Thread: 1959 Chevy Bel Air vs. 2009 Chevy Malibu

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Originally Posted by TooMany2count

I love the part where the say the driver of 2009 Chevy Malibu would have maybe a slight knee injury.
Yeah right!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got messed up more by getting rearended at about 10-15mph w/less damage then that wreck. Yeah sure I'll buy into this BS...NOT....joe

You called it right......Just trying to feed the ignorant BS.

This has been bouncing around the internet for a few weeks now, interesting stuff.

As for anecdotal experiences I'll toss in mine. It's not always easy to compare the dynamics of one wreck to another. First it should be of little surprise that a modern designed unibody car would have better crash performance than a separate body/separate frame car designed before we had as good an understanding of crush zones and finite analysis in the design process.

As for my own experience in a crash I'll put up some pictures and explanation. I was driving this late '80s Taurus. A truck had caught fire on a stretch of lightly used (at that time of day) freeway south of Seattle. Another truck behind the smoking one had stopped. I stopped behind him, in the right of two lanes. By the time all this happened we were completely engulfed in smoke. I thought about getting out of the car, but decide for the moment I might have more protection inside. About the time those thoughts were going through my head the world exploded. It seems this guy coming down the road some distance behind me didn't assess the conditions very well (yes, at times I'm prone to understatement). The first pic shows the length of his skid, he was doing probably 55-60 approaching me. I don't remember it, but I must have had my foot on the brake while stopped because you can see the skid mark from my car under his. The other two pics show the results to the car from being slammed under the truck ahead of me, while the rear portion collapsed and did it's job of absorbing energy. While my knees were pinned under the collapsed dash, the worst injury I had was a bump on my forehead, probably from the steering wheel..........well and shock too. But once all the noise of skidding vehicles and such ended I was able to crawl out of the car on my own power. Anyway, the designed in crush zones (especially the rear) did their job. Newer cars are designed that way, older ones weren't.