(first posted 10/27/2016) One of the all-time most controversial new regulations during that regulation-happy period of the 70s was the 5 mile bumper. A response to rapidly increasing repair costs due to the extravagant styling and resulting minimal bumper protection of so many cars during the 60s, the 5 mile bumper was implemented for MY 1974, and required that no damage to the car’s lights, safety equipment and engine in angled 5mph impacts. For MY 1979, the standards were raised further, to zero-damage. Controversially, the standards were lowered in 1982 to 2.5 mph, where they still stand, similar to the international standard.
In the January 1975 issue, R&T took on the question as to whether they were worth it. There have been numerous arguments pro and con, but it’s not surprising which side R&T took.
Many consumer groups and insurance companies decried the loss of the 5 mile bumper, whose aesthetics would eventually have become quite unnoticeable within the soft facades of newer cars. But with global standards at 4kmh (2.5 mph) and pedestrian protections, a more standardized format certainly makes more sense. Now if only one global standard would be adopted for all aspects of safety, lighting, etc…
Meh ;
I hate those FUGLY things .
My 1968 Chevelle Sedan once had a Datsun impale itself on it’s right rear bumper, the Datsun was totalled , the Chevelle’s chrome bumper had a scratch I couldn’t buff out and a broken taillight .
-Nate
I had the same experience in a ’69 Camaro. I was rear ended by someone in his Chevy Cavalier in what felt like a pretty substantial impact. I got out to inspect the damage expecting to find the driver’s quarter panel caved in and found a small amount of deformation to the bumper.
Screwed up the Cavalier, though. Bumper and fender damage.
Those bumpers destroyed the lines of those ’70s SLs.
This is what happens when you have cars not designed with crumple zones — in a severe impact, you take the hit rather than the body.
I still love the big diving board bumpers on my 89 BMW. They’ve definitely saved my ass a few times.
With a subject like this, there’ll always be anecdotes flying through the air (or the comments section), to the effect of “Aw, those things are useless! I ran my ’63 Ford into a trash truck at 20 mph, and the bumper did just fine!” and “Man, those 5-mph bumpers made my ’75 Volvo into a complete battering ram!”. Neither position is rooted in anything more substantial than wishful thinking and gross (sometimes deliberate) ignorance and misinformation.
Wikipedia (at least as of right this minute) has very cogent and well-documented coverage of the cost/benefit question on 5-mph bumpers. The short answer to the headline question is Yes, the 5-mph bumpers worked as intended. Here’s a relevant nugget (hit the article to review the sources):
As an example, in 1990 the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety conducted four crash tests on three different-year examples of the Plymouth Horizon. The results illustrated the effect of the changes to the US bumper regulations (repair costs quoted in 1990 United States dollars):
• 1983 Horizon with Phase-II 5-mph bumpers: $287
• 1983 Horizon with Phase-I 2.5-mph bumpers: $918
• 1990 Horizon: $1,476
The US reg was not slackened for pedestrian protection, it was slackened to reduce automakers’ compliance costs. But the question of benefit has grown less clear as pedestrian protection has come under formal regulation in the U.N. (formerly “European”) regulations most of the rest of the world uses, and has begun to catch on as maybe an idea worth thinking about on the North American regulatory island.
+1
My 1982 Granada had them and they worked brilliantly. By that point Ford had done a good job of integrating the strengthened bumper into the overall design of the car. The thick vinyl rub strips and bumper guards added to the protection. They were great for urban driving.
Later cars I’ve owned have experienced constant bumper damage from parallel parking scrapes, especially the early painted bumpers with weak paint. All it took was one car to tap yours with the license plate bracket bolts and you had those infamous bolt marks common to every car. Bumper sensors and back-up camera have helped but I still miss real “bumpers.” I guess the Bumper Bullies I see all over NYC work but what a pain to use and look at.
BTW, I don’t have any illusions about earlier car bumpers. Our family’s Falcons and Fairlanes of the early/mid 60’s had very weak bumpers, as one found out quickly when, for example, getting a push start or being pulled out of a snowbank.
I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying. However, for the record, a 1977 report the NHTSA commissioned from the Center for the Environment and Man, reviewing the impact — no pun intended — of four of the safety standards, including FMVSS 215, did raise concerns about pedestrian safety with 5-mph bumpers. So, that was a point the NHTSA was concerned about, at least during the Carter administration.
If you thought 5mph bumpers ruined the looks of Mercedes look at the girders on 70s Fiat’s and the worst, the Canadian spec Mini that wore it’s bumpers half way up . It’s grill to comply with regulation bumper heights.
I have two W123’s, the worst of the lot .
