Crash testing cars is an inherently morbid thing. You’re trying to determine the likelihood someone will experience a life-threatening injury in your product. Making a video describing how your vehicles hold up in a collision, then, should feel like a somber affair. All that said, Volkswagen absolutely did not have to go this hard in this safety research film from the 1980s.
This 1984 video begins like a Danish crime drama, with gloomy shots of bustling traffic, panning shots of cars going by, and dark point-of-view footage from inside cars, accompanied by emergency sirens and a creepy synth score befitting a Halloween flick. Then it gets into the facts: In Europe at the time, there was a crash of some sort every second. Sounds ominous, right? If it’s happening every second, surely you’re next! And if you’re going to be next, you’ll want to be in a Volkswagen, according to the very intelligent-sounding gentleman speaking.
Volkswagen used this video to prove the safety of its vehicles, specifically its commercial vans and the VW Bus, which featured cabover designs and no airbags. That seems like a deathtrap by today’s standards but, in the 1980s, it was actually pretty normal. And Volkswagen set out to prove that its cabover design was no more dangerous than a more conventional one, with an engine compartment ahead of the driver.
The video takes viewers through various measures Volkswagen incorporated to protect front passengers, from the van’s front impact struts to the deformation bar attached to them, to all the vehicle’s extra structural bracing. The bus even had a collapsable steering column, to lessen the chance of, you know, impalement. Of course, all of that probably doesn’t instill much confidence compared to modern safety equipment, but 40 years ago, it was pretty advanced stuff.
There was also a hefty focus on crash prevention, with VW stressing the importance of good brakes and a balanced chassis. The latter can help a vehicle maneuver away from a possible collision, even when loaded with cargo and passengers.
This video is an interesting, albeit unsettling, look at how safety tests were conducted before airbags and standard anti-lock brakes. VW’s vans were surprisingly safe for their time, but, viewed today, the film mostly highlights how far safety technology has come. It also demonstrates how modern marketing has gotten really good at not turning safety research videos into nightmare fuel.
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