<story><title>A small 2009 car demolishes a 1959 Chevy in a crash test [video]</title><url>http://kottke.org/16/01/a-small-2009-car-demolishes-a-1959-chevy-in-a-crash-test</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Amorymeltzer</author><text>My wife and I recently finished an introductory auto mechanics class — which was an incredibly fun time and an excellent experience — and one of the recurring themes of the class was just how miserable, unreliable, and dangerous cars were ~50 years ago.  This video is a good example of that; it&amp;#x27;s not just mileage or seat belts or airbags, it&amp;#x27;s everything from tires to engines to brakes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Someone1234</author><text>Wish I could find an adult intro to auto mechanics class around here. That would be massively useful for everyone to learn but it seems like all anyone who already knows basic auto repair says is &amp;quot;YOU DON&amp;#x27;T KNOW HOW TO DO THAT?!&amp;quot; with a sarcastic condescending tone, and I guess that attitude filters down to lack of education since it is &lt;i&gt;obvious&lt;/i&gt; or whatever.&lt;p&gt;But on the positive note there is a 101 to gun safety class every two city blocks so I have that going for me...</text></comment>
<story><title>A small 2009 car demolishes a 1959 Chevy in a crash test [video]</title><url>http://kottke.org/16/01/a-small-2009-car-demolishes-a-1959-chevy-in-a-crash-test</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Amorymeltzer</author><text>My wife and I recently finished an introductory auto mechanics class — which was an incredibly fun time and an excellent experience — and one of the recurring themes of the class was just how miserable, unreliable, and dangerous cars were ~50 years ago.  This video is a good example of that; it&amp;#x27;s not just mileage or seat belts or airbags, it&amp;#x27;s everything from tires to engines to brakes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chiph</author><text>Growing up, we had a late 60&amp;#x27;s Dodge station wagon.  It was pretty much the definition of &amp;quot;unsafe&amp;quot; - the interior was made of hard metal surfaces, loose steering &amp;amp; suspension, and no crash engineering at all.  But it was the first family car that came with disc brakes, and that&amp;#x27;s why Dad bought it.&lt;p&gt;Later, they bought a mid 80&amp;#x27;s Pontiac 6000, and while it had disc brakes, GM hadn&amp;#x27;t increased the size of the brake rotors to accommodate the change from asbestos brake pad material, so it had huge brake fade and panic stops really did result in driver panic.  Not a fun car to drive.</text></comment>