• A 1989 Golf in a 2025 crash test? Results were predictable.
Today's vehicles are safer than ever, that's undeniable. For all the nostalgia regarding old-school car styling and simplicity, when it comes to safety, modern vehicles rule.
Crash tests, designed to measure the structural rigidity of models on the market, have evolved greatly over the years and their results have allowed carmakers to continually refine their vehicles.
Ultimately, our chances of surviving a collision today are much greater with a modern vehicle than with one dating back 30 or 40 years.
The Dekra group, an independent German organization specializes in automotive safety, provided more proof, by subjecting both a second-generation 1989 Volkswagen Golf and a current-generation model to a modern safety test. The older car used, by the way, was in excellent mechanical and structural condition.
The test was simple, and involved launching the cars into a safety barrier at a speed of 60 km/h. That particular test was used to help carmakers conform with Euro NCAP standards until 2020. Essentially, the test reproduces a moderate overlap frontal crash between two vehicles.
The results speak for themselves. In the video you can see the older car's deformation reaching the cabin. A Dekra group expert summarized the crash test's conclusions: “In the Golf II, occupants would have had little chance of surviving this head-on collision due to the collapse of the passenger compartment, the deep penetration of vehicle components into the passenger compartment, the deceleration and the impact on the steering wheel.”
With the 2019 Golf used for comparison purposes, the result was very different: “The entire passenger compartment remained completely intact, and the occupants were very well protected by the front and side airbags in combination with the seat belts, belt tensioners, and belt force limiters.”
Braking tests also revealed that the old Golf needed about 30 percent more distance to come to a complete stop. Cornering stability was also examined with a handling test. Where the modern version could negotiate a section at 75 km/h, the older one could do no better than 65 km/h.
And just imagine, the second-generation Golf had good road grip for its time. A comparison between a modern Toyota Camry and, say, a 1968 Chevrolet Impala would show even more staggering differences.
And in fact, the American IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety) conducted a crash test several years ago featuring a head-on collision between a 1959 Chevrolet Impala and a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu. The results were eye-opening.