ford Taurus., with my own two eyes, I saw the aftermath, Plymouth had the headlights knocked out, and the front bumper was bent, and a little crumple of one front fender, didn't event get into the radiator. The Taurus was in someone's lawn, crushed to nearly half it's width and killed all four people in the car, no injuries to the old Plymouth driver. A terrible incident, but must have been the right angle of impact with those two particular kinds of cars. I'm sure a 2009 Ford would have fared better in the same accident today.

[Jerry Lee]

Man, I pray that I never hit anything in my little GEO Metro. I noticed syrofoam behind my plastic bumper in front.:jawdrop:

[Terry Von Tilius]

That syrofoam in your bumper is the absorber. Unless you drive a truck, all cars have those absrobers. There are actually safer than the old steel bumpers with the "shock absrobers" behind them.

Great video. Hell of a waste of a '59.