Top 5 Crash Tests - Fifth Gear

Adak are Europe's largest motoring organization and they recently crash-tested some popular small cameras to see what happens in a rollover accident they found that Peugeot 207 CC was the safest thanks to extending rollover hoops at the back of the passenger cabin once a sensor detects you about to turn turtle they extend by 20 centimeters in just 175 milliseconds forming a protective zone that keeps the occupants from smashing into the tarmac it wasn't a totally glowing report though as the experts deem the windscreen pillars weren't strong enough all of this got us thinking what about older convertibles the ones that don't have the modern pop-up safety equipment summers here and a pretty little 306 Cabriolet like this comes in at just 1500 quid now that's sorely tempting for a bit of summer fun but exactly how safe are you if something goes wrong we're going to find out by simulating a high-speed rollover ourselves euro endcap awarded the Peugeot 306 hatchback a middling three stars but they don't test for rollovers so nobody knows how this car will perform it's something that the American crash-test authorities seem far more concerned with they issue rollover ratings for new cars probably because they love driving around in tall wobbly SUVs so much but they also say that sports cars and roadsters can roll over especially if they're being driven aggressively by a young inexperienced driver who's being put off by fluttering hair now rollovers have a much higher fatality rate than other types of accidents so exactly how does a car turn over well the first way in 95% of cases it's because the car trips over something so the car starts to drift off the side of the road at speed clips a curb and then flips or similarly starts to understeer off and then digs into the soft soil at side of the verge and rolls over in the other 5% of cases it's because the driver does some big dramatic accident avoiding swerve and it's the same result we'll be making our car turn over by winching of this Hollywood pipe ramp having retired to a safe distance first of course our test dummies will show us what happens to the occupants those in the front will have their seatbelts on those in the back are a happy-go-lucky carefree Bunch and we'll be traveling without any restraint at all that's gonna wobble your wig it was horrifying the rear seat passengers were thrown clear but then crushed by the car as it landed we were glad this had been a test rather than real life no matter what the car is you're 75% less likely to be killed if you're wearing a seat belt but the German experts are a day reckon it's time we fitted height adjustable belts and pretensioners for rear passengers as well as those in the front and of course make sure your passengers wear them all right I just like to introduce Matt hilum he's our resident crash expert here at the fifth gear playground so as far as it goes these things have a strengthened windscreen pillar on them it would be ideal if the vehicle did have some kind of pop-up roll hoop or a retractable who in the back of the seats of course what modern look oh my god one would have to say it's very unlikely that either of the front seat occupants would have survived either looking at how they're currently trapped in the car this there's nothing to stop it sort of crushing down upon itself if you're going to roll a car over this is possibly not the best of casserole over in American data says that 85% of all rollovers happen when there's no other vehicle involved suggesting that it's driver error that causes the accident so next time you're racing down country lanes enjoying a bit of wind in the hair motoring check your speed otherwise you'll end up looking something like that but let's not forget the cars aren't the only vehicles on the road in the UK right now there are over 3.6 million of these these are called vans when was the last time you heard how safe they were chances are never really thought about it until now vans have been an unknown quantity but Euro endcap has changed that they've just finished conducting their first-ever van crash tests and the results are a bit shocking six brand new models from Citroen Fiat forward high indict Peugeot and Renault were put through their paces all of which are available as family-friendly mini buses - only the Ford Transit managed a five-star rating the others couldn't beat a measly three but two million vans on the road are over five years old and they're an entirely unknown quantity which is why today I'm conducting a crash test of my own this machine a twelve-year-old Vauxhall van as used by countless tradesmen across the land is going to hit that car down there a VW Passat head-on both traveling at 40 miles per hour now both vehicles are about the same age both are structurally sound and actually both were in regular use until yesterday euro endcap gave the Passat four stars in 2001 but they never tested the van we're filling it with a typical payload one ton of sample and installing our very own low-tech doubles to see what could happen to the people on board here all fifth gear we quite like engines so our winch system is a v8 this pickup here seven point four liter Chevy v8 350 horsepower it drives its back wheels which in turn turn these wheels with the steel cable on a