The car would win but the occupants would suffer more. Your new car is designed to crumple around you to help save you.
Your question is too broad. Which vehicle against which vehicle? The thing is today’s average driver drives an SUV or truck which is a literal tank in comparison, whereas in the 70s most people drove cars. The bumpers wouldn’t even line up (btw this is a modern issue between “cars” and “SUVs/Trucks”) leading to the bigger vehicle overtopping the smaller vehicle. Modern vehicles are also on average heavier and have better safety features. The only thing I will say is an advantage of an older vehicle is in lower speed crashes it has a better chance of being repaired then a modern vehicle that crumples, but at 70mph even solid steel will get wrecked (as will the passengers).
Also bold of you to assume a lot of these vehicles from the 70s can easily reach 70mph without shaking apart.
If you weren’t fucking murdered from the whiplash of not having any crumple zones absorbing the impact. Then you would surely die of your insurance going absolutely through the roof for driving a fucking car from the '70s and getting into an accident
The car from the 70’s survives accidents better because more of it is rigid, but this makes it more dangerous as more of the force of the accident is transferred to the driver.
Modern crumple zones are placed intentionally so that while the car will crumple, the driver will not.
If I have to pick only one, I’m going to go with modern crumple zones
But man, I do wish we had some kind of magical smart metal that could be as rigid as an old car for low speed collisions, but still crumple for more serious impacts.
Because when you drive an old shitbox like I do, pretty much any damage is enough to total it, and having to get a new car really sucks when the accident was minor enough that no one was going to get hurt anyway.
Reverse Newtonian metal sheet. I think that’s doable in my lifetime.
Get EV. Make it do the skateboard design idea where the chassis/drive train is a skateboard under the cabin/cargo body. Delete the bolts that join the halves, replace with bungee cords. Done.
I had a toy car at some point that had plunger bumpers that reversed motor direction on impact.
Everyone is concentrating on the crumple zones and safety at the crash. Remember that modern cars have features that make it easier to avoid the crash in the first place. Antilock brakes. Traction control. Lane assist/warning. Better headlamps, adaptive headlamps. Better suspension and handling. All things to avoid crashes.
All good reasons to avoid the 70’s car.
If I got in a collision with a car from the 70s with a car today
Everyone is concentrating on that because that’s what the actual question is about. OP didn’t ask to avoid the collision.
“If so why don’t people buy more 70’s cars?”. IMHO, this is actually the whole point of the OP’s question.
The thing you got to understand is that the energy of the crash has to go somewhere. The same energy will apply to both cars, the modern car will absorb a lot of it by deforming, the old car won’t absorb any in that way because it’s a hard piece of metal. And you have to wonder, what is more important to you, the car chassis or the people inside? You might as well ask “why do we put packing peanuts if nails are a lot tougher” or “why do we ship eggs in weird cardboard boxes if a metal square would be more resilient”
The cylinder must remain unharmed
Heh no.
Cars in the 1970s were made from coffee tins and cardboard.
Yes, the 70’s car would “win out”. Its driver, on the other hand would fare much worse than you.
Ideally, people wouldn’t treat possibly fatal transit collisions as a sports game. And also ideally, most people would see the uselessness of looking at which car is less damaged. Realistically, I know neither of those are universal, but I do hope they are common.
Yup. Any impacted component that survives means that the force was transferred to the driver instead.
Modern cars look worse after a collision for a reason: If it collapses/crumples, it means that it absorbed some of the forces applied to it rather than transferring it on.
The amount of energy absorbed by the cars is the same for both drivers. (What makes that car existence a risk to both parties.)
The problem of the old car is that it transmits the extra force to the people inside in some of the worst possible ways.
Your car would receive a lot more damage, but the driver in the older car would be much more hurt than you.
Also, modern vehicles are far more reliable and efficient
Here is a fictional scenario, you hit a tree at 30 miles and hour your 2026 Volvo is totaled.
Your dad hits a tree at 30 miles an hour in his 1970 chevy, you replace the windshield and hose it out and you can drive that chevy.
“fictional”. Op is ded
Have I got a video for you!
Edit: with narration https://youtu.be/fPF4fBGNK0U
I love how much this one video has done to explain new car safety.
