914 safety upgrade idea Options

[JeffBowlsby]

Someone recently posted their story of their SUV getting rear ended and the trailer hitch preventing a lot of damage. So...

Is it possible that a heavy steel plate or even a dense carbon fiber reinforcement plate could be fabbed to fit between the chassis and behind the front and rear bumpers (stealthy) to add crash protection? I am thinking it could be about the thickness of the dogbone spacers and maybe the bumber bolts feed through it to hold it in place. For the 1970-74 cars.

Good idea?...Bad idea?

[jhadler]

I'm with Steve here...

Rigidly reinforcing the obvious crumple zones in the 914 are a sure way of transmitting greater amounts of energy to the soft and squishy people in the passenger compartment.

I've seen a lot of pictures of crunched up 914's, and most of those, while pretty hurtin' for the car, allowed the driver to walk away. Energy dissipation is CRITICAL. Making a more rigid structure just means less penetration by foreign bodies (other cars, light poles, etc..) but it also means less of that energy is absorbed by the deformation of the chassis, and is then transmitted to the driver.

If you really want to approach it in that vein though, how about foam? Install foam absorbers in the front and rear crumple zones. What you want, is for the crumple zones to do their job, but giving it more material that is capable of energy absorption (as opposed to energy -transmission-), gives the driver more of a safety margin.

-Josh2