Ferrari Mailing List: Re: GM & Corvette NFC

[Erik Nielsen (judge4re]

Jim:

I checked the trip computer on my Volvo when I got gas this week, I'm
averaging about 27 mph on a tank of gas.  I'm a firm believer of the
right tool for the job, fact is, some of us just drive back and forth
to work on surface streets and never really get into high speeds (The
average speed of a car in London is now slower than it was in the
1930's!), we also save the bigger things for getting on long hauls.
M3 verus Fit, M3 wins.  But we all loose if it is Peterbuilt verus
anything.

I'm working on getting the Fiat 500 homologated now, if all goes okay,
guess who is getting one of the first Abarth SS's over here?

And forget physics, cupholders are what kills people on the road.

Erik

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Jim Conforti<lndshrk [at] xmission.com> wrote:
> 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.
>
>
>