On 9 Jan 2016 at 5:23, Willie2 via EV wrote: > It seems the only hope for CCars is that someone might build > replacement bodies.
I'd think that someone with composite experience could do that, though it could be expensive. Unfortunately, the car's other weaknesses would remain. > "The Lost Cord" ... HIGHLY recommended reading! I echo the recommendation for anyone interested in C-cars. I think that's where I read about the steering column debacle. The book is a sympathetic treatment of it, that's for sure. > So, it seems CCars were treated unfairly with demands for "safety". Welllll .. I know that some folks think that auto safety is overemphasized. Maybe that's why you put safety in quotation marks. I mean no disrespect to you or or your views, but I just can't agree. Auto safety doesn't belong in dismissive quotation marks. Too many people still die in motor accidents. In fact in my state, traffic deaths are up this year. Besides, even those who don't think cars should be required to have some of the crash protection hardware they have today will normally agree that a car should handle predictably and brake well, so you can avoid accidents in the first place. Unfortunately C-cars don't. As I said, I owned one, and I know. And mine was supposed to be the improved version! CR may have been a bit rough on it, but they were right - by any standard the Citicar was blatantly unsafe. Don't get me wrong, the C-car had its place, but its fundamental design was at least 30 years behind the times. The suspension was crude and the handling marginal at best. I don't even think I'd call the brakes marginal, they were just flat out inadequate. They would have been fine for a golf car, but not for a road vehicle doing 35-40mph on roads with varying surfaces. Another thing that's often forgotten is that non-adjustable golf car seat. Even if the brakes had been perfect, I suspect that some short folks would have had trouble applying enough force to the (non-power-assisted) brake pedal. These problems could have been fixed in the design. Some of the fixes could be retrofitted to the surviving cars today, too. For example, adding a sway bar improves the handling. I expect that with some creativity, the brakes could be upgraded. A proportioning valve would help prevent the end swaps. Even something as simple as lightening the car with lithium batteries would improve the braking, though to take full advantage of that you'd have to change the spring rates. Whether extensive retrofitting would be worth what it would cost is another question. Maybe things have changed with increasing collector interest and higher values, but when I still owned one, I concluded that to even fix its basic faults as an EV, not to mention the handling and braking issues, would have cost more than the car was worth. So I sold it. As for the crashworthiness features, IMO, it wasn't at all unreasonable for Sebring-Vanguard to hae met the very basic federal safety standards of the era. We're not talking complex, expensive antilock brakes, traction control, and computer controlled air bags here. These were relatively simple add-ons such as seat belts, non-intrusive steering columns, and side impact reinforcement in the doors. An effective windshield defroster would have been nice, too. For SV, complying with FMVSS would have been good business, minimizing their exposure to liability for any possible injury and/or death, and keeping their liability insurance rates down. But if I'm not mistaken, they got the feds to give them a compliance waiver. They were even exempted from the 2.5/5mph bumper requirements. Presumably the idea was that they'd have time to develop a market and bank enough revenue to pay for the necessary development and testing. The feds showed lots of flexibility here. The later Comuta-car did manage to meet bumper standards, BTW, though just barely. It would have been easy to fit a collapsable steering column. IMO, that omission wasn't justified or excusable. If nobody died in a Citicar crash, it was probably mostly because only something like 2200-2600 (depending on which source you read) were sold. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