Those battering rams actually worked well on the W123’s, FUGLY as they were .
To reduce weight they were made of light alloy then chrome plated .
I have one European gray market W123, it’s bumpers fore and aft are things of grace and beauty .
Sadly, they’re also only twice as thick as the fenders and so are purely cosmetic .
European ir U.S.A. spec. Mercedes are incredibly safe in collisions but they do this by sacrificing the entire car =8-( .
-Nate
Definitely saved my sorry young and stupid butt a few times.
My first car was a 1982 Chevy Celebrity with the 5 mph battering rams mounted on “shock absorbers” and having big black rub strips over the chrome bumper. I managed to back into a grain truck with (lucky for me) the steel beam that was the grain trucks bumper at the same height as my rear bumper. The system did its job and dear old Dad still doesn’t know (to this day) what stupid thing I did at 16 years old.
“The 5 mile bumper was implimented for MY 1974”
It was implemented for MY 1973 on the front and MY 1974 for the rear. The standard was reduced back to 2.5mph in 1982 but for MY 1983 vehicles.
That’s what I thought regarding implementation dates. Most 1973 MY cars had the big front bumpers with the same rear treatment, and big bumpers at the back for MY ’74. I was 9 and 10 yrs old when these standards came into effect and I generally liked the big-bumpered look more than what came before. What can I say, I’m an odd duck!
I actually liked the big bumper look on my red ’74 Nova hatchback. (Ducks down against flying debris)
Luckily I never had to find out how well they worked.
In contrast, the “bumpers” on the ’64 Spitfire I also had at the time were not much more than chrome jewelry.
I’ve always understood 5 MPH front and 2.5 MPH rear in 1973, then 5 MPH front and rear in 1974.
From NHSTA:
“On April 9, 1971, the agency issued its first passenger car bumper standard — Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 215, “Exterior Protection,” which became effective on September 1, 1972. This standard called for passenger cars, beginning with model year (MY) 1973, to withstand 5 mph front and 2.5 mph rear impacts against a perpendicular barrier without damage to certain safety-related components such as headlamps and fuel systems.
There were also temporary exemptions for certain compact cars and sports cars.
Repair costs are really spiraling out of control today. Radar sensors, cameras, and LED light assemblies make small fender benders major expenses. A single taillight on a new F-150 costs $900. 5 mph bumpers would be very welcome on any of my vehicles.
Here’s one for ya… p/n DG1Z-9E731-B, adaptive speed control sensor for a ’12 Lincoln MKS. Located right behind the front bumper cover towards the left side, $1114.73. And I’ve sold a couple on collision jobs that were otherwise somewhat minor impacts. No wonder insurance is so damned expensive!
Hey, Roger, it sounds like you’re in a position to comment on the costs and prices of the new Lincoln Continental headlamp. That’s on my mind at the moment on account of this.
Huh, there are actually turn signal visibility regulations?
They must be pretty lax. Most modern signals with clear lenses are next to impossible to see in direct sunlight.
All vehicle exterior lighting functions, even the ones that aren’t mandatory (like daytime running lights and side turn signal repeaters in the USA, side marker lights on passenger cars in Europe, etc) are highly specified in detail as to their design, construction, numerous aspects of performance, durability, etc. Some of the specs are definitely questionable as to whether they guarantee adequate performance.
The CTS headlights are $1350 each.
The adaptive headlamps for a ’17 MKZ list @ $2457.67 ea. Yikes!
25 year vet of the Ford parts business 🙂 .This recall is an “inspect and replace” only if the headlights are missing an internal light diffuser. None of the cars in our inventory are affected… so far.
How about any short of bumper as today’s cars only have a plastic cover that cracks on impact. . Perhaps good ol chrome Bumpers are considered a dangerous pedestrians.
I don’t mind ’em. They do work.
Not only bumpers, excessive chrome pieces and side trims on many traditional car reduce or eliminate many repair costs. For an example, ’90s Buick Park Avenue/LeSabre has plenty of side protection and it’s very hard to leave a door ding, and doors come with door guards from the factory also, usually it won’t leave door ding to other cars neither. The smooth designed cars on the other hand, can be damaged easily with a big door ding and mine was with $800 insurance payout. Even if it’s covered under the insurance, it’s highly inconvenient to deal with big door ding once a year.
^ This. 5 mph bumpers with guards and impact strips, and a wide vinyl bodyside moulding.
Those bumpers and other regulation ruined MG. Well that and British Leyland.
Aside from dodgy QC, their failure was refusing to update a design & engine for their most important target market; the MGB was over a decade old by then, which was aged even by European standards. What were they doing with all those Yankee profits? Its somewhat newer, higher-tech Italian competitors didn’t have the height problem.
