Wheels x ANCAP: How will this 30yr-old car fare in a modern crash test?

Did you know that ANCAP was only the second new car assessment program in the world and actually beat Euro NCAP to the punch?

Established in 1993, the Australasian New Car Assessment Program was a response to the drive for safety in the United States led by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

In 1978, the Yanks started using crash test dummies to evaluate the safety of vehicles going further than existing standards that were more concerned about how a car survived a stack than its occupants.

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Benz and Volvo were innovating safety equipment to sell cars, but the lower end of the market was suffering from unsafe vehicles.

In Australia, 10.5 per 100,000 people were dying in car crashes in the ’90s. Today that number is down at around 4.5 per 100,000. That’s still too high, but a marked improvement that wouldn’t be so significant were it not for crash-testing bodies making noise about vehicle safety.

To celebrate 30 years of ANCAP, Wheels and the crash-testing body teamed up to find a suitable victim to illustrate just how far vehicle safety has come.

With 58,000kms on the clock wearing original FGD 057 Victorian Garden State State Plates, the mid-spec Magna Exec (with fetching blue velour upholstery) had its registration cancelled in July last year when it was bought by a young South Australian father looking to get a vintage motor at an affordable price.

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We snaffled it up for $2800 after he decided on a safer machine to transport his kids, and it was shipped to Crashlab for a date with a barrier.

The poor thing. Our example is almost too good to crash. But think of this non-running Magna as one that passed its body onto science; the world is richer in knowledge thanks to this dad-spec car from the ’90s getting munched.

Most reviews you’ll read on this site labour the active safety features now expected to avoid crashes. The Magna has none of that, just four three-point belts and a centre lap sash – not even an airbag.

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Crashlab’s 100,000 Lux LEDs flood the room with light. A high-pitched shriek signals the Magna’s imminent demise as it barrels towards the barrier.

Crunch. That’s it. The initial hit and energy transfer looks promising, but the Magna’s front end is tamped like a bed of coffee beans as the body reaches maximum compression. It’s a brutal watch.

Without airbags, the risk of skull fracture and brain injury – potentially fatal injuries – are significant in the Magna.

The dummy’s head registered 107 g worth of force. To put that in context, Formula 1 drivers experience up to 6 g in corners, while Romain Grosjean’s fiery 2020 crash registered 67 g.

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It’s also more than twice the force occupants of a modern five-star car would experience in the same crash; ANCAP says that could be the difference between life and death.

There was pronounced footwell intrusion and high femur loading on the dummy’s left leg, too (expect a fractured limb at least) and while things initially seemed better in the rear, the Magna’s seatbelts aren’t modern items with pre-tensioners.

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The 5th percentile female’s knees connected with the lower portion of the front passenger seat as she slipped out from under the belts – a phenomenon known as ‘submarining’.

With only one crash test performed ANCAP isn’t star-rating the Magna but scoring zero out of 16 possible points for the frontal offset impact would not bode well for a 2023 five-star rating.

The chances of having a crash at just 50km/h and escaping minor injuries are not high in this vehicle; they are in modern cars. And it’s not just the Magna, results from this modern test are consistent with the level of force seen in original testing.

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ANCAP is not about to start going back in time and safety rating cars. Instead, this stunt is about promoting awareness and how its role has changed.

“Our founders were originally met with strong resistance from vehicle manufacturers, yet today, they’re the ones bringing forward new and innovative ways to prevent road crashes and leading the way in vehicle safety improvements”, said ANCAP CEO Carla Hoorweg of the significant development that’s occurred over the last three decades.