Modern Muscle Cars Aren’t Quite As Safe As You’d Think

The Mustang, Challenger and Camaro all missed out on the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's top safety ratings, with two struggling with the challenging overlap tests

Matt Robinson

24 May 2016

Since sports cars tend to be driven enthusiastically, it’s important they’re as safe as possible. However, a trio of modern muscle cars - a Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challenger - all missed out on the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s (IIHS) top safety ratings.

To nab the IIHS’ ‘Top Safety Pick’, a car needs a ‘good’ rating in the small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restrain tests, and have some kind of front crash prevention system. The Mustang came closest, but was let down by an ‘acceptable’ rating in the small overlap test, where the roof buckled and the A-pillar plus instrument panel intruded into the cockpit.

The Camaro fared much better in the small overlap, but it scored only ‘acceptable’ in the roof strength test, and doesn’t have any front crash prevention tech.

The Challenger - the oldest of the trio - performed the worst, scoring ‘acceptable’ for roof strength and the head restraints, and only ‘marginal’ in the small overlap.

So in other words, room for improvement with all three cars…

Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.

Comments

Now people will make more Mustang crowd jokes now that they see this.

The Mustang doesnt have enough with killing crowds, he also wants to kill the driver

It’s just weight reduction so it can accelerate to the crowd faster, ford thinks about these things man, they understand the ultimate purpose of their car and they help it in any way possible to achieve it.

Well i think they tested the crash dummies on the outside of the Mustang, instead of inside.

Meanwhile in Willy_Drift empty garage… I think the Mustang joke was really funny at first but now it’s just a bunch of unlicensed kids that don’t own a car just beating a dead horse. (See what I did there?) But seriously I’m one of these unoriginal jokes away from compiling crash statistics to put this nonsense to rest. I get why people make the assumption that it’s a bad car, because people today are soft. They are wussy, and they just can’t handle a REAL car anymore. You talk big game on the Internet but in the real world you got nothing in your garage.

That’s because the mustang was intended for crashing into crowds, not walls

But the real question is, “Who cares”

I’ll be running a V8 Mustang soon, so yes, I care!

Yeah who cares about serious injury and death right?

yep, that’s the typical muscle car owner’s thinking….. who cares.

FLixy Madfox 狂ったキツネ , you have a skateboard in your garage… you’re in no position to be talking tough.

Says a 14 year old keyboard warrior with no real world driving experience

Well since my first car was a 1998 citroen Saxo, that i think achieved at best a 1 star euro ncap ratinh, these cars looks fine to me :D (jokes)

i had one of those 2 it achieved 2 stars on euro ncap and had the same star rating as the mk1 land rover freelander :)

Actually my 85 jetta earned 5 out of 5 stars in safety, but still if i hit a stiffer modern car my car is done

what are the rims of the camaro made of? plastic? paper?

It’s a cast A356.0 aluminium alloy in case your comment wasn’t sarcastic and you want an actual answer.

Part out?

Sorry for your loss but how much for the two rear tires and the engine if it is healthy ? 😂😂

Muscle cars owners will be really nervous right now

Not really. They’re all 5-star cars and the Small-overlap is a rare occurrence in reality. Even if I did have a small overlap crash in my Mustang it did fair relatively well and I’d only have minor injuries.

No they won’t. Muscle cars haven’t been built since 1972. These are pony cars.

Wait what??! The Mustang is the best and the Challenger the worst? Are you kidding me? The Mustang crushe the Driver because the A-Pillar is like from old Cola Cans. The Challenger was the stiffest of them three, it didn’t lost its Wheel and maybe you could even open the Driver’s door.

Maybe not enough energy dissipated. Also it was the only one that trapped the driver.

Yeah, but it is to rigid, resulting in the driving taking a lot of the impact energy, whereas the mustang bent more, but the car took the impact energy.

A stiff car isn’t neccessarily safe, quite the opposite actually. The Dodge had almost no crumple zone at all, which means that nearly all the force of the impact went directly to the driver. The Mustang really looks terrible after the crash, but that’s not a bad thing as long as the inside of the cabin is still intact. Being able to open the door after the crash doesn’t mean anything if the driver would suffer a whiplash instead. On the other hand, the car also shouldn’t vaporise into tiny bits on impact, as the Chevy did. The Ford is really the safest of the three.