One dead in Chevelle SS wreck...

[mikedc]

The car wouldn't have been nearly that weak if it hadn't come off the frame.



It's not a unibody shell on top of that perimeter frame. There's no subframe structure and no full rocker boxes. Without the perimeter frame's support there's not much to hold it in shape during a wreck.

[trapin]

A roll cage and better frame bolts would NOT have saved the occupants. Our classic cars were just not designed with safety as the top concern. They were built for looks first, features/amenities second, convenience, and then you have safety WAY down on the list. If that had been one of the super car Camaros we have on this site with a full blown roll cage and the guy was just out for a cruise sans helmet.....guess what?

Dead.

[FMG CAMARO]

makes me want to sell my car for a newer one. Definitely getting morris 3 point belts this week.

[DarkBuddha]

A roll cage and better frame bolts would NOT have saved the occupants. Our classic cars were just not designed with safety as the top concern. They were built for looks first, features/amenities second, convenience, and then you have safety WAY down on the list. If that had been one of the super car Camaros we have on this site with a full blown roll cage and the guy was just out for a cruise sans helmet.....guess what?

Dead.

I'm not convinced.

[JJEH]

very sad...

[JJEH]

A roll cage and better frame bolts would NOT have saved the occupants. Our classic cars were just not designed with safety as the top concern. They were built for looks first, features/amenities second, convenience, and then you have safety WAY down on the list. If that had been one of the super car Camaros we have on this site with a full blown roll cage and the guy was just out for a cruise sans helmet.....guess what?

Dead.

You know what scares me? What you say is right!

[trapin]

I'm not convinced.

You take a fully restored '65 Malibu and slam it head on with a 2011 Malibu at 40 mph; the guy in the 2011 eats his dinner that night with a knife and fork and the guy in the '65 uses a tube...that's provided he's still with us.

[ZuperZport]

You take a fully restored '65 Malibu and slam it head on with a 2011 Malibu at 40 mph; the guy in the 2011 eats his dinner that night with a knife and fork and the guy in the '65 uses a tube...that's provided he's still with us.

Tony is on point here.

Check this out for proof.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwupWFy_NP4

[Vicinity]

You take a fully restored '65 Malibu and slam it head on with a 2011 Malibu at 40 mph; the guy in the 2011 eats his dinner that night with a knife and fork and the guy in the '65 uses a tube...that's provided he's still with us.

I saw a picture with two cars, maybe Malibu's (old and new), after a head on crash.

It was pretty nasty.

A roll cage wouldn't help at all?

[LeighP]

you hit a roll bar in a street accident with your head, and you are really going to know about it....even a relatively minor accident can throw your body around more than you think. I've seen roll bars placed with a couple of inches of the back of the seat headrest.....madness. Be very careful designing a cage for a street driven car.

[DarkBuddha]

All I'm saying is that if you're in an accident in a vintage car on the street, I gotta think that maybe running a well designed mild cage (and wearing proper seat belts of course) might have some benefits that outweigh the risks. That '09 vs. '59 vid is the perfect example: would the driver of the '59 faired better if the car was fitted with say something like a six point cage like this:



I know there are lots of other issues to deal with (like collapsible column, proper seat mounting, proper seat belts and mounting, etc.), but I'm starting to think that a cage designed to reinforce the chassis and minimize accident encroachment on the passenger compartment might be a reasonable consideration.

[6'9"Witha69]

Tony is on point here.

Check this out for proof.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwupWFy_NP4

They took an unrestored crappy 59 for that test. The proof is in the amount of rust billowing out of the car. While I believe that new cars are safer, I doubt that an old rusty X frame (very weak original design to begin with) was a good point of comparison.

[mc84_zz4]

Here are some clips from old and new crash tests, these appear to me to illustrate the effects of not
wearing seat belts, and neck injuriues due to lack of head restraints, but looking at
some of these brutal crashes, even without a roof panel in place, the cabin appears
to resist huge loads before deforming.
The X frame car is probably the worst example for a head on driver side/driver side crash test of old vs new.

Some of the crash speeds on these are brutal, I am still looking for a 1960-1970s car in decent
shape versus a 200x car as a good comparo.
Another one that we have seen some freaky wrecks are the new Camaro where the car is split into pieces,
I'm not sure about you, but I have wrecked into phone poles in a 1970s vehicle, and I do not think a modern
unibody would have done any better... JMO

Granted I am not going to argue about how airbags ARE a huge improvement, and the past 40 years of technology
have brought us safer cars, but I still think that one case of the Chevelle was not typical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siT-SIfOnQw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7wG4uy-Phs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F0B5...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz8D9...eature=related

[The WidowMaker]

i can tell you from experience that i walk up to cars on a weekly basis expecting to find a dead body only to find no body. once im done looking inside the TRASHED car, i look over to the side of the road to the driver on the cell phone calling their buddy to pick them up. unhurt! its amazing how much car technology has advanced.

as far as a cage, it can only do so much. it sounds like the dead guy in the story wasnt wearing his belt. a cage isnt going to help that. and its another reason to never take safety gear out of your car (ie. replacing your steering column with an ididit/flaming river).

im also not buying the beefed up rear suspension as a cause. the bodys cage nuts may be a somewhat weak link, but the front core support is held in by a 7/16 bolt with large washers and a nut. theres no way your ripping that off by taking a hit to the rear quarter. it says they took a head on hit, but its tough to tell from the pics.