It’s honestly worth keeping the principle behind crumple zones in mind with everything:
If energy can go somewhere else, then less of it will be transferred to what matters.
For cars, the energy going into bending and breaking the materials of the crumple zone then doesn’t get transferred to the interior compartment.
For Xbox controllers, they’re designed so that when they drop, the batteries shoot out and go flying, which means less energy goes into the controller shell and internals.
And with a lot of laptops these days, you’re seeing the actual toughest, most survivable ones not be built out of heavy rigid metal and glass like Apple does, but out of light flexible aluminum composites. A) they weigh less so there’s less potential energy involved in a fall, and B) some of the energy gets transferred into bending the shell which will then snap back to form.
Featured comment on the first video pretty directly answers the question from @OP @Patnou@lemmy.world :
As a Firefighter I was called to an accident which turned out to be a head on collision between 60’s model Chrysler and a 2000 model Subaru. The Chrysler looked to have held up pretty good but the driver was taken to hospital with life threatening injuries. The Subaru was totalled back to the windscreen yet the mother and daughter in the car walked away without a scratch.
It’s interesting considering how the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety really highlights what is more important for them to reduce in a collision. Modern cars might sustain much more damage and be more likely to get written off as a total loss, but that will probably cost them $30-40k at the high end in most wrecks. But if a person gets seriously injured the insurance company could very quickly be on the hook for the full $100-300k in medical bills most people get coverage for.
The car might sustain less damage, however, the occupant will receive more damage. People buy newer, safer cars, presumably because they like being alive and would prefer to keep doing that.
Modern cars are designed to break before their drivers do, because you can’t replace you, but you can buy a new car.
It wouldn’t win out. They typically didn’t have any crumple zones to dissipate the forces of the impact so the full forces in the accident got transferred to the passenger cell and therefore the passengers. Also no seatbelt pre-tensioners to stop you flying forward before the seatbelt locks would engage and no airbags to protect you. Steering columns were also not collapsible so the driver’s chest being impacted by the steering wheel was a common thing in a head on.
I saw a post where a Cybertruck got T-boned by like a Nissan or something. The Tesla didn’t look damaged badly at all and the other car was modern art. Tesla people were bragging about it until someone pointed out that the Nissan driver walked away while the driver of the Tesla broke both legs.
I know this is anecdote, but the point is that vehicle damage doesn’t prove people injuries.
Yeah, but also not a fair comparison. Whatever the safety status that Cybertruck might be, getting t-boned is always a challenge. No car has a crumple zone on the drivers side door
My 2006 Honda Accord coupe weighs almost a thousand pounds more than a 1965 Ford Mustang.
In fact, a 1985 Ford LTD Crown Victoria only weighs about 400 pounds more than my Honda.
People WILDLY underestimate how heavy modern cars are, and how much better they are for safety of the occupants.
A Datsun B210 weighed 750 kg. The dashboard was made from carboard and the thin metal skin was only one layer thick, the inside trim was made from cardboard.
I think thats partly because of the 80s and 90s when unibody manufacturing became very commonplace but powered everything and tons of tech wasnt commonplace yet.
People just assume cars kept getting lighter.
The crown Vic stat is sure interesting. All that boatiness for only 400 more lbs than an accord is a pretty good deal. Brb, going to buy a 40 year old big body
The sad thing is how good some of those family cars that were so god damn pedestrian 20 years ago are now.
I drove one of the v6 Camrys with the 8 speed… 300hp and half a second faster over the quarter than the gt86… Sure its not manual.and isnt rwd but for a daily… it fucking slapped. “iT cAnT dRiFt” yeah I’m a 40yo man with two kids seats in the back, I’m not trying to tackle Mt Akina.
And half the horsepower and half the fuel mileage. 🤣
The only reason I know either of those two stats is that my dad’s first car was the aforementioned Mustang, and my family had an 85 LTD CV bought new in 85.
It was a good car as far as it goes, and comfy as all get out, but it was definitely thirsty as fuck.
Takes a lot of dead dinosaurs to ride in supreme comfort. I was a valet (parker not rich guy dresser) for a few years and the land yachts were the most comfortable to drive and ride in by far. I would see cars that looked more comfortable but they usually had separate drivers.
