Quote:
Originally Posted by Adriel
Thank you for that great site!  I am paranoid, including doing damage. As I can see, came no were near the limit. I don't expect others to correct my mistakes. I don't even think Mercedes even would listen to a classic owner!
Oh good, finally something the Federal government isn't involved in! So when did they start testing?
I wish I had known as could have found out why my air bags were defective. Bummer... |
I believe their earliest tests were in the mid 90s but videos for those tests are harder to find. They were prompted to do their own tests after the government only ran full frontal impact tests. All the cars were getting 5 stars from the gov. IIHS introduced the 40% impact test where less than half the car's front end has to absorb the energy of a 40mph impact.
Frontal crash tests
The 20% test is much more recent. They were also the first to do side impact tests against a fixed pole. This forced manufacturers to introduce head airbags. You can also look at euro NCAP crash tests which are just as brutal and also independent from gov influence.
https://www.youtube.com/user/euroncapcom/videos
Prior to NCAP and IIHS there was this German clip which was probably one of the first examples of a offset crash test. Its long but worth watch. The W124, E34 and Audi are the only ones that do well. The German market cars didn't have standard airbags at the time which could have helped a lot in this case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaiMUM0XVZk
Old NCAP from late 90s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=847AtiO5kkg&feature=youtube_gdata_player