The older MGB series had grilles at the common bumper height, so you saw a lot of them with damage there.
They weren’t making a profit on U.S. MGB (exchange rates meant BL had a very hard time not losing money on the U.S. B) and had fully expected the MGB to be replaced by the TR7, which had actually been designed for the bumper standards.
The dumb part is that BL spent a bunch of money preparing and certifying the O-series engine for the MGB and then designed to dump the Abingdon plant entirely.
BL fitted the O series to some federal spec MGBs for compliance testing. A few years back I found one on EBay. UK. ” LHD MGB with O series Engine”. I messaged the seller telling him what he had… ..
I read that AROA had a waiting list for MGB whilst Tr7 s sat unsold so there was demand but Like you say BL shut down the Abingdon plant
The sad story of how B.S. political infighting diverted $ from the money making MGB to the failing Triumph line is an old one, they killed it deliberately .
If they’d taken the time to make even rudimentary build quality the MGB would have sold many more cars and been able to soldier on a while longer .
SAME on BMC ! .
-Nate
During my time as an automotive engineer, I was visiting the Lincoln studio. I asked some of the designers – where did the body side moldings go? They replied – we don’t like how they look on the car. I said – these cars have to operate in the real world, not just on a turntable, but there was no changing their minds.
I also felt that designers should be made to wash a dirty model of their design, just to see how hard (or easy) it is to clean.
I did mention that I liked the aluminum wheels with black inserts as they tend to hide brake dust. Those did make it to production (maybe because of me? Probably not).
Today’s alternative “protection”:
Saw a few of those on my drive to NJ from NH a few months ago- had never seen one and had no idea what it was until I got close.
These are rampant throughout New York City. Bumper Defender, Bumper Bully, etc. They have velcro straps that fasten them onto the trunk mat, and they are meant to be deployed while parked to prevent the front license plate bolts (front plates required in NY) from puncturing the fragile bumper covers. It’s common though for people to leave them in this position while driving (instead of folding them inside the trunk), so you see them flapping in the breeze.
Note that there is no protection on the bumper cover corners, although there is a new kind of padded bra that attaches with elastic straps and covers the entire rear bumper cover.
Sad that we need bumpers to protect the bumpers. Like putting rubber floor mats on top of carpeted mats, which in turn are supposed to protect the carpet!
I thought the 5mph requirement in ’73 was great — nothing like a pop quiz to separate the partiers from serious students and it was fun to see what the OEs would come up with every year. It was a good compromise between the useless bumpers of the 60s and more severe standards starting in ’74/75. There were a whole slew of cars that looked better in ’73 than ’72 as a result, including the Pantera, Fiat X19, Porsche 914, BMW 2002 and Bavaria, Pinto, Grand Prix, etc.
And by golly they worked. Took a lickin’ and kept on tickin’. Saved me from having to do sheetmetal work on my Caddy Brougham, twice. Tapped, and I mean just barely, a newer Accord in the drive through of a McDonald’s last month and poked a hole in that worthless plastic bumper cover that cost me $1,000 to repair. My 190E was unscathed.
That said some of the post-73 efforts were a joke, particularly from BMW and Mercedes. I think they made the bumpers look bad on purpose, out of spite.
It’s an interesting article, but I’m not buying their point. These magazines tend to support the auto industry and manufacturers’ interests (who are their advertisers, after all). They wrote similar articles critical of the expense of airbags and seatbelts, devices proven to be worthy and popular among consumers.
Such safety developments were mandated by the government for the benefit of the public in part to protect us from the excesses of the industry. This is a worthy cause and one to be celebrated, especially since, back then, consumers had little power on their own to drive safety concerns.
I refute their arguments of cost and efficiency. I’ve owned, driven and enjoyed many 60’s and 70’s cars. They are full of inefficiencies of excess weight and cost associated with styling and fancy trim. If they were concerned about such issues, they would not have allowed their cars to get so monstrously fat, heavy and inefficient as they did 45 years ago. The weight of 5mph bumpers would be offset by lighter materials here and there, as was done just a few years later.
Cost of these bumpers? How about some styling restraint with useless annual styling overhauls? How much excess costs were shoved onto the consumer to pay for tooling to implement annual trim revisions and useless minor styling rearrangements? Complaining about bumper development costs is irrelevant, the industry continuously spent money changing bumper shapes annually. It’s reasonable to insist such inevitable reworks should result in better performance.
So its 40 years too late for me to complain, but that articles argument lacks credibility given the performance and attitudes of the industry at the time.
Great comment.
