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Crash Test of Cars from different countries. French cars have the safest car http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv2hcCi3FFo

Just saw these pics on a malaysian chinese forum...

Aveo - Best-In-Class Five-Star Frontal Crash Safety Rating You can drive with confidence knowing that Aveo 4 and 5 door are the only cars in their class to earn the highest frontal crash safety rating - 5 stars for both driver and front passenger. Based on U.S. goverment rating , Government star ratings are part of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's ( NHTSA ) New Car Assessment Program ( NSAP )

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a..._us/crash_tests Something to think about guys Kia Spectra Gets Worst Crash Test Rating 31 minutes ago http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/addtomy/*..._us/crash_tests By DEE-ANN DURBIN, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The Kia Spectra is the first vehicle since 2001 to get the insurance industry's worst safety rating in a frontal crash test, according to results released Sunday. Kia Spectra Gets Worst Rating in Crash Tests (AP Video) The Spectra, a small, four-door sedan that starts at $13,240, got the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (news - web sites)'s lowest rating of poor after a crash test dummy's head, chest and legs were injured in the 40 mph crash test. The last car to get that rating was the Chevrolet Cavalier in 2001. "Most manufacturers have figured out how to design vehicles to do a good job protecting people in frontal crashes," said Adrian Lund, the institute's chief operating officer. "Kia lags behind its competitors." Kia Motors America Inc. said it has met with institute officials to determine how to improve the vehicle's performance. The company also said it was comfortable with the level of safety the Spectra provides. "Occupant safety is a priority for Kia," the company said in a statement. "In the development of this product the Spectra has undergone a battery of tests, and we continue to have a high degree of confidence in the real-world protection offered by this vehicle." Only two small cars

taken from vagsg.. BMW

haiz..... Business Times - 14 Jul 2004 Crash safety not a priority in car purchases here Buyers more motivated by prestige, image and price, say dealers By SAMUEL EE DO crash test ratings make a difference in the Singapore consumer's decision-making process? Not really, if the sales figures for mass market models are anything to go by. A case in point is the Honda Jazz. The latest results from the European New Car Assessment Programme, or Euro NCAP, show the Honda Jazz with a four-star rating - the best in its supermini class. But the crashworthiness of the popular Japanese-made car is hardly a key selling point in Singapore. Instead, its styling, flexible seat configuration, spaciousness and fuel economy are used to market this trendy model. In comparison, for the small family car category, the new Renault Megane hatchback was awarded the maximum five stars in front and side impact tests. In fact, all the models in the Renault range available in Singapore have a five-star rating when it comes to occupant protection. They include the Megane Coupe-Cabriolet, new Scenic, Laguna and soon-to-be-launched Grand Espace. This makes Renault the only marque here to achieve such a safety rating feat. However, sales of the new Megane pale in comparison with the Jazz. Launched last September, the stylish French car has registered only an average of 58 units a month this year (including the Megane sedan), compared with the Jazz's 112 units. The contrast is even greater when both models are compared with the top-selling Hyundai car, the Matrix mini-MPV. An average of 257 units were sold each month in the first half of this year. The Korean-made car does not have a Euro NCAP rating because the model is not sold in Europe. 'Euro NCAP ratings are good but they do not usually help to sell a car,' said the distributor of a popular Japanese marque. 'In general, safety does not sell as much as, say, price.' Taking airbags, or the supplementary restraint system, as an example, he said that subconsciously, car buyers hope they won't have to use them. As a result, this feature becomes less important to them. 'If they have a choice between paying for an airbag or ABS (anti-lock braking system), they will choose ABS because they press the brake pedal every day,' he explained. 'If they can feel it and they know that it's there, then it's important to them.' A distributor for a Continental make agreed. 'Not many people appreciate high safety levels,' he lamented. 'Some are just not sophisticated enough to value features like side impact beams and deformation zones.' In fact, he said as many as one-third of his potential buyers ask if they can downspec safety equipment like airbags in order to get a lower price. The fact that there are some entry-level models sold in Singapore which do not come with ABS as standard seems to attest to the consumer's indifference to safety. And among high-end cars with five-star ratings, such as the Volvo S40, and Saab 9-5 and 9-3, including the 9-3 Convertible, only the Mercedes-Benz C and E-Class sedans sell in significant volumes. 'Maybe having a three-pointed star is more important than five stars from Euro NCAP,' quipped one motor trader. However, he cautioned that while getting five stars is important, the test results are only an indication of crashworthiness, albeit a very good one. This is because a front impact test is carried out at 64 kmh and a side impact test at 50 kmh (there are also pedestrian impact and pole tests). 'Serious accidents usually happen when you are going fast, much faster than 64 kmh,' he said. 'That's why even if the car has a good rating, people can still die because they were speeding.' But while the value of the tests may be questioned, there is no denying the value of the safety features themselves. Unfortunately, the billions spent on safety innovations are sometimes lost on the people who buy them. 'When a person buys a car, the last thing he thinks about is crashing it,' said a senior manager in a local dealership. 'So that crashworthiness rating has no value. When you buy a car, what is more important is often the prestige and the image and how it differentiates you from other drivers on the road.'

