New cars are very good at meeting Uncle’s crash test requirements – but even minor impacts can and do cause a lot of very expensive damage.
Despite the fact that most new cars are really heavy.
Older, pre Uncle-ized cars may not have been as “safe” – as measured by Uncle’s current criteria – but they were harder to damage. Minor fender benders were just that; the entire front clip of the car didn’t crumple like a ball of Reynolds Wrap.
This despite the fact that most of them were a lot lighter than today’s cars.
This interesting juxtaposition is chiefly the result of Uncle’s conflicting fatwas.
The first fatwa is actually several fatwas.
New cars have to pass head-on, side-impact, rear-impact, offset and rollover crash tests. It’s a tall order that takes lots of steel.
Structural steel.
The frame and related internal architecture; the parts of the car you can’t see, under the skin.
The heavy parts.
New cars weigh a lot as a result – notwithstanding the use of lots of aluminum and plastic for non-structural parts like fenders and hoods and “fascias” (the term used for a modern car’s front and rear bumper covers).
To make the point, consider a modern muscle car like the 2016 Chevy Camaro SS – and compare it with an old muscle car from the (relatively) pre Uncle-ized era of the mid-1970s: my ’76 Pontiac Trans-Am. The new Camaro weighs 3,685 lbs. – almost exactly the same as my 40-year-old Pontiac (its lineal ancestor) even though the Camaro has an all-aluminum V8 engine that shaves several hundred pounds off the curb weight as well as numerous aluminum suspension components, aluminum (vs. steel) wheels and so on.
If the Camaro had a cast iron engine like my car does, a bolted-on steel subframe like mine – and steel wheels and cast iron suspension components rather than lightweight aluminum pieces, it would weigh around 4,200 pounds at least rather than around 3,700 pounds (as my car does).
But then it would tough for the Camaro to abide by Uncle’s other fatwa – the one dictating mandatory minimum average fuel economy (CAFE, in bureaucrat-speak).
The current fatwa is 35.5 MPG – on average. Note, not a highway. The average of city and highway mileage.
Expecting a 4,200-pound car (or even a 3,700-pound car) to deliver 35.5 MPG on the highway or anywhere else is the automotive equivalent of expecting a 220-pound man to run a six-minute mile.
