'Safety' is the buzzword for
The Associated Press
DETROIT Buckle your seat belts,
folks. The 1992 cars are rolling, and
they'll bring a blizzard of advertising
designed to convince you they're the
safest things ever to hit the road.
They just may be.
Safety is In vogue these days every
where, partly because of government
edict and partly because auto makers
said it should be so. But the protection
devices will come at a price.
General Motors Corp. Is raising Its
prices by about 3 percent, Ford Motor
Co.'s prices boosts will be in the 3.7
percent range and Chrysler Corp., which
really needs to boost sales, Is holding
price Increases to below 2 percent.
While those price boosts are lower
than the annual Inflation rate, a car
buyer coming into the market after be
ing out for four, five or six years, may
get a severe case of sticker shock.
For instance, the National Automo
bile Dealers Association says the aver
age selling price for a new vehicle in
1986, the biggest sales year in auto
history, was $12,950.
The average selling price In 1991,
Including the cash-back Incentives that
have become part of buying a car, was a
bit more than $16,000, an increase of
nearly 25 percent.
In the past, new cars were introduced
officially on Oct, 1. Dealers used to
block their businesses' windows with
brown wrapping paper and sneak in the
new cars on Sept. 30.
Then, on Oct. I , the breathless antici
pation ended with the paper coming
down and, taa-daa, there they were
tons of gleaming sheet metal and daz
zling chrome.
These days, the chrome is nearly gone
and so Is the high drama. New vehicles
are introduced whenever auto makers
think they're ready for the market. For
1992, lots of the features companies
will be talking about will be safety re
lated. Air bags are becoming more com
Musclecars, with all their power and
glory, are coming back from the '60s
The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO The mega
horsepower "musclecars" of the 1 960s,
driven from the nation's highways be
cause of their thirst for fuel and
unchecked emissions, are enjoying a
return to favor as they flex their power
among newer, lesser cars.
sneer love of horsepower, however,
is only part of the story of the popularity
of cars that rolled off the assembly line
with twice the number of cylinders as
most of today 'scars.
There's plenty of nostalgia, but more
is Involved. Many of these cars are
excellent investments.
Cars with the roar of power are hot
with the baby-boom generation, says
Don Williams, president of the
Blackhawk Classic Auto Collection In
Danville, Calif.
"I'm talking about people 35 to 55,"
said Williams, who puts together auto
collections for wealthy people around
the world. "The boomers have the money
now to buy the cars of their youth, the
cars they couldn't afford then."
Williams says that when he entered
the business in the late 1960s, "every
body wanted, say, a model A or a 1936
convertible." His personal favorite was
a 1957 Plymouth Fury.
."My father couldn't afford to buy
mon, both on the driver's and
passenger's sides. Government-mandated
side-door guards are being In
stalled, and trucks and tninivans are
upgrading their safety systems. Avail
ability of anti-lock brakes also is grow
ing. Safety Isn't new, but It's moved up
on the list of things consumers are look
ing for in a car.
Consumers weren't ready for air bags
when GM tried them out nearly 20 years
ago. The air bags weren't ready either.
There were concerns about unintended
Inflation and failure rates.
But then sophisticated electronic sen
sors were developed and unintended
air-bag deployment vanished. Methods
used to Inflate the devices also were
Improved.
Protection agalhst side Impact used
to mean heavy beams in the doors.
In these days of lightweight but strong
materials, that kind of protection is more
feasible, and It seems to be working.
According to the Insurance Institute
for Highway Safety, the humber of fa
talities on the nation's roadways has
been on a modest downward trend. In
1 980, there were 5 1,09 1 motor vehicle
related deaths. A decade later, that num
ber dropped nearly 1 3 percent to44 ,529.
Since the Dec. 1, 1984 enactment of
the New York seat-belt law, such laws
have been spreading throughout the
country. As of last July just 1 1 states do
not have some kind of seat-belt law.
The federal government also has re
quired passive restraints in new cars for
the past several years. Those have taken
three basic forms an air bag used in
conjunction with a manually operated
lap and shoulder belt, a motorized shoul
der belt with a manually operated lap
belt and a shoulder and lap belt attached
to the transmission hump and the door
in GM cars.
It's difficult to tell just how many
lives may have been saved by safety
devices, but a clear indication of faith in
the systems comes from Insurance com
one, so 1 wanted it," he said. But tastes
do change, he adds, predicting that "10
years from now, we will be talking
about the cars of the '70s."
Tom Corcoran, editor of Mustang
Monthly, agrees about the pull of the
past. But he also mentions financial and
road stability.
"Nobody lost a dollar on a V-8 car of
the 1 960s," said Corcoran, whose Lake
land, Fla., publication has 60,000 sub
scribers. "Also, you can really survive
on the highway in cars like a Mustang."
Mustang Monthly stays on top of
developments among lovers of the
Mustang, whose birth as a 1964 model
inspired the term "pony car," which
covers the sporty, powerful class of
auto which later Included the Camaro,
the Barracuda and the Trans-Am.
If your taste is more universal, there's
Musclecar Classics. Its pages are filled
with details of such giants as the
Thunderbird, 1969 Pontiac OTO and
1962 Pontiac Gran Prix.
There 's no way to tell the exact num
ber of musclecars still on the road in
California, says Bill Madison of the
state Department of Motor Vehicles.
"We'd have to check our computers for
every year and make. We don't keep
those cars in a separate category."
But for Bill Kingsbury of the Auto
panies, many of which offer big dis
counts for cars with air bags or anti-lock
braking systems.
There are two basic ways to find out
what safety features from the sales
person or from advertising.
Perhaps one of the most dramatic
series of advertisements In the past year
came from Chrysler Corp., the domes
tic auto maker that has taken the lead in
safety-related advertising.
