As my colleague Warren Clarke pointed out a few days ago, the Volvo S60 aced NHTSA's battery of crash tests. Impressive stuff, no doubt, but my juvenile brain wants to see carnage. Click through to see various S60's get mangled in the name of safety (and, for me, fascination).
This first one shows various angles of the same frontal crash test. I was most intrigued by the underbody shot at the end that shows how the energy is channeled throughout the chassis.
Now, we have the side pole impact test. Man, I wish these videos had sound.
And here's the side impact test. It makes my hips hurt just watching this.
Bonus round: here's the IIHS test with sound.
Drive safe, everybody.
Mark Takahashi, Automotive Editor
alpha01 says:
12:23 PM, 01/27/12
Awesome stuff, Mark. I'm totally a crash test carnage nerd too. Some of the best stuff is the early days of the IIHS tests, with vehicles that could achieve good ratings under the old NHTSA testing, but collapsed incredibly in the offset. Like this one: http://www.youtube.com/user/iihs?blend=1&ob=0#p/search/0/Z7gSxmk1kp0
adavis2493 says:
12:40 PM, 01/27/12
I wonder why they crash tested such an expensive version of the S60. If you look closely at the top video, it's an S60 T6 AWD.
mtakahashi says:
01:08 PM, 01/27/12
alpha01: Nothing beats this test of a Chinese truck. As the Dread Pirate Robert says, "There will be no survivors."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D827IxEJVS4
clay92 says:
02:06 PM, 01/27/12
Crashing in the S60 looks quite comfortable. Wait, that's not the right word...
bradyholt says:
02:37 PM, 01/27/12
adavis2493,
It may have been that they did separate rollover resistance calculations of FWD and AWD models. It could have also been that the nearest Volvo dealer didn't have much to choose from.
alpha01 says:
02:56 PM, 01/27/12
mtakahashi - whoa! THAT is carnage. thx for the entertainment!
the_bruceb says:
09:03 AM, 01/28/12
NHTSA camerman to NHTSA janitor:
Frank! There's more glass over here!
I would hate to be the janitor at the NHTSA or IIHS. On the bright side, he'll never get let go for lack of work.
cr_driver says:
10:00 AM, 01/30/12
Wow, that chinese truck! Just wow.