drum that cable pulls both cars together to the point of impact and the cable is bolted along the ground to make sure the cars don't veer off course just in case this lock gets a bit excited we've decided to just get a little strap and hold it back with a little Laurie well you never know with last minute checks complete we're ready to go looks really weird to get this horrible feed so I just stomach because you know what's gonna happen if you drive a van do not miss this one okay come to Vienna capri-sun I really didn't think it was gonna be quite that loud are we good to go let's go have a look shall we Mandy so there's a lot of sand on first impressions the van driver doesn't look too bad there's not been massive deformation of the dashboard both airbags had gone off passenger and driver this foot I think his left hand foot strapped the Vans obviously heavier vehicle carrying a one-ton load so where they struck which is about here the van is overridden the car it would have hit it and they carried on pushing it the Vans almost could have consumed it and eating it or man it's definitely not going to polish out that's freaky the van seems to have come out of the crash relatively well there's his hand there's not been as much damage to the floor pan area as I would have thought but in the back there's a nasty surprise waiting look at this so that was a fat chubby bag sitting there and it's now just flat up against here look how it's tried to break through the row of seats this row of seats is no longer straight it's now a chevron like this I'm really shocked by this it's horrendous and that's the thing although it hasn't been a great deal of bodywork coming through one to the limbs there he has had to absorb all this weight trying to go straight through the windscreen and I think that's that's the thing to consider here what I haven't seen with my eyes that's can kill you it's not just the accident it's what then follows through behind you it's pretty obvious but it's fair to say that I wouldn't want to be in either of these cars in an accident the experts at Euro endcap have reviewed our footage and concluded that the driver of the van would probably have been fatally injured when his head and chest hit the steering wheel thanks to the car's airbag each driver would have fared better it's also a stark reminder that talde's and other heavy equipment should always be tethered securely even if there's a barrier between the back of the van and the front seats in an accident anything stored behind you can become a lethal weapon stretch limos used to be the preserve of the rich and famous an exclusive form of transport that took the glitterati to premieres or rehab but these days every Tom Dick and Chazz now is hiring one there's up to 18,000 of these stretch limos on UK roads and they're full of hens and stags and other animalistic behavior all laying the foundations of a decent hangover but are they safe a jali driver can you pull over a bit I need to look walk around the car knowledgeably now it's worth remembering that no car ever starts out life as a stretch limo most of them were an American sedan this one was a Lincoln Town Car and what they do is they cut it in half and basically weld in a huge tube full of wooden bar and TV equipment and disco lights now we're always told that curtain shoots are bad because they're weak but most of the time these things end up stronger than the car they were based on so they're strong but that doesn't necessarily mean they're safe limos are big and heavy so the handling is rather than and then there's the distractions of course the drive is being put off by loads of drunk people yeah I'm brilliant me all in the back deciding to throw themselves around it's not the best environment to concentrate and whereas modern cars are designed to have forgiving interiors with rented edges inside the limo the potential hazards are everywhere Cheers first up you've got big blocky base of stuff you'd scram out with your head it wouldn't be great with it even here we've got a telly and that's got some seriously sharp edges everyone's having a little drink everything's fun it's all brilliant until you have a crash and then you get this in the back ahead at 60 miles an hour come to think of it even the glasses aren't very cool I think I'll put it away then there's the question of seat belts by law you have to wear them in forward-facing seats but somehow seat belts just don't seem part of stretch limo culture so picture the scene it's a big heavy hard to drive car bombing down the motorway late for the party and it's full of boozed up unrestrained passengers all waving their bottoms out the window imagine what would happen if something went terribly wrong in fact you don't have to imagine what would happen because we're going to show you we brought our long Lincoln to the havoc area at Mira's vehicle testing facility where we're going to perform what we believe to be the world's first high-speed crash test of a stretch limousine so we're going to crash our limo here into this completely solid concrete block three crash test dummies will take the place of me and my lady friends two of the dummies will be sitting on the forward-facing seat with one on the rear-facing seat and of course to replicate real-life none of them will be wearing seatbelts