What's a good mid to late 90's economical hatchback to buy

[93EB_SXR6]

Originally Posted by jpblue1000

Zilo your unfounded bias shines through. The car hit in rear drivers door and deflected, why would it be any different in anything else as the proximity to driver would be the same. Arguably as a smaller car has less kinetic energy it may dissipate that energy with less deformation. We wont know until the incident is repeated like for like with an alternate car
But:
If we are playing the obscene claim game, I'll claim the accident wouldn't have happened in a hatchback!

JP

Although I agree with you on most points... the car didn't deflect at all, it wrapped around the tree.

[jpblue1000]

Originally Posted by 93EB_SXR6

Although I agree with you on most points... the car didn't deflect at all, it wrapped around the tree.

what I meant was not deflect as bounce off but deflect as in crumple or deform.

JP

[93EB_SXR6]

Ahh okay I get what you're saying.

[zilo]

Originally Posted by jpblue1000

what I meant was not deflect as bounce off but deflect as in crumple or deform.

JP

You nearly got it right.

Big car crumpled, but small car would have crumpled then deflected.

Bigger car has more length/width to crumple with.


It's also about the relative masses, bigger mass wins.


here are a couple of links with animations...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inelastic_collision

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elastic_collision

[burkill89]

anything toyota