Quote:
Originally Posted by WolfpackS2k
^your response has nothing to do with my comment so you've lost me. And I doubt you've spent any time on the Cayman registry.
^^You can't deny that the crash worthiness of automobiles has become a bit of an arms race. They have to be bigger, heavier, and stronger so that they do better in crashes with heavier, stronger vehicles than what was sold 20 years ago.
At the same time outward visibility has become worse, with smaller windows and thicker pillars. At what point do you draw the line?
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it isn't really an "arms race" scenario since they are not competing against each other but simply trying to meet all of the various different government requirements. Since they try to meet as many possible crash restrictions as possible (every governments is slightly different) this makes it even more challenging. The truly difficult parts is to try and meet conflicting requirements. The crash test standards need heavier and more survivable vehicles while the fuel economy and emissions laws are asking for lighter more efficient ones. Pretty hard to meet both requirements when they have to be engineered to radically different goals. The manufacturers should be applauded that they can pull this off at all and still keep cars at a price point where people can actually buy them.