They don’t make them like they used to? 1993 Proton Wira in NCAP-style crash test is a grim safety reminder

This is not an easy piece to write although the premise is simple. Old cars are simply not safe for you and your family. They come nowhere near to modern crash safety standards and any new car, even the cheapest ones on sale today, are light years ahead in occupant safety. For your own sake, get a new car.

The above paragraph is a fact, one that was seared into my mind earlier this week when we witnessed the crash test of a Proton Wira, live at the Miros PC3 lab. Knowing something in theory is one thing, seeing the carnage with your own eyes is another altogether.

Here’s some background. This is not an official ASEAN NCAP test and there’s no rating to be earned, although we’re in the same facility in Ayer Molek, Melaka that hands out the stars and points we’re familiar with. The same high-speed cameras and lights, the same background, the same gear and the same wrecking crew, but with a vastly different subject.

One that’s from the past. We have here a 1993 Proton Wira from the first batch of the super popular sedan based on the fourth-generation Mitsubishi Lancer. This white 1.5 GL was donated by Hezeri Samsuri, veteran motoring journalist and founder of Careta. Our friend purchased the Wira with the intention to restore it, but the man has way too many vehicles to work on/play with, and had a brilliant idea.

Crash it! He got in touch with Miros and here we are with a couple of other media outlets Hezeri invited to witness the death of a car in real time. He only has one Wira to give so there will only be one crash – the full frontal – instead of the usual front offset and NCAP’s gamut of tests. Also, we’re using the most basic of dummies (which are very costly things by the way), as the main intention is to show the damage to the car.

After a nervous wait from the viewing platform, we heard the countdown and then the sound of the Wira arrowing into the building at a recorded speed of 62 km/h (64 km/h is the norm). It hit the wall with a muted ‘doosh’ sound, creating a combustion of glass and trim.

We rushed down to inspect the now-departed Wira (RIP, hero), and what immediately struck me wasn’t the completely crushed 1/3 of the three-box sedan, but the fact that the rest of the Proton – now minus the engine bay – appeared visibly shorter than the car that was alive moments ago.

Perhaps not as pronounced in pictures, but the wheelbase of the sedan has been shortened, and the wrecked body appears slightly curved, like a Mercedes-Benz CLS. The crew later lifted the wreckage and pointed us to the broken weld points on the undercarriage.

This compression of the passenger cell has to be the biggest difference between a modern car and an older car built in the era where crash tests weren’t a thing. The engine bay of a modern car acts as a big crumple zone, designed to well, crumple upon impact, absorbing the energy of the crash, so to speak. Without this giant, actual ‘absorber bumper’ (remember the Nissan Sunny 130Y?) the massive energy is transferred to the cabin, as demonstrated by this Wira wreck.

The safest cars on the road today are intact aft of the A pillars, which are reinforced to withstand the front offset crash test. The latter, where only one side of the car’s front end makes first impact, is a tougher test than the full frontal, where the impact is spread over a larger area. This is why you don’t see any A pillar damage here, but shocking scenes greeted us upon closer inspection.

Without a crumple zone, the impact of the collision pushed the firewall – and dashboard – back into the cabin, drastically reducing what experts call the ‘cabin survival zone’. The adult driver dummy’s legs are pushed back to the seat base and his foot is flipped back towards his shin. The steering wheel is no longer round because the dented part ‘went into’ the dummy’s abdomen.

Possible impact areas were painted to literally highlight contact points with the dummy, and we see the colours on Mr Orange’s brow, nose and chin – with no airbag to cushion the blow, the dummy’s entire face collided with the stiff steering wheel. There’s also colour on the passenger side of the dashboard, which means that the head of the child – secured in a child seat – smacked the dash. Certain death if they were both human, we were told.

The final nail in the coffin is that all four doors could not be opened by a crew of five grown men, who had tools and no shortage of experience with mangled cars. The compression of the passenger cell must have sealed the doors in place. If this was a real accident, it would be impossible for passers-by to help extricate the occupants before the bomba arrive with their Jaws of Life. The doors of modern cars are designed to be openable in the event of a crash.

Speaking of doors, if you happen to remember the side impact beams touted by Proton for the Wira (a new feature that wasn’t in the Iswara), they’re present – we peeked into the crevice and saw the horizontal metal tubes.

As confessed at the start, this wasn’t an easy story to write because quite a few of us love old cars here at paultan.org. PT BM colleague Farid drove to Melaka in a slammed Volvo 240 and yours truly’s previous two-door car was a Toyota MR2 three years older than the departed Wira. Many of us car guys have dream cars from that era, or at the very least, a fond memory of the family saloon that we grew up in. They don’t make them like they used to, right?

Indeed! Today’s cars, even the most basic ones, were designed to meet modern crash safety standards that weren’t there in the 1990s, which means that even the Perodua Axia/Bezza or today’s Proton Saga – small and light as they are – will hold up better in a crash than old cars – there are no two ways about it.

And while we’re using the Wira as an example, it would be the same for a Honda Civic EG, Toyota Corolla SEG or any model from the era – the notion of ‘old cars are more solid’ or that they’re made of ‘harder steel’ is plain wrong.

Are we telling you then to ditch the old car and replace it with a fresh hire purchase loan ASAP? No, but if you can afford a modern car to serve as family transport, safety is always money well spent. If you’re keeping an old car for enthusiast or sentimental reasons, enjoy your old buddy responsibly with the realisation that its shell won’t offer much protection in a crash. Ensure that your brakes and tyres are in good condition and don’t take too much liberties. See the Wira’s death blow from all angles in the video below.

GALLERY: 1993 Proton Wira frontal crash test

GALLERY: Modern car wrecks at Miros PC3

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