New Beetle Is No Crash Test Dummy
The Bug isn’t only cute, it’s tough.
The New Beetle easily trumped 11 small-car competitors with the strength of its front and rear bumpers in slow-speed crash test results released today.
The Beetle sustained $134 in total damages from four crash tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an insurance research group. The second-place finisher, the Saturn SL2, had damages nearly five times more costly.
“This is way below what we typically see,” institute President Brian O’Neill said of the Beetle’s bumper results.
The news should cheer Beetle fans who have been on long waiting lists for the hot new car, which began reaching dealerships last month.
Volkswagen spokesman Tony Fouladpour said company officials knew the car would be a sentimental favorite, but took steps in the hope it would also be known as a safe car.
He said Beetle bumpers did well in the tests because of several factors, including the stiffness of the plastic material they are made from and engineering techniques used to build them.
But bumpers are only one aspect of safety. The institute isn’t releasing high-speed crash test results of the Beetle until next week.
The institute tested the small cars by driving them and backing them straight into a flat barrier at 5 mph and then repeating the test at an angle. It also backed the cars into a pole similar to those sometimes found in parking lots.
Institute officials crashed the cars at slightly faster than walking speeds because slow-speed bumps often happen in congested urban traffic.
O’Neill said flimsier bumpers on competing models “mean lots of unnecessary damage in minor impacts, higher insurance bills, deductibles paid out of consumers’ pockets and the major inconvenience of doing without a car while it’s in the shop.”
VW reports strong sales of the New Beetle in its first month on the market. It expects to sell 50,000 of the cars in the United States by the end of the year.
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Paying Upfront
Damages to 1997-98 small cars after four slow-speed crash tests:
$134: Volkswagon New Beetle
$656: Saturn SL2
$849: Toyota Corolla LE
$1,029: Nissan Sentra GXE
$1,038: Dodge Neon Highline
$1,095: Volkswagon Jetta GL
$1,392: Honda Civic LX
$1,784: Ford Escort LX
$1,895: Mazda Protege LX
$2,633: Mitsubishi Mirage DE
$2,816: Kia Sephia LS
$3,042: Hyundai Elantra
Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
