Interestingly enough, small cars from Korea these days are relatively safe by today’s standards and in comparison to early eighties imports they're very safe (although still not very reliable). The biggest reason is that the United States is stricter with their safety standards today. Whereas Europe has been strict for decades, the US has been late to the safety forum. Thus, European cars even from the sixties were relatively safe compared to something out of a GM plant in the late seventies. Things such as multiple crumple zones, four-wheel disc brakes (vented front), reinforced passenger compartment, reinforced roof supports, reinforced doors, are old news for them. Brands such as Peugeot, Citroen, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Volvo, and many more have been punishing their cars for a very long time and following up with needed improvements.
I recall seeing a simple rollover test from Peugeot in the early eighties. A car was lifted on a track driven forklift 10 feet into the air, accelerated to 35-mph, and then abruptly stopped. That vehicle slid sideways off those forks for several yards, and then hit the floor, rolling twice, without a single compromise to the passenger compartment. The vehicle was totaled, but the passengers would have been safe.
Indeed Craig, when Japanese cars entered this country, they had very few safety standards to meet, and made that obvious by the size and weight of their vehicles. Volkswagen was also behind this curve in the US and in Europe until the 80’s (in Europe Opel was also behind). That is why you can compare a ’79 Trans Am with a Honda CVCC or Volkswagen Beatle from that era and pick the Trans Am for safety – it was safer. But this does make another interesting point, although countries set standards for safety, manufacturers can always exceed them, and this is where European and Scandinavian automakers in general have excelled for years. They have plowed the road of safety for others to follow. Fortunately, most automakers today have followed this road and we have pretty safe vehicles from all over the world. That is why a new Mini Cooper with its small size but numerous airbags is pretty safe. (You may think that it is cheating to add airbags to increase safety versus size and mass (sort of like adding extra cache to a drive to make it faster), but it works.)
What is the technical data for the '79 Trans Am Craig?