this will be a fifty mile an hour impact as if the limo had come a cropper on a motorway in its a bridge support head-on all we know is that this will be a very big bash here we go here we go here we go oh my word it's a tale of two cars the front section of the original donor car completely crumpled while the stretched sense section of the car has stayed absolutely solid you see the line here where it butts up against the bit they added it's obviously so strong and heavy and reinforced to carry all the weight of the car that it's just pushed itself right through the front of the car and it's a bit of a mess okay so from what we can see if you remember I was sat here and the girl in the blue dress was sat next to me as the car hit the wall and stopped dead we carried on moving at 50 miles an hour unhindered through the big empty space of the limos interior and the girl in the blue dress here has ended up with her head buried in the dashboard after she's gone through the bulkhead whereas I he was sat here I've gone this is me look I've gone forward hit the girl in the backseat crushed her and then dragged her back to end up buried somewhere in the side wooden thing with Italian all decent limo companies in this country do provide seatbelts and strongly advise you to use them having seen this crash I reckon only an idiot would ignore that advice it looks like a cutie but people always say the same thing you wouldn't want to have a crush in one well we've always wanted to test that something tonight it'll face its biggest ever challenge in spite of its size the Smart has done quite well in crash tests so far euro n Kappa would hit three out of five stars and soon after it was launched in 98 a stolen smart appeared on German telly it was deemed the safest of five small cars tested at 40 miles an hour into a deformable barrier last year insurance companies decra and Winterthur upped the ante and far too smart into another car but Green Fiat Seicento spoofs appealingly priests under the strain severely reducing the survival area the orange smart stayed intact and its passengers wouldest stage just minor injuries but what if the smart is a big car well German car magazine auto motor and sport move things on a game and launched a smart into a Mercedes s-class with both cars doing 30 miles an hour the smart punched a hole in the Merc before bouncing away although landing on its side would have hindered a rescue attempt the smart was still pretty much in one piece which got us thinking is this an indestructible car to find out we had to raise the bar on all the previous research and invent our toughest ever test we're going to simulate a high-speed crash by driving into the kind of concrete blocks they use as temporary barriers on motorways it's an unprecedented experiment nobody knows how the little two-seater will perform at 70 miles an hour some predict it will shatter the blocks others say we'll be picking up pieces of car for weeks to come intuitively we think small cars are bad news in a crash because they don't have a long bonnet to act as an energy-absorbing crumple zone the smart gets round this by taking a different approach the key to its defenses is it so-called Tridion safety cell a rigid steel cage reinforced at key points smart describe it as the hard shell of a nut with small but efficient crumple zones both at the front and at the rear in theory getting inside is like putting on a suit of armor even when it hits something more than twice as heavy the [ __ ] where you sit is remarkably unaffected there may not be along the crumple zone but look how the smarts windscreen remains intact this is testimony the rigidity of the passenger cell the downside of the shells rigidity is that there's a greater potential for the crash forces to be transmitted through to the passengers ideally you want to slay them down as gently as possible so you get seat belt tensioners but stop you nurturing forward violently and they're fitted with force limiters that give you a bit of slack before they dig into your chest the cars also fitted with a driver airbag a passenger airbag and a steering column that will retract out of the way in a crash to give you more room to slow down that's the theory but no one knows how the car will behave when it's crashed at 70 miles an hour which is where we come in we've enlisted the help of engineering guru dr. James Brighton his team have converted a smart say that the brakes steering and throttle can be operated by a remote control dr. Kim Blackburn will guide the smart from a chase car straight into 20 tons of concrete block it'll be similar to losing control at 70 miles an hour and spilling off into the temporary barriers on a motorway surely now the smart has met its match Kim's James 10 seconds funny from seventy miles an hour to naught in one second the little smart hit with such energy that it moves 20 tons of concrete lept into the air and rebounded to the side of the road we didn't know what we'd find when we reached the wreckage steel cage has certainly done its job really well you can still see the original shape just that one nasty kink there they've got this is a car without a roof the plastic was just shattered so that was even the strength of the roof there hasn't been that much fitting almost you can open the door fly out