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The time Volvo shamed Ford for making an unsafe car (by being themselves)

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FMradio
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The time Volvo shamed Ford for making an unsafe car (by being themselves)

Post by FMradio »

Interesting history tidbit: Some of the first generations of the Ford Explorer were death traps. They reduced the amount of strength in the roof after its initial release, despite engineers concerns, probably in order to save weight and increase fuel economy.

They made it so bad that it'll crumple like a tin can if rolled over. People suing Ford said that Volvo had a totally different philosophy where the roof should not buckle at all, so Ford ended up censoring Volvo's website. So in the United States advertising about the then-new XC90's roof strength was removed.

Another interesting thing is that the first maybe one or two years of the S80 were not as safe as the later ones because Volvo tested the S80 in a rollover and it did not perform to their satisfaction/safely. So they revised the cars deVolvo so its roof was as safe as other Volvos.

More details/sources here:

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Post by abscate »

That video of the top roof impact of the XC90 vs Ford F150….yikes….

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