+2
I’ll also add that R&T’s Tom Lankard lost me at “…a 5-mph barrier collision (which, by the way, is the equivalent of a 10-mph car-to-car collision)….” SMH.
I agree — great comment. Yes those magazines always took the side of the auto industry but tried to make their analyses seem unbiased to the casual reader. They were strenuously opposed to frontal airbags until Mercedes made them standard before they were required. Mercedes coined the term “supplemental restraints,” with the concept that airbags were a supplement to wearing seat belts. At that point, the buff books all came on board.
With respect to today’s bumper covers made of plastic and painted in clearcoated body color, it galls me that the slightest contact with a rough surface or pointy license plate bolts makes a nasty scar. In the era of the 5 mph bumper with chromed steel or aluminum bumpers with real rubber rub strips and backed up by shock absorbers, the bumpers could take an ordinary “oops” moment in parking without showing any damage.
Airbags are kind of a separate and more complicated issue because an airbag designed as a supplemental restraint is quite a bit different than one intended to serve as a passive restraint, which is what safety advocates and the NHTSA had been pushing in the ’70s and what was required in the U.S. beginning in the late ’80s.
I don’t think the buff books had a particularly nuanced view of this stuff beyond the usual “We hate regulation, you can’t make us” complaints, and I think their eventual embrace of airbags had more to do with being annoyed by the legal alternative — door-mounted or motorized passive belts — than anything else.
However, I do think there are some tricky ethical issues surrounding passive restraints insofar as passive restraint devices can trade the safety of belted passengers for the protection of unbelted ones. There is a fair amount of evidence at this point that passive-restraint airbags are potentially more dangerous to belted drivers, particularly ones who aren’t very tall and thus are closer to the bag when it inflates. (The physics aren’t that complicated: a passive-restraint bag requires more inflation force.) Automatic belts can also present hazards, such as putting the belt high enough to catch a shorter driver or passenger in the throat.
Another great comment. Nice to see conversance with the apposite regulations and the relevant context of philosophy and politics, etc.
I think the magazines were genuinely opposed to the bumpers for aesthetic and weight reasons. Vehicle performance was bad enough already and let’s face it there were some questionable designs in the ’70s. That’s the vibe I remember getting from the reviews.
The cost and repair issues seem like excuses to me. Fans of 5mph bumpers (myself included) cite how well they perform in real world use and how expensive the painted plastic covers are to repair on modern bumpers. If it wasn’t for those things you wouldn’t be a cheerleader either. The bumpers were too new for anyone to appreciate back then and there were no painted covers to repair.
The R&T headline says “Are they really saving money?” then they show a pic of the ’75 Mercedes R107, one of the worst ever. Their agenda was aesthetics.
+1
Volkswagen was way ahead of you concerning annual styling overhauls
And another
I was recently rear ended at a stop light by someone texting on his phone. The sedan he was driving submarined under my SUV and pushed me into the car in front. Five MPH bumpers would not have helped. He had no license, no insurance, was not arrested, and come to find out, it was not his car. He had “borrowed” the sedan from a friend.
How about setting up a system preventing people from texting or having a phone conversation unless both hands are on the wheel? How about an active braking system which would have reduced damage and injury? How about holding drivers responsible for their actions?
That’s how you reduce car damage!!!???
Darwin’s Law will likely get this fool in the end, and hopefully he won’t take out an innocent person with him.
Not arrested?? Hopefully your insurance company will go after him to recover costs. Always carry a under/uninsured rider on your insurance!
IMHO the most offensive bumpers of them all…
Thematically appropriate; that entire car is offensive to the eye.
Funny, as I actually think the bumpers MAKE the car in this case! It’s all about perspective I guess…
I think that Torino looks good. I’m not a design purist like some of you guys. Now the replacement, the LTD II, yeah it’s got a ugly front design. Those stacked quads DON’T work.
I actually quite like it, makes the car look “complete”. But I always liked the bigger bumpers on most cars, as I’ve said in a comment above, I’m a bit of an odd duck.
Reduce that Torino’s size by about 1/3, and it would resemble some of today’s more bizarre automotive designs!
Happy Motoring, Mark
Although that bumper was a major departure from the elegant ’72 design I rather liked it. It gave the Torino a strong jaw and made it through four model years, ’73-76.
I thought the very worst was the ’75-78 Fiat X1/9. This car went through three bumper designs in five years, they could never get it right. Here is the “ladder-style” aluminum effort from ’75-78.
Ford generally had the worst-integrated 5 mph bumpers among US manufacturers, and their cars were also the most brougham-tastic (and not in a good way) in the 70s — this Grand Torino is a fine example along with others like the 77-79 T-Bird and Cougar.
