How safe are these classic VWs...?

They aren't the safest cars available.

However, your driving style, vigilence and caution become highly sensitized when driving them. You become a better, more defensive driver.

You know you don't have 7,000 lb. of SUV surrounding you. Safety is often as you make it.

Reinforcing the front or other hacks, won't turn a Bus or Beetle into a Mercedes-Benz.

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It sounds like you've been reading Click & Klack. Over the years these guys have passed out tons of bum dope about air-cooled Volkswagens. For example, next time you're near a VW Transporter measure the height of the front seat relative to the roadway. You'll see that the occupants knees are well above the point of any possible impact... unless you plow into brick wall.

Statistically, with regard to collision injuries, the VW Transporter did better than most other vehicles in that it had fewer, and less serious, injuries. (Of that era. The number of Type II VW's still on the road is now too small to have any impact on such statistics.)

There are mailing lists and newsgroups devoted to the Type II, early and late. You will get a better idea of the reality of owning/driving such a vehicle from them.

If you see my other post, you can see the result :-)

Actually, I was pretty impressed with how my '66 held in the impact. I guess if I was in a modern car the damage would have been far greater.

-- Howard Rose

Thank God for that :)

Jan

been dring them since august 1965 still own 2-1967 beetles and 1-1967 bus 13 window. they move with impact. heavier cars resist moving.sell yours if you dont feel safe-i will keep driving mine 365 days a year its all i own.

The worst place to park a VW Beetle is right next to the shopping cart return rack. Somehow people don't want to walk the extra five feet and think carts will find their way into the rack if they give it a shove, and the bad things is, VW fenders are at the right height to catch these carts, amount other things.

How safe are these classic VW's? I told my wife, if anything happens to me, burry me in my Beetle.

-tom

Yea.. that gives this discussion a whole new angle.

Damage MY beetle (ok, my wife's beetle), and you will get seriously injured.

Yea, they are unsafe that way. ;)

Jan

Compare them with a Mercedes Benz of the same year as the VW in question and I am sure you will find them similar.

-- Howard Rose

A 2002 *which* model of Mercedes?

Jan

ITs true about the ride hight of a STOCK bus, but with the weedeater trend you put your legs in the crumple zone !

Mine are all stock hight, I feel better up there !. And yes, when I drive my VW's I drive safer than when in modern cars. I know it shouldn't make a difference, but it does.

The best thing to improve your driving saftey is to drive a motor bike for a few years !

Rich

snipped-for-privacy@isp.com wrote:

............The classic bug has a surprising amount of energy absorption capability in both the front and the back. The one thing that is very dangerous for the driver in a frontal crash is that the steering column can impale the driver in the chest as it gets pushed backward as the frontal structure gives way.

..........The one thing that is very bad about the bug is the lack of side impact protection. If you get T-boned at a high speed by your assailant, they might as well bury in your bug because it would take a lot of sawsall work to get your corpse out.

Similar in color, perhaps, not impact strength or survivability.

The point I am trying to make is that the VW was no more unsafe than the average other car of the same age...

It's a completely unfair comparison to compare a 40 year old car (designed over 60 years ago) with a modern one!

-- Howard Rose

i will no longer put any input on this topic.Randall Brink has a mind set and that is it. you will never convince him to even ride in one let alone own one in my opinion.

Would it help, though?

Any other suggestions to avoid losing my ribs to the steering wheel during a crash would be welcomed as well.

If you are caught in a head-on that may well be her only option. Thirty years ago we joked that one should always wear their seat belt when driving their Bug. Because it would make their body easier to locate.

For a vehicle of its weight, the Bug is amazingly resilient. But that does not means it is not without certain limitations. If you find yourself knocked off the road by a little old lady - one who should have given up her Buick five years ago - and your Bug then rolls over a few times; you and your passengers may crawl out in amazement. Then push the Bug back on four wheels, tie down the loose door, and drive it back up onto the road. Followed by pounding out the roof, straightening the B pillar so the door will sort of close, and then continue driving it for the next several years.

Even today, many vehicles do not come with this option.

I completely agree. After all, tens of thousands of dollars worth of newfangled "safety" devices have been engineered into the $50-100,000 cars of today, that hadn't been conceived in the 1960s and 70s.

You've got to be joking. I'm on my fifteenth or sixteenth type 1 Beetle, and love it and drive it every day, and I think that, competently driven, they are as safe as any car. I must admit I wouldn't want a head-on collision or a side-impact one for that matter, but I don't relish such a mishap in any vehicle, even a Hummer!

I was fortunate enough to survive relatively intact in 2 pretty serious aircooled VW wrecks. The first, I ran my 74 Thing into the rear of a Maverick at highway speed. Swerved at the last second (came over a hill and there it was nearly stopped in the road) and caught the left fender and doorjamb of the Thing. When the smoke cleared, the Maverick's rear bumper was literally in it's back seat. the Thing had a crumpled fender, missing headlight, front suspension/steering damage, and a broken windshield where my brother did a face plant on it without any injuries. We drove the Thing from Magee, Mississippi to Mexico Beach, Florida later that same day. It got fixed and I drove it for a couple more years. The second was in my 71 Karmann Ghia hardtop. On my way home from work on a secondary street went through an intersection at about 40 MPH and looked to the right just in time to see the front end of a mid 60s Chevy pickup truck as it hit the right rear quarter panel of my Ghia. The impact stopped my forward travel and knocked the Ghia sideways over a curb and into someones yard. The impact with the curb was so hard that my wheels on the right side were literally bent over 90 degrees and the right axle was jammed into the transaxle. The Ghia had no seatbelts. I had a small cut on my forehead from taking out the rear view mirror. The truck had the radiator shoved back about 2 feet into the engine. It too got fixed (quarter panel, tranny, etc. from a donor car) but I passed on keeping it in favor of a 71 Super Beetle. I saw it still on the road 4 or 5 years later before finally losing track of it. The good news about these cars is that they are "real" metal and will take a pretty substantial hit. They are not as safe as modern cars but are by no means as unsafe as other vehicles of their time. Andy

"luftgekuhlten" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...