A Chrysler Fifth Avenue and a Dodge
Daytona, both driven by stunt drivers,
collided head on at a combined closing
speed of S3 ttiph, crinkling both front
ends, causing the air bags to deploy.
Both drivers stepped out of their ve
hicles unhurt.
It was a continuation of an advertis
ing campaign that began in 1989 that
has included an air-bag-equipped car
ramming into a brick wall and testimo
nials of crash survivors with Chrysler
Chairman Lee Iacocca.
Here's a brief summary of the ap
proaches some auto makers are taking
toward safety in their new models.
GENERAL MOTORS: GM this
summer announced a breakthrough in
anti-lock braking systems, or ABS,
which reduces the company's cost of
making them. Because of that, GM will
be expanding the availability of ABS
Into its lower-priced cars.
FORD: A fire at an air-bag sup
plier interrupted the flow of passenger
side air bags to Ford assembly plants.
But for 1992, the company will offer
standard passenger-side air bags on some
of its largest cars.
For the first time, Ford is offering
driver's-side air bags on its full-size
Econoline and Club Wagon vans.
CHRYSLER: The most financially
troubled of the U.S. auto makers has
taken the most aggressive strategy in
advertising its vehicles' safety devices.
Ever since the 1990 model year, all of
the cars Chrysler builds in the United
States have come with air bags as stan
dard equipment.
Priceline, the cars are in a class by
themselves. The Priceline Is a 900-num-ber
service providing current values of
almost any car based on make, model,
year, mileage, location and optional fea
tures. The service recently added more
than 5,500 listings of collectible cars
most dating between 1946 and 1972
to almost 10,000 in its computers.
He has no doubt which auto is the
leader of the pack when it comes to
resale. "Over the last four years, the top
percent increase has been the 1 969 Ford
Boss 429 Mustang fastback. There's
been a 342-percent increase."
The word "Boss" brings sighs from
lovers of Mustangs. "That's because
they were made to race, but In order to
qualify as stock Ford had to make a
limited amount for sale," said Paul
Spakowski, who restores classic cars at
his Polish Motors in San Francisco.
Themusclecar.accordingtomuseum
literature, represented that "brief mo
ment In American automotive history
when marketing and advertising depart
ments ruled. ... High horsepower was
the crown prince."
The era ended with a clank in 1 972 in
the face of (he triple specters of high
Insurance costs, rising gasoline prices
and ecologicalconcerns. American driv
ers learned they couldn't have it all.
Car Care '91The Daily Tar
the 1992 models
Exempt from that are the so-called
Diamond-Star cars made at the Illinois
joint-venture assembly plant operated
by Chrysler and Mitsubishi Motors
Corp. Earlier this year, Chrysler said it
was making adrlver's-side air bag avail
able in its Dodge.Plymouth and Chrysler
tninivans, the most popular minivans
on the market.
Chrysler Is the only auto maker mak
ing an Integratedchild-safety seat avail
able on its tninivans. This seat, which
meets federal safety standards, folds
down from the usual rear bench seats to
provide two seats, with full shoulder
and lap belts for youngsters.
TOYOTA: The largest Japanese
auto maker announced earlier this year
that Its Previa minivan met all federal
crash resistance requirements for cars.
It took the wind out of Chrysler's brag
ging that its minivans had air bags avail
able. BMW: The German auto maker is
beefing up the size of the brakes on its
new 325i sedan. It also has employed a
mechanically triggered seat belt
tensioner which pullsdown on the shoul
der and seat belt within milliseconds of
a collision to hold a front-seat rider
firmly to the seat.
MERCEDES-BENZ: ThisGerman
auto maker has had a reputation for
making some of the safest vehicles on
the road. Structural cages around pas
sengers have been in Mercedes cars for
years. Here are how some safety de
vices in many new cars work:
Air bags. These devices are hidden
in the steering wheel hub or in the in
strument panel for the front-seat pas
senger. They're connected with a series
of sensors in the front of the car which
shoot an electric current to the devices
when a front-end collision is detected.
The current activates chemicals
which produce a gas that inflates the
bag. The bag then deflates within a few
seconds. Before performing any main
tenance around the front end or the
steering column, a mechanic shoulddis-
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connect the battery to prevent unin
tended inflation.
Air bags are designed as supplemen
tal systems to three-point lap and shoul
der seat belts. Disadvantages can In
clude Cost and a bulky steering wheel
for those who care.
Seat belts. Cars today come equip
ped with some sort of lap and shoulder
seat belt arrangement for front-seat oc
cupants and at least a lap belt for rear
seat passengers. Many cars are Includ
ing shoulder belts for rear-seat riders.
Motorized front shoulder belts are
used on some cars which are not
equipped with air bags. When a door is
closed or when the engine is started, a
motor moves the upper end of the belt
along the upper part of the window sill
to a point over a passenger's shoulder,
The other end of the belt is anchored
between the front seats. A manually
operated lap belt is used in conjunction
with the motorized shoulder belt.
Anti-lock braking system. This
system employs sensors which detect
tire skid and devices to pump the brakes
much faster than a driver could with the
brake pedal.
The ABS system enhances vehicle
control when wheels typically would
have locked, such as hard braking on
slippery surfaces such as ice, water or
oil. Drivers, therefore, can steer around
trouble while braking.
All-wheel drive. Also called four
wheel drive, it once was reserved only
for sport-utility vehicles heading off
into the boondocks. Power is sent from
the engine (o all four wheels rather than
two wheels in conventional drivetrains.
Power going to all wheels improves
traction.
Traction control. These systems
come in a bewildering array of acro
nyms and usually work in conjunction
with anti-lock braking systems.
All-wheel steering. This system,
offered on only a few imported cars,
moves the rear wheels as well as the
front wheels when steering.
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Ep. 123111