I remember these ads from when i was about 7 or 8 years old.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFoKNCEaZho

thats the one everyones been looking for for ages isn't it ?

I remember that back in the day

Hey, the crash test dummy ad! I think Shimon had been looking for that a while back ...

Remember it well. And the car doesn't even have an airbag

Tom

Chesh740R wrote:I remember these ads from when i was about 7 or 8 years old.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFoKNCEaZho

Certainly, one of best car ads, even they destroy a good car which is a shame, it was somewhat innovative in those days

I don't know if it was because of these ads, but we did see then crash test dummies toys, a music band and all kind of related stuff in later years. Was it because of Volvo or just coincidence?

The next puzzle is to find the building where it was filmed.

Say the door is 2.1m tall, it looks about a 5m drop.

consider the vertical motion:

s = ut + 0.5*a*t^2

5 = 4.9 * t^2

So the time to hit the ground should only be about 1 second, it looks like about 3 in the video. Falling 6m would be about 1.1s.

v^2 = u^2 + 2*a*s

= 0 + 19.6 * 5

v = about 10m/s = 36km/h impact speed (vertical component)

But in film, falling was slowed down for creating stronger immersion of 'oh my god, car is falling' effect, so it is difficult to know time car took to fall down.

Every second falling object gains another 9,81m/s of velocity so impact speed from 6 meters would be 9,81*1.1 = 10,791 that is 38,85kph which looks quite close when you look at damage, due to angle crushing is not as severe as it would be if one would drive head on to wall at that speed.

brad360 wrote:s = ut + 0.5*a*t^2

Engineers... It's the way they tell 'em

jtbo wrote:

"due to angle crushing is not as severe as it would be if one would drive head on to wall at that speed."

Maybe...

But what about the horizontal component? It looks like it comes out from the building a good way, say 10m, in about 1 second.

In that case the horizontal and vertical components are both about 10m/s, it hits the round at 14.14m/s = about 50 km/h

I believe quite big part of horizontal energy is lost by scrubbing against pavement, so car body does not get damage from that, falling starts at the moment car is out from glass unless there is ramp that leaps car upwards, but what all that results, I don't know

How much car does slow down because of aerodynamic drag? cd of 0,43 unless I remember wrong and frontal area was somewhere around 1,5m² too bad I spend math classes in local cafe instead of studying

I would say that velocity that causes body deforming could not be much more than 40kph, could be even less as when seen damage from accident at 50kph front was quite largely gone already, but that had been direct impact to another vehicle so this is rather different, interesting none the less

drag will be negligible at the speed involved.

good point about continued forward motion after impact, not all the energy is absorbed by crushing of body.

For me, the damage demonstrates that you don't want to hit anything solid much faster than 40km/h. I think I read at 80 (50mph) in most cars you have an excellent chance of being killed.

Yes, even if car would have all 5 holy stars of NCAP, it would still be pretty sad situation if one would hit solid object at 80kph, with our beloved cars situation would be worse even at lover speeds, even car is one of best of it's time and class.

40kph can cause already severe injuries so if situation of such happens, try to drive into ditch

It is sudden stop that kills, if possible getting car to hit several more hits is better than one big one, reason why some people survive from insane speed crashes is that their car did not stop at once, but more likely rolled and wasted energy to spinning or whatever, before becoming stopped.

Energy cannot disappear, it have to change form, so there should be something where to put it, deformation, heat, friction of movement etc.

It is interesting world to some, sure results of crashes are not good, but to learn from accidents and how cars act in crashes, there is just something that keeps me hooked so to say

jtbo wrote:It is sudden stop that kills, if possible getting car to hit several more hits is better than one big one

I've always promised myself that if I get into big trouble on the motorway, I will slam the car into the armco crash barrier. This is designed to deform around the front of your car, slowing you down. However, to do this you need to commit to crashing, while instinct may well make you keep on trying to avoid the accident by braking, swerving or whatever, even if the situation is hopeless.

Hopefully I'll never have to put this idea to the test

I remember that ad. Can't believe it's over 20 years ago now!

I seem to remember reading at the time that they crashed quite a few 340s during the planning and making of this commercial. This was mainly because they couldn't get the angle/effect quite right as the car flew out of the window.

They eventually got it right by putting heavy ballast in the boot - this was because the front end was too heavy from a balance point of view.

Perhaps that was because they were using a manual version. If they'd stuck with the good old original Vario, then the natural 50:50 weight would have probably sufficed!

DAFchap wrote: Perhaps that was because they were using a manual version. If they'd stuck with the good old original Vario, then the natural 50:50 weight would have probably sufficed!

How do you work that out? (no more maths please, it's a family forum!)

No - no heavy maths here!
It's just that iirc, the Variomatic transmission, which the "DAF77"/340 was really designed around, is heavier than the manual transmission that Volvo put in.

So, I guess what happened during the stunt/filming (no cgi then!) was that the weight of the engine caused the car to "dip" more for the purposes of camera angles/effects etc.

Anyway, it's all academic really, cause hopefully not too many people would choose to go flying like this!

Going back to the weight thing, the DAF/Volvo 66 and 340 had very good balance and handling as a result of the combination of Variomatic both in terms of the way the CVT works and its similar weight to the engine up front, and the de-dion axle at the back.