New Smart Cars

[Norm Peterson]

Looks like a pretty safe car to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJHpUO-S0i8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz-s1sIoLhU&NR=1

Tony Huntimer
RaceHome.com

The passenger cell is absolutely deserving of respect - I'm guessing the 70 mph angled-barrier crash decelerations averaged upwards of 80g, the passenger door remained fully operational, and even the driver's door could be opened. Although I'm pretty sure that some sort of high strength steel is involved in the Smart, there still ought to be a few details of construction that folks here could use to advantage in stiffening their chassis without excessively encroaching on outward vision and/or entry and exit or requiring exotic materials and fabrication techniques.

But I'm a lot less happy about the ratio of CG height to wheelbase particularly when occupied (duh), as that contributes significantly to the car's pitch behavior. Wheels off the ground = no energy dissipated and no velocity lost during that time, while you simply wait to hit something else.

There isn't much you can do about the low mass moments of inertia, which is mostly why in the comparative test vs the Fusion the Smart rotates about the vertical axis about twice as fast and why the pitch motions in the barrier crashes are unusually violent. Yaw and pitch accelerations cause injury too.


Norm