18 September 2009 - 12:00
Malibu slammer
A Short Series of Interesting Car Crashes We Didn't Expect to See on a Friday #1: 2009 Chevy Malibu versus 1959 Chevy Bel Air.
Allow us to explain. To celebrate its 50th birthday, the American Insurance Institute for Highway Safety decided to stage the crash to show how far car safety has come since the Fifties. How thoughtful. 'Happy Birthday! Have a car crash!'
Most people would simply have bought a cake.
Still, the results are quite literally smashing. You'd think a lump of old Yanky iron would stand up well against a hunk of 21st Century plastic and poncy aluminium. But then you'd be wrong...
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Why would you crash a Chevy Bel Air, just a complete and utter waste, why not smash an Austin Allegro or Dolomite Sprint?
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And another thing, why are the names of the cars written on the side of them, i thought it would be fairly self explanatory which was the 2009 car and which was the 1959 car. Are Americans that stupid?
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@Tpott, maybe they are!!! TBH though I didn't exactly know which models the cars were either if it wasn't written on the side of them...
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Jeremy with Renault Espace and train was more fun
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@ Tpott, a Moris Marina would be even more obvious.
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Well... there goes another piece of American Automotive History to the scrap yard...
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The old chevy was in excellent, mint condition. All chromes, paint, upholstery... Why did they have to destroy it!!!
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The dangers of classic car ownership....sheesh.... :O
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I don't think I want that '59 Cadillac anymore.
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@Tpott, I'm sure that's standard testing procedures to label the car. In European crash tests they label the cars too...
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Spot on, Ferko :-)
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What a waste of a perfectly good Bel-Air. I'd still have that over that stupid Chevy anyday. And I bet if you crashed it into a '64 Chrysler Imperial you'd get a MUCH different result...
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Top Gear nailed it. "Classics" shouldn't be treated like demigods. Leno seems to collect the unique ones though.
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this amazes me. that chevy bel air weighs about 3 tons and has a v8 engine, yet the 1500 kg malibu with a 4 cylinder engine rips through the bel air's crumple zone like it's made of paper.
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@coolerdude44: The Bel air weighs around one and a half tonnes, actually. Also, the Malibu doesn't rip through crumple zones, because there aren't any.
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i'd still prefer the bel air to that cheap peice of rubbish. death is a small trade of for aclassic american v8 with great styling
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The Bel Air went through the crumple zones like a hot knife through butter, but the second it hit the frame the Malibu drove all the way through the Bel Air's firewall.
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Before talking about "crumple zones"... please note that they were introduced first by Mercedes in '59 with the "Fintail" series. So, comparing a modern car with a '59 US car is a bit, well, "suspect", eh?
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3.0csi commented on this article
18 September 2009
Fantastic film! Hopefully shows all the old fogeys who say "they don't make them like they used to" that it's good they don't! It's like Fifth Gear's (yes I know it's not as good as TG) Volvo 940 versus Renault Modus crash test a while back. The same result- modern engineering beats old school brute strength anytime!
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