Comments on: You've Come A Long Way, Dummy: 1960s GM Crash Test Video

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 30 May 2009 02:56:11 +0000

Not GM, it’s UCLA test footage over the years; 1960, 1964, 1967 cars provided at the time for research by Chrysler & Ford, or purchased with research grant money. 1960 & 1964 tests were for unrestrained occupants, ‘67 was more into head restraints and fuel tanks.
Note that the cars held up pretty well, considering the impact forces, but the occupants received little consideration until these films were made public back in the day.

By: Jonny Lieberman

Jonny Lieberman — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:26:49 +0000

1) Who cares?

2) GM (probably) paid UCLA Science-Dudes to conduct the tests and UCLA used whatever clunkers they had on hand.

By: dculberson

dculberson — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:58:29 +0000

Etmccaus, I’m going to guess that it’s because the person that compiled the video didn’t do their research quite thoroughly enough.

A lot of the cars say “UCLA” on them so that’s probably who performed the tests.

By: Etmccaus

Etmccaus — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:31:25 +0000

Here’s a question from a real dummy–if these were GM tests, why are they almost always running Mopar-on-Mopar (possibly Ford-on-Ford at one point) action?

By: Jonny Lieberman

Jonny Lieberman — Fri, 29 May 2009 07:01:45 +0000

Let’s make that six times

By: Robert Plumer

Robert Plumer — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:48:39 +0000

Both entertaining and chilling at same time. I love classic cars but, this is reminder of how far we’ve come as far as safety.

By: Bret

Bret — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:27:16 +0000

That’s chilling yet also funny. I’d be curious to see a modern small car (say a Fit or something similar) be paired up with one of those behemoths in a head-on test.

By: Jonny Lieberman

Jonny Lieberman — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:34:03 +0000

Yeah, I’ve watched it four times now.

By: Mad_Science

Mad_Science — Wed, 27 May 2009 23:06:49 +0000

The guy falling out the door and getting run over is simultaneously awesome, hilarious and disturbing.