[sixty5hellvell]

Not to make light of a tragic event. But the pictures do prove that contrary to some beliefs newer cars maybe smaller and moer plastic; however they are a lot safer than old "solid steel" car we love.

I would rather die in my old car than not drive it because it is supposed to not be safe. People die in new cars everyday, that car in the story was not properly restored because that body should not have came off the frame if it used new body bolts. Lets all remember the safest cars around are race cars with no airbags and good seats and 5 point harnesses. Just my opinion.

[BonzoHansen]

its amazing how much car technology has advanced..

I was poking around copart auctions not too long ago looking at wrecked 2010 camaros. I saw 3 or 4 that were rollovers. You could see the roof panel pushed in but the greenhouse structure was perfect. it may be a tug boat but it appears to be one crash worthy tug boat. I'd hate to roll my 77.

[sixty5hellvell]

I was poking around copart auctions not too long ago looking at wrecked 2010 camaros. I saw 3 or 4 that were rollovers. You could see the roof panel pushed in but the greenhouse structure was perfect. it may be a tug boat but it appears to be one crash worthy tug boat. I'd hate to roll my 77.

A nascar is in my opinion is more safe than any new car could ever dream of being all without an airbag and is built very much like a chevelle. Lets see a new car hit a wall at 200 mph and the driver get out and run across the finish line like Carl Edwards did not to long ago. Roll cages save lives they are much more than a saftey device for a rollover they make the car a solid structure that absorbs inpact instead of a unibody car that 9 out of 10 times is totaled in a low speed collision because if the subframe is bent the car is totalled due to the cost of unibody repair.

[The WidowMaker]

A nascar is in my opinion is more safe than any new car could ever dream of being all without an airbag and is built very much like a chevelle. Lets see a new car hit a wall at 200 mph and the driver get out and run across the finish line like Carl Edwards did not to long ago. Roll cages save lives they are much more than a saftey device for a rollover they make the car a solid structure that absorbs inpact instead of a unibody car that 9 out of 10 times is totaled in a low speed collision because if the subframe is bent the car is totalled due to the cost of unibody repair.

i could be reading your reply wrong, but it sounds like you’re missing the point. cars don’t get totaled because the engineers forgot to design them stronger, they are beyond repair because they were designed to absorb the impact so that your body doesn’t. ive seen people dead with traumatic injuries with no major impact to the body. no cuts, no bleeding, nothing. absorbing the impact saves lives, same as the safer barrier in nascar.

plus, sitting in a car designed for 200mph in a fire suit, with a 6 pt harness, coffin like seat, hans, roll cage that would kill you without a helmet and void of any extra debris that can fly around inside is not like me sitting in my truck that was designed for 65 on the 405 sipping my girlie mocha frap.

and 9 out of 10 aint bad. have you ever seen an indy car wreck? they break apart on purpose.

[sixty5hellvell]

All I am trying to say is that new cars arent that much safer than a correctly moded musclecar, such as mine. And my point is that unibody cars suck and full frame cars are built like a nascar is sort of. And as far as comparing a street car to a racecar I would drive a racecar on the street anyday over the boring slow piece of sh** appliance that they call a car now. My opinion, you dont have to like it but real men dont care if they have to climb over a rollcage or put a 5 point harness on. And as far as indy cars go they work on the same exact concept as all race cars a barrier around the driver ,roll cage ,good seats,good harness. And when does the 405 ever go 65? ha ha

[trapin]

All I am trying to say is that new cars arent that much safer than a correctly moded musclecar, such as mine. And my point is that unibody cars suck and full frame cars are built like a nascar is sort of. And as far as comparing a street car to a racecar I would drive a racecar on the street anyday over the boring slow piece of sh** appliance that they call a car now. My opinion, you dont have to like it but real men dont care if they have to climb over a rollcage or put a 5 point harness on. And as far as indy cars go they work on the same exact concept as all race cars a barrier around the driver ,roll cage ,good seats,good harness. And when does the 405 ever go 65? ha ha

I think you're being a tad too emotional in your responses. We get it, you don't like new cars. But new cars are absolutely NOT "pieces of sh*t". As far as comparing a professional NASCAR circuit race car to some guys lightly modded/caged Chevelle...that's an apples to oranges comparison, don't you think. HUGE difference between the two.

Better bolts and a cage in that Chevelle and the guy is still dead. End of story.