Ford Mustang 1979 Frontal Crash Test by NHTSA

By today’s standards, Fox Bodies, and most muscle cars for that matter, aren’t considered safe. No airbags, no ABS, questionable seat belts, but hey: they had padded steering wheels, right? Well, having them, and having them stay in place during a crash is a different story as you’ll see. 

According to the test notes of this NHTSA 35-mph frontal impact test of a 1979 Ford Mustang coupe the, “Steering wheel hub cover came off, permitting driver’s head to strike unpadded bolt. Right seat moved forward two inches in seat track. All plastic moldings at base of windshield came loose, and eight inches of right-lower-side windshield molding also came loose.” 

What all that means regarding the injuries of the three occupants (mom, dad and child crash-test dummies) is left for us to interrupt since the video doesn’t highlight the injuries, nor could the old crash test dummies really measure the damage like the new ones. Nonetheless, this is a cool video showing a Fox-Body coupe during a front impact from many different angles … even underneath where you can see the K-member absorbing the impact and transferring it into the unibody. 

We dug DEEP into the files for this video; sit back and enjoy.

 

Note the broken steering wheel and banged-up dash.