Ferrari Mailing List: Re: GM & Corvette NFC

[Jim Conforti (lndshrk]

At 02:20 PM 6/4/2009, you wrote:
> Nothing wrong with the Fit, I was part of the design team for the
> emissions system...

  Nothing wrong with the emissions system, I'm sure.

  I'll bet your team did a bang up job - or it wouldn't have
  passed the FTP-75, the US-06, or the SC-03.

  (Ergo: they wouldn't be selling them)

  Would you like to be the crash dummy in a test of a Fit
  versus my BMW M3?  (Or any other average size well-built
  car out there - including a Accord, Camry, a Lexus ES, etc)

  Here is what the IIHS said - Accord vs Fit:

Honda Accord versus Fit: The structure of the Accord held up well in 
the crash test into the Fit, and all except one measure of injury 
likelihood recorded on the driver dummy's head, neck, chest, and both 
legs were good. In contrast, a number of injury measures on the dummy 
in the Fit were less than good. Forces on the left lower leg and 
right upper leg were in the marginal range, while the measure on the 
right tibia was poor. These indicate a high risk of leg injury in a 
real-world crash of similar severity. In addition, the dummy's head 
struck the steering wheel through the airbag. Intrusion into the 
Fit's occupant compartment was extensive. Overall, this minicar's 
rating is poor in the front-to-front crash, despite its good 
crashworthiness rating based on the Institute's frontal offset test 
into a deformable barrier. The Accord earns good ratings for 
performance in both tests.

  It's PHYSICS, Erik - small lightweight car vs anything else
  larger, and more heavyweight.

  Passengers in "small lightweight" car LOSE.

  Sometimes they lose it ALL.

  I'm old enough - and have a good enough memory to remember this
  happening at least twice in my lifetime.  Might actually have
  been THREE times.

  The big PUSH to "smaller" cars.

  VW Beetles/etc - Dodge Omni's/VW Rabbits - now the Smart/Fit/etc.

  So yeah - THREE times in my lifetime, IIRC

  And invariably - with horrible results as to crash safety.

  No amount of Obama, his "Auto Task Force", the libs, the greenies,
  Al Gore, the MSM, or the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) nee cum
  "Global Climate Change" religion - dancing around and proclaiming
  that "SMALL is BIG" are going to change that.

  Smaller LOSES on the street vs LARGER.