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Comment by TrueGeek | Hacker News Reader

As someone who drives a car from the 60s on weekends this was terrifying.

At least you'll go out in style. Seriously though, it would be great see the older car styles brought back with modern safety standards or older cars in some way upgraded to modern safety standards.

Look at what they did to mustang.

Not possible sadly. A lot of the appealing features on older cars (thin pillars, tall windows) are incompatible with current safety standards. Part of the reason why new cars tend to look clunky.

I get why thin pillars don't work with modern safety standards, but surely tall windows are fine? There's plenty modern cars with fairly tall windows, like the renault kangoo?

You need both, slim pillars and large windows, to have the same aesthetic as classic cars.

I'm not having success finding the requirements, but I am almost certain there are requirements on window size. Purely by logic, as the window size increases, side impact rating will decrease.

It's not the tall windows themselves that are dangerous, it's the accompanying low door sills. Higher door sills mean more of your body is protected by metal instead of glass.

This came up recently in another thread on HN.

Safety stands dictate what happens if you collide with a pedestrian. These days, ever car has a sloped front-end. It's not just for aerodynamics, but it's designed to push pedestrians up and onto the hood, whereas the old "stylish" cars had completely flat front-ends, which made it like getting hit by a wall.

Even worse, some older cars had a front end that had negative slopes. If they hit a pedestrian, they'd be pushed down and under the car.

My thought as well. Might be time to trade my shit in.

Yeah, I'm having second thoughts about my 91 sedan with no airbag...

The lack of airbag is OK because you'll be decapitated by the steering column pushing the steering wheel through your neck (1:45 in linked video):

1998 Toyota Corolla vs 2015 Toyota Corolla (Auris):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xidhx_f-ouU

It’s not the airbag that keeps the steering column from going into your neck, it’s the collapsible steering column.

I think the implied point was that the steering column will kill you anyway, so the lack of an airbag is not a problem.

airbag is overrated as long as you wear a seatbelt. if it had had an airbag, it's likely to kill you either with phosphorus (early 90s) or metal shrapnel (late 90s to current)

We haven’t watch the same crash test videos.

The recent article about ejection seat failures makes me wonder about airbags

As someone whose daily driver is a "land yacht" from the early 70s, I'm not too worried... the crumple-zone is huge.

There were some cars with crumple zones back then, but you very likely do not have a crumple zone capable of protecting you. No matter how long your bonnet, you will probably take the brunt of the impact with your body in a car from the 70s.

Not saying don't drive it, I drive a 90s car with no airbags as a daily so I am only marginally better off.

They don't crumple much, despite the size.

What ever other car hit will so. In such an accident, the combined crumble zone is halved so. If you a concrete wall, good luck so.

I know what would happen if I have a serious accident in my week-end hobby car so. A likely hood that is significantly reduced by current fuel prices. And a serious maintenance backlog...

While you can't control all the outside parameters we also don't tend to drive them the same way.

Absolutely not! You tend to be much more careful with hobby cars then you are with average daily drivers.

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