Saw the new '07 Sebring Thursday

I accept your point about much of the progress having been made by the early seventies, though I wonder if all the features actually helped (side-impact beams are good only if designed correctly) but, anyway, the NHTSA's facts speak for themselves.

It is interesting that you should take a Japanese car for comparison. When I was following European crash test results in the nineties (usually conducted by consortia of leading motoring organisations and trade mags or newspapers) the Japanese cars performed poorly compared with European models, and some European models performed markedly worse than others. 'American' cars (i.e. those made in the USA as opposed to made by American-owned companies) were never tested because there were too few of them being sold.

However, within a product line there would usually be improvements so that, e.g. I would expect a Chysler of today (or of 5 years ago) to perform significantly better than one of 20 years ago in safety and handling.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Dubious. The jury's still out about the efficacy of frontal "air bags" in frontal collisions. All other mandated safety gear on 20 year old Chrysler products had been in place since the '70s...collapsing steering columns, padded surfaces, blunt control stalks, and so on. Of course, lap and shoulder belts had been mandated for some time.

One area where all US cars were weak at that time, especially certain Chryslers, was in side impact protection. Earlier M-bodies, then favored in police fleets nationwide, were notorious for side impact intrusion into the passenger cabin.

Side impact beams have been a required feature for a long time, at least back to the early 1970's. I doubt if they would still be required equipment all these years if they were not effective. Side air bags are an optional additional layer of protection in newer cars.

Yes, a vehicle produced today is likely to be safer than one produced 20 years ago, however, the mere fact that a car is 20 years old does not necessarily make it unsafe.

Why NOT do that? My daily driver is a '66 Dodge Polara

Old-fashioned brakes,

Nonsense. His Newport has disk brakes, and my Polara has been converted to disk brakes (from a '73 Newport, incidentally). My Polara stops as fast as my wife's 1993 car with ABS does.

Absurd. Side-impact beams became mandatory in the early 70s, as did "5 mph bumpers." Collapsible steering columns and crumple zones date back to the mid 60s. Plus we have mass on our side.

ROTFL! You really don't know much about older American cars, do you? Seat belts became mandatory in the 60s, shoulder belts in '68 (optional prior to that). And not having a bomb aimed at your chest is a *good* thing.

Chrysler stopped making ANYTHING with front drums in the early 70s. MOST of their vehicles had front disks back to around 68/69, some earlier than that.

Not quite, but close. And back then, there was a lot more cabin (and non-cabin) space to work with, so things could move much further before causing harm.

Internal cabin design to minimise injury?

Yes, very much so. By federal law, dating back to the mid 60s. Padded dash, knee bolsters, side-impact beams, collaspible steering wheels/columns, etc. All date to the mid/late 60s.

Hmm... I actually wasn't trying to either pick on the Japanese nor find the worst car I could for comparison. I just keep hearing Honda held up as a pinnacle of engineering that they seemed the obvious comparison.

I just got a 'fridge magnet from rockauto.com with a hot looking '66 Polara on it...yours?

"Bad brakes" went away on Chrysler products when they finally dumped Lockheed brakes in 1957.

Benefits of air bags, except in the fastest frontal crashes, are dubious, at best. Iacocca was dead set against them for years, not because he was anti-safety (he was pro-safety, going back to the '56 Ford) but the data showed they were simply ineffective and caused injury at medium and low speed collisions that wouldn't have happened with properly worn lap/shoulder belts. What they ARE effective at is lining the pockets of certain second tier auto industry suppliers.

The move to air bags was due to many states, notably in the South, which refused, until strongarmed by Washington, to enact mandatory seat belt laws. California has had one for many years, and the rightards went berserk over it..."it's my right to drive unsafely," blah blah blah, just like the biker bums and their helmets. They were beaten into submission...like they will be again on Nov. 7. There's only so much reasoning you can do with a flock of paranoid delusionals addicted to bad talk shows before you have to just whump them a good one!

From what I have read in NGs and elsewhere there seems an important difference between US and RoW airbags. In RoW, so I gather, they are smaller as they are 'only' supplementary to seat belts (hence SRS --supplementary restraint system -- logo on the cover). For them to be fully effective seat belts must be worn.

When were inertial-reel seat belts introduced in the US?

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

It's the same in the US. "Airbags" are an SRS, and can only be used with proper lap/shoulder belts in use to be effective.

Early 1970s. Prior to that, they were adjustable belts with rectractile storage from 1966 on. Prior to that, from the '50s, optional seat belts had no retractile storage. My dad had optional seat belts on his '62 Cadillac, but they DID have retractors, as they did on various Pontiacs I've seen from that era. I have seen 1956 Ford Thunderbirds with factory seat belts as well, probably an option mandated by Iacocca, who probably back then, was the only believer in seat belts at Ford. King Henry II was dead set against them, as "they cost money." Another seat belt believer was John De Lorean, who promoted their availability in Pontiacs after he got there after leaving Chrysler circa 1956.

Yeah, but the original pitch for airbags was that they were supposed to protect idiots who didn't use a seatbelt, with the result that they were powerful enough to stop that idiot from going into the windshield. At some point between mandating them and them actually going into production there was a "discovery" that they were supplemental-only; it was several years before the requirements were modified to reflect that fact.

Definitely true of EARLY (circa 1993) US airbombs. The later ones are closer to ROW, but the regulations over here are not quite sane on many safety devices.

That's 100% true of ALL airbombs- because they don't really do much at all, the seatbelt is the real safety device.

1974. Up to 1973, shoulder belts were fixed length and had to be cinched down just like lap belts did. When used correctly, a fixed belt is safer than inertia-reel type belts, but most people left them loose and floppy so they could reach the radio controls easily :-p 1974 was also the year of the disastrous seatbelt-starter interlock fiasco. Both front-seat passengers HAD to be buckled for the car to start. The system was so trouble-prone and cars would refuse to start that the law was amended and the systems were allowed to be bypassed within the first half of the model year! There was an override button under the hood that gave you 30 seconds to get back in and start the car, but consumers were NOT pleased with having to use it all the time.

TRUE, long with my "new" 05 sebring convertable I still keep my 89 olds ciera 210k miles for the weekday work trip, I junked the 86 aries in

05 and got the sebring in it's place

American Cars are the BEST

before I got my 89 olds Ciera (which I still use) I had a new 81 Accord, that was my only import and my only P O S. I had to junk it in 89 due to dealer service could not get the carb to not screw up and foul the plugs every month or so.

I've bought all my cars new and keep em till they're only suited for the junk yard

Which of the big 3 do you work for?

It's not cuz I work for them, I don't work for any of them, I do many repairs myself, so I keep them in shape and maintenance costs low. The honda was turned over to the deaaler for repair after following the "fuel enrichment" service procedure many times, they could do no better, after 3 times at the dealer and the bills to prove it, the honda did not last as long as any USA made car I had.

I am an electronic tech type so the computer sensors and such controls I could deal with for the 89 olds. In reading over the shop manuals for the 05 Sebring I may be at my limit if I need a new computer, I'll need a DRB III

On Wed, 22 Nov 2006 22:30:15 GMT, Mr.X graced this newsgroup with:

uh..yeah..sure. That's why the Motor Trend Car of the Year was...you guess it...a Japanese car yet again... (Toyota Camry).

Now...back AWAY from the crack pipe. Trust me, people function just fine without drugs....really.

Reality CAN be your friend. Give it a try.

Hey if Chevy paid Motor trend off the Vega would still be car of the year