Hi i crashed my rx7 and smashed the front lip or bumper complety anyone knows of anyplace i can get a replacement? thankx

This afternoon, there was quite a heavy rain along Jalan Eunos headed north to Hougang. My car went thru about 2 inch of water and ahead of me was a white Mercedes Benz with its front wrapped around a tree and part of its buttock on Lane One The driver was still pinned inside and resting against the steering column. Not sure how he ended up there as the road was curving to the right. Wet roads out there today. Drive safely everyone

this might be of interest to some of you car crash freaks World's most shocking car crashes http://www.xwreck.com not my cup of tea, but it does have a lot of my favorite exotic cars

WHOLE industries are devoted to crunching the numbers of car buying: J. D. Power and Associates puts out its Customer Satisfaction Index; the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety gravely tabulates crashworthiness figures; enthusiast magazines trade in gnomic figures like a car's cornering ability measured in lateral g-forces. It's almost as if car buying is a rational process. It's not, and Jaguar, for one, should be glad. By the numbers - acceleration, horsepower and the elusive heft of technology - Jaguar falls short of its German competitors. Often not by much, and not in egregious ways, but enough so that in comparison tests staged by car magazines, heavy with decimalized data, Jaguars typically wind up in the basement. Aesthetics often trumps arithmetic, however, and anyone cross-shopping the Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG and Jaguar S-Type R will feel deeply, even painfully, divided. Sure the E55 is mechanically superior - it might be the best car on the planet - but, for Pete's sake, just look at the Jag. Both the E55 AMG (with a suggested retail price of US$106,000) and the Jaguar S-Type R (US$91,755) are high-performance variants of their companies' mid-size luxury sedans. Within that narrow subset they offer very different ownership experiences. The E55's primary appeal is dumbfounding power, 469 horsepower and 516 pounds-feet of torque, courtesy of a supercharged 5.5-liter V8 hand-built at the AMG factory in Affalterbach, Germany. (Each engine is signed by the technician who assembled it, for a hint of hot-rod haute couture.) So endowed, the E55 is one of the two or three fastest production sedans in the world. Car and Driver clocked one from zero to 60 m.p.h. in 4.3 seconds (so can a sub US$35k!!) on its way to a quarter-mile time of 12.5 seconds, numbers that rival a Ferrari 360 Modena or a Dodge Viper. Not bad for a fully loaded luxury sedan with an automatic transmission. With 390 supercharged horses under the hood, the Jaguar is no paper tiger. The S-Type R dashes to 60 m.p.h. in 5.4 seconds and crosses the quarter-mile stripe in 13.8 seconds - quicker than a nonturbo Porsche 911 or a Nissan 350Z. Yet the S-Type R is certainly not in the E55's league. The Jaguar's appeal lies in its styling. In everyday trim, the S-Type is a graceful design full of style cues from Coventry's glory days. The R package - with its chrome-free body trim, aerodynamic side skirts, 18-inch alloy wheels filled with huge brake rotors, and a steel mesh grill that looks like chain mail - gives the elegant S-Type a touch of lean malevolence. It's just gorgeous. There is a quality in the Jaguar, with its long prow and classic "leaper" hood ornament, that hints at the deep mix of British nobility with our notions of luxury and status. Consumers still see British style - its impractical flair, its clubby insouciance - as an opportunity to purchase prestige. ...... continued....

Irvine, CA - There are comprehensive safety systems in modern cars designed to help protect just about every occupant - except the unborn child. Researchers still know surprisingly little about what happens to a fetus in a car crash. To expand engineers' and designers' understanding in this area, Volvo Car Corporation has developed the world's first official computer model of a pregnant crash dummy. This 'virtual' crash dummy is a woman at a late stage of her pregnancy, since that is when the unborn baby is at greatest risk in an accident. The basic geometry was completed in January, 2002 and much time has been devoted since then to refining the model. "Now it's finished and we've started running simulated front-end impact tests on it," says Camilla Palmertz, a biomechanical engineer at the Volvo Cars Safety Centre in G