let's tell you come around the front and you do see that massive impact around the other side though it still looks remarkably like a smart guy who saw the whole shape of the door indeed the door not only opens normally he closes a kid that does show how well that cage has worked on this impact we must target how well the smart seem to have stood up to our high speed collision but couldn't help wondering how a conventional small car would have performed in a similar test so we found out another remote-controlled three star in cap car seventy miles an hour and two concrete blocks without a super stiff structure like the smarts you can see how this cars bodywork ripples as the shock wave dissipates but again the body looks remarkably intact given the huge energy involved closer inspection revealed that there had been some intrusion into the foot rail but in comparison the smart looked to have suffered even more perhaps most surprising was the obvious energy absorbing qualities of the concrete the courses greater mass moved the blocks more than the smart but in both cases the concrete didn't necessarily deliver the killer blow you might have thought but here's the rub the cars may have stood up to the severity of the crash surprisingly well but the humans inside wouldn't no matter what you drive rapidly decelerating from higher speeds is something your internal organs simply cannot cope with the chilling truth is the people inside both cars would have been very unlikely to have survived so how much stick can a smart take a lot but that can't be said for its passengers today we're adding another eye-opening chapter to our story of destructive research you're going to witness the fastest car crash test that we or anyone else in the world has ever conducted this Ford Focus here is going to go on a little day trip into this concrete block at 120 miles an hour it's an extreme test that's equivalent to the worst scenario imaginable two cars colliding head-on lost both traveling at 120 miles an hour crash of 40 euro Enka conduct tests us up to 40 miles an hour we're going three times faster partly because modern cars can reach such speed and partly because we're curious as to what would happen if a car is exposed to such enormous forces at a hundred and twenty miles an hour our experts say that the deformation will be so great they're not prepared to use their expensive traditional crash test dummies so as a result we've got to use these colors these are shop front mannequins these will hopefully give an idea of what it might be like for human to experience a head-on 120 mile an hour incident these are yours mate they tell us as the car was wheeled into position I had nothing else to do but watch on and wait even in a controlled environment the thought of such an impact sent shivers down my spine it's round about this time that I get quite nervous is the sound of an accident is just catastrophic but these guys have never actually tested a car this fast so this is like proper unknown territory I'm gonna go and find a really safe place to sit down and admire the view a crash like this takes some serious engineering the car will be propelled towards the wall by a winch with 15,000 pounds feet of torque that's the equivalent of 16 Bugatti Veyrons with forces that great attention to detail is vital one loose nut and we could be sending a 120 mile an hour focus into the middle of no meetin brace yourselves these images are disturbing sensitive viewers and those with a Dicky ticker might want to look away now this is it Oh damn the focus is obliterated on impact only the rear end escapes total destruction and the passengers don't ask cut the hairs on the back of my neck at sharp as nails the car decelerates from 120 miles an hour to zero in 68 milliseconds with its occupants experiencing peaks of 400 g the front end hits the wall with such force that the back end rises up 90 degrees and the car is slam dunked down onto its nose crash test expert Tony Payne talked me through the scale of this wreckage absolutely mauled yes you've got the vehicle crushed nearly all the way back to the B pillar you can see here for an occupant in there Isles are lutely no survival space at all there's the rear seat and there's the steering wheel there and literally it's been compressed between the front and rear seat down to that distance goodness me it's it's almost turned into a piece of Modern Art if we go right around into the car itself one seats right that students plantation panel and the person is virtually in that area there I mean I know it's it's all it's all not real but it's still mighty haunting it is an extreme scenario but modern family hatchbacks can reach the speeds we saw today maybe it'll make you think twice the next time you want to put your foot down this is where guy Martin turned into a fireball I just can't imagine doing 160 along him getting sort of me ape now

Channel: Fifth Gear

Views: 3,963,955

Rating: 4.6727729 out of 5

Keywords: Fifth Gear, car, review, fast, crash, fifth, gear, Tiff Needell, Jason Plato, Vicki Butler-Henderson, Jonny Smith, car review, Crash Test, Best crash, Smart car crash, limo crash, van crash, destroying a smart car, compilation, best crashes

Id: VcNlhnpVtVI

Length: 29min 42sec (1782 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2016