Charger wrecked in NorCal, what an idiot!!

[Aussiemadonmopars]

I still think the Charger is fixable though.   

[cbrestorations]

 
That 1959 & 2009 Malibu crash was stacking the deck in favor of the new one.  They paired an X-framed old car against a unibody new car in an offset frontal crash.  

But the basic point is valid.  "Old thick steel cars are safer" was true in the aftermath of the 1970s gas crisis era when everything abruptly downsized.  But these days the road is full of modern cars that weight just as much as the old pre-crisis cars (or more) and have lightyears more R&D invested in their crashworthiness.



I think they said an F-150 whacked that Charger.  If it was a direct T-bone hit then that degree of damage doesn't surprise me at all, even for only 35 mph.   35mph one way + 35mph the other way (even if sliding sideways) = 70 mph.  Side impacts REALLY hurt old cars.  A modern F-150 with a couple people inside might have weighed 5000+ pounds.



As for the cage, it appears to have helped the Charger distort less.  But any rollcage isn't automatically an impenetrable fortress (just ask NASCAR).    And who knows how good the welds were?  

These days when Hollywood purposely wrecks an old car, they will put a whole lot more tubing into the car than a typical dragstrip-legal street machine's cage.   Even if the car has a rollcage that the audience is meant to see (Death Proof, Mad Max, Dukes, etc) there may still be twice as much tubing in the cage of the actual stunt car.  

kerndog is correct, 35 mph head on against another 35mph car does not =70mph, it cancels each other out at only a 35mph crash...havent you seen mythbusters.

[ws23rt]

It is true that when two cars approach --at 35 mph each --they will cancel out each others speed. If one car is stopped by a wall it will no longer be going 35 mph just the same. (a 35 mph stop).  With the two cars stopping at the same time their will be two cars worth of damage which is 70 mph worth. Each car experiencing it's 35 mph worth of the total damage.

[Mike DC]

kerndog is correct, 35 mph head on against another 35mph car does not =70mph, it cancels each other out at only a 35mph crash...havent you seen mythbusters.

Two guys jump off a building and fall at 35mph.  One hits the street below.  The other hits an air mattress.  

What's the difference?  Technically both impacted a stationary object at the same 35 mph.    



What I'm trying to say is this:  

The story says, "Charger hits F-150."  
The story says, "35 mph road."  
It's easy for the reader to imagine a Charger driving 35 mph into a truck that isn't moving towards it.  But the impact was actually much harder than that.  

[ws23rt]

kerndog is correct, 35 mph head on against another 35mph car does not =70mph, it cancels each other out at only a 35mph crash...havent you seen mythbusters.

Two guys jump off a building and fall at 35mph.  One hits the street below.  The other hits an air mattress.  

What's the difference?  Technically both impacted a stationary object at the same 35 mph.    



What I'm trying to say is this:  

The story says, "Charger hits F-150".  
The story says, "35 mph road."  
It's easy for the reader to imagine a Charger driving 35 mph into a truck that isn't moving towards it.  But the impact was actually much harder than that.  

If the charger is driving 35 mph and is stopped moving by another car/truck (going the same speed)it will lose it's speed in the same instant as if it hit a wall. It is true that if the truck was not moving it would absorb some of the impact by moving backward. This would be a lessor impact for the car because it will not have lost all of it's 35 mph speed in the crash.
The total damage would be 35 mph's worth shared by both vehicles.---17.5 mph worth for each.

[RallyeMike]

The 35+35=35 works only given equal mass. That's why you buy an Imperial.

[Mike DC]

Yeah I was thinking about that too. 

The difference is probably not huge in this case.  Most 2nd-gen big block rollcaged Chargers will be over 4000 lbs.