Sorry for reviving this thread, here is a picture I "bumped" into today:
Structural damage after hitting a wall at 40 mph. Mini on the left, Ford F-150 on the right
It's evident that the Mini cabin on the left has taken better the impact and offers better "survivability" or whatever you call it.
This is NOT what you get when a Ford F150 crashes into a Mini, but what happens when both cars hit a stationary object, which are two very different propositions.
On the first event, that is, both cars crashing into each other, the Mini adsorbs more energy and the relative stiffness of the parts of both cars goes against the Mini.
On the second event, hitting an stationary object, the extra-weight of the Ford plays against it. Notice that this extra weight is what makes you feel safer, in the first place, when you buy an SUV.
Heaven helps you if all this chassis you bought for your safety suddenly hits you in the back.
The difference you see between both designs, then, is in part due to the effect that makes a beetle to survive a fall while you might not make it.
Even taking that into account, I bet that, also in part, there is a difference in the "crash efficiency" of both designs.
It makes me think that, even if the Nano has a really short nose, Mr. Tata could be remembered in a better way if he has taken a look at how the Mini was built.
Anyway, there are ways of getting people's money. If you pay attention to this article from the New Yorker, not all are as satisfying as they could be, and perhaps you don't get what you think you get when you pay more for your car:
Ford executives decided to build a luxury version of the Expedition, the Lincoln Navigator. They bolted a new grille on the Expedition, changed a few body panels, added some sound insulation, took a deep breath, and charged forty-five thousand dollars—and soon Navigators were flying out the door nearly as fast as Expeditions. Before long, the Michigan Truck Plant was the most profitable of Ford's fifty-three assembly plants. By the late nineteen-nineties, it had become the most profitable factory of any industry in the world. In 1998, the Michigan Truck Plant grossed eleven billion dollars, almost as much as McDonald's made that year. Profits were $3. 7 billion. Some factory workers, with overtime, were making two hundred thousand dollars a year. The demand for Expeditions and Navigators was so insatiable that even when a blizzard hit the Detroit region in January of 1999—burying the city in snow, paralyzing the airport, and stranding hundreds of cars on the freeway—Ford officials got on their radios and commandeered parts bound for other factories so that the Michigan Truck Plant assembly line wouldn't slow for a moment. The factory that had begun as just another assembly plant had become the company's crown jewel.
Big and Bad
