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fatality rate for Muscle cars circa 1970?

monaco66coupe

monaco66coupe

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Having a beer with an old Car Insurance salesman was Illuminating!
Apparently the companies in the 67-73 era rated the life span of any particular muscle car regardless of make or Model.
he remembered clearly the life of the average 1970 Road Runner Insurance policy was 6 Months! Many crashed the first day, many the first week, even more as time went on.
This explains their short life and why there are so few now.
He remembered the model to be more prone to fatalities and accidents than other similar models.
I just found this very Interesting!
 
and to save grace, he mentioned the Charger group was a much better risk, apparently the lack of riff raff buying Dodges! HAHAHA
 
And I can testify to that fact, as my Brother owned and raced a new 70 Roadrunner, and he was a pain in the Butt! he turned into a tough cop for 32 years, and was a ball of fire his whole career!
 
monaco66coupe said:
and to save grace, he mentioned the Charger group was a much better risk, apparently the lack of riff raff buying Dodges! HAHAHA
Click to expand...
Plymouth's were targeted and bought by younger crowd. Dodge? Was old man stuff. Sorry. Plymouth was cooler. If not for Dukes of Hazzard? Dodge would be the tow vehicle? (Ok, I'm probably not going to get anywhere here in B-bodies trying to start a pissing match between Plymouth and Dodge?)
 
My perception was that the Roadrunner in particular was a teenage boy go-crash-it car at the time. Followed later by the 5.0 mustang LX in the 80’s and then the Subaru WRX in the later 90’s. Untouched originals aren’t everywhere.
 
I heard Mike Joy say on Barrett Jackson that it's no big deal to not have a numbers matching car because so many motors were trashed street racing.
 
I saw my share of these cars in the junk yard years ago, most were there for a reason, drive them like they were stolen.
 
monaco66coupe said:
And I can testify to that fact, as my Brother owned and raced a new 70 Roadrunner, and he was a pain in the Butt! he turned into a tough cop for 32 years, and was a ball of fire his whole career!
Click to expand...
Lol – reminds me of my brother, great mechanic and loved his GTO’s. He had his share of bang-ups. One night it was two! He did a whole shot and smacked his ’65 GTO into a post office box, slight damage; but when he got home he discovered his front plate was gone…so he gets into Dad’s ’63 GP, and goes hunting for it and ahh, too much distraction from keeping it straight on the road looking for the plate, smacks into another car nuking the front fender. Come to find out the guy he ran into was the son of our auto insurance agent driving his dad’s company-issued car – prohibited (only the spouse, not da kids were allowed to drive the company car). So that was kept quiet. My bro had lost his license 3 times and was paying a fortune for insurance. He got to know the police so well he became friends with some of them and they liked his tricking up their squads for more giddy-up at the dealer he worked at since this was the dealer the PD got their cars from. He changed careers becoming a cop. When his boys were younger he would get real peeved at me if I ever brought up da old days – not wanting his kids to know their father's history!
 
Back in the day, I would shy away from buying Road Runners because most of them were flogged to death, add in the New England rust factor and they were beaten to death rot boxes! Finding one that had an engine from a land ark or a motor home was the norm. I could buy Chargers for less money and in better shape.
 
I reckon many of us who were racing around back then lost a friend or more to car accidents. A buddy's younger brother and I stood up in my bud's wedding and two weeks later his brother was killed in his '64 Chevelle vert going thru a red light on his way to work - it was pretty certain he was blinded by the sun and didn't see the light change or maybe tried to get thru it. The speed limit at that intersection then was 50mph. He was ejected over the windshield, despite the top being up, and was shocked his parents wanted an open casket. Never forgot how the funeral home reconstructed his face and he looked awful to me. He was a handsome kid. Another friend took a curve too fast in his Torino and as the car rolled over - he went out the window with the car rolling on top of him. Back then seat belts were seldom worn. When I think of some of the crap I did racing around back when I get the feeling of survivor syndrome sometimes when I remember these guys losing their lives before they reached 20 years old...
 
In 1969 there was a very fast 67 GTX, dark blue in Omaha. I however went in the military in 1970 and cars were not an option for me. In 74 when I returned low and behold a dark blue 67 GTX was for sale, mint condition.I went to look at it, and the owners mother answered the door, and offered to show me the car. Then the son came around the hallway in a wheel chair. He told me he just bought this car new, but his mother won't let him drive it!

Then the mother followed me outside, and told me Her son wrecked it badly while drag racing in 1970, and has never recovered from the accident. The kid thought it was still 1967, as he did buy it new. Lots of guys got killed back then racing, it was on the news regularly.
then in the 70's to late 80's, it was motorcycle racing, more dead kids. I worked at the local hospital 74-85, and I can't count all the victims I unloaded from the back of the squads to the ER those years.
 
Not only are the cars of that era not as safety equipped as today's? But the roads were designed much more dangerously. We had an intersection of two State Highways converge. One of the Highway was its first signal light for sometime. Thus drivers were full speed for sometime before that intersection. It killed many. Was named #2 (at best) in the State of Minnesota for like 10 years straight. Finally removed with bridge. That project took 20+ years to complete. Because some of the road was State. Some municipal. And even Federal considerations. For us locals? Old HWY 100 and HWY 52. OUCH!
 
it was good and bad back then, most racers ran into something, not someone.(Ditch, telephone pole, highway bridge as you mentioned. There were half the cars, driving half the miles. But the annual death numbers are about the same. 43-47k per year.
so at least that shows the cars are safer, unless you run into a Big As,,, 68 Chrysler.
Then you are the Inflictee (Toy car)of damage vs the Inflictor(Ram 3500)as my state farm agent refers
 
Charger Dana said:
I’ve seen footage of a crash test in that era, it’s likely somewhere on FBBO. But one look at this picture and you can see why fatality rates might be high. The only way I can assume you damage the front of a Charger is by rear ending a Ford or Chevy.
https://www.streetmusclemag.com/news/vintage-pic-depicts-flattened-69-charger-in-head-on-crash-test/
Click to expand...
From the article:

"In the early days of automobiles, there were little to no laws or restrictions on vehicles, and many people wound up driving literal death traps on roads built not for cars, but horses and carriages. It wasn’t until 1955 when lap belts became standard feature on all domestic automobiles. Collapsible steering columns came a couple years later, and padded dashboards soon followed."
F A L S E.
Lap belts didn't become standard on Mopars across the board until 1965. Collapsible steering columns were in 1967.
 
Kern Dog said:
From the article:

"In the early days of automobiles, there were little to no laws or restrictions on vehicles, and many people wound up driving literal death traps on roads built not for cars, but horses and carriages. It wasn’t until 1955 when lap belts became standard feature on all domestic automobiles. Collapsible steering columns came a couple years later, and padded dashboards soon followed."
F A L S E.
Lap belts didn't become standard on Mopars across the board until 1965. Collapsible steering columns were in 1967.
Click to expand...
my 63 fury old grandma car had no belts. And my teenage kids in 1998 were afraid to get in because there were no belts. I told the kids if we crash, just jump out ahead of time!
Kids are so gullible! HAHA
 
High School. 69 Roadrunner. River Road. 4 killed. Pics showed the head on into a tree. Swear the tree was between the rear speakers. The Viewings were awful.
You could hear the girls crying when you were still outside the Funeral Home. Worst was my friend
Jeff Fellencer. 70 Torino. Another tree, this time on Hamilton Blvd. He was a good guy, I often think of him. Allentown.
 
Now I’m looking up Obits and headlines from the 70’s WTF.
 
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