Ford Mavericks had a bumper that could have held a complete set of encyclopedias.
I still like ’em.
That makes one of us 😀 !
Well, the ’74 through ’77 Mavericks did. I owned a ’75 (and a similar Mercury Comet, too) and recall being stopping behind a Datsun 310 at a stop sign on a snowy hill. The Datsun slowly started accelerating away from the stop sign about halfway through the intersection, lost traction and then slid downhill backwards crashing into me, still stopped. The Datsun couldn’t have been going very fast, but while my Maverick had no damage, the bumper of the Datsun caved-in under the body and it stayed there.
How many of you remember the whole front end caved in but the 5 mph bumper still gleaming unfazed by the collision. I have seen many Fords of the era like the Gran Torino or Lincolns dive right into another car and come out with perfect bumpers
You know how collision safety engineering actually works, right? The 5-mph bumper is designed to protect the body from damage at parking lot speeds. Faster than that, the body structure behind the bumper needs to accordion so that the passengers don’t die. It’s a multi-stage problem.
About 20 years ago, the pre-5mph rear bumper on my ’72 W114 Mercedes 250 sedan was tested twice, by newer cars with bigger bumpers, at speeds well above 5-mph.
The last time happened when I was rear-ended by a ’90 Camry, while I was stopped for a left turn.
I got out expecting my whole trunk to be caved in, but found only a broken taillight, slightly tilted bumper, and a bent tailpipe. My trunk-lid opened and closed as if nothing had happened. The nose of the Camry was squashed, grille smashed and both it’s headlights were canted inward.
I think what saved me was –
1 the other two cars nosedived under my bumper.
2 my Mercedes had a double-wall rear trunk panel!
Otherwise, generally I prefer the protection the early 5-mph bumpers provided.
Too bad the first Mercedes 5-mph bumpers were so obtrusive. And the black rubber bumper-grille adopted for the MGB was a real monstrosity.
Today, I have a Euro W123 ’84 Mercedes 300TD that has been ‘federalized’ with 5-mph US bumpers. Those are much better looking than Mercedes early 5-mph ones.
I’ve also acquired a complete set of the original Euro bumpers so I can restore my car to it’s original appearance.
However, while the Euro bumpers are more attractive, I’m hesitant to install them since I still drive my Mercedes in the real world, not just for shows and club events.
OTOH, the soft, painted plastic-covered bumpers on my ’98 Altima look massive, but are very easily damaged, showing every nick and scrape – even cracking if hit when the weather is cold enough. Also, some of the aftermarket replacement bumper-covers for modern cars, and even some of the factory ones, are made of a hard, brittle plastic that simply shatters on impact – what a joke!
Happy Motoring, Mark
The Fairmont’s bumpers were just right: lightweight aluminum, plain & functional, but not as obtrusive as Ford’s earlier “railroad ties.”
As an unabashed Fairmont/Zephyr fan I agree wholeheartedly!
the cars that wore them the worst were the imports, both European and Japanese, domestics began to cope ok with them aesthetically, especially GM. The bigger sin was taking every single car down the endura route, previously reserved for late second gen F bodies and C3 Corvettes. As sporty entries there’s a sort of expectation that you’ll take care of it, parking in garages, or the sparse ends of lots or what have you, but putting painted bumpers on everything to beater econoboxes was a sin, the cost used to just be replacement, but now you need to have a paint shop spray them to soso standards.
I dislike the cahoots between regulators and lobbies pushing the 5mph law, but as bad as some of the executions were I’d rather have one of those black plastic park benches on my 1975 Mercedes SL than live with the paint shade mismatch on a repaired 2005 SL
As in the case of that Mercedes nose in the first photo of
this article, that early generation of higher-speed-impact
bumpers were HIDEOUS. You could host a convention on
the front bumper of that thing, LOL They looked tacked-on,
and waaaay too long in both the front and rear. Over time,
such higher impact bumpers became more integrated and
seamless, aesthetic-wise.
Amazingly, Mercedes-Benz kept those same awful mid-’70s bumpers on the American-market SLs all the way until the last year of the model, 1989; they didn’t make them nicer-looking because they didn’t HAVE to.
My mother had a 1974 Ford Maverick with those heavy ungainly 5mph front and rear bumpers with bumper guards. I remembered the car being rear ended by a late 1980s Toyota that left the front end of said 1980s car badly damaged but left the Maverick’s rear bumper unscathed except for slightly tweaked bumper guards. Cost to repair was practically nothing; just unbolt the bumper guard, straighten it out and reattach.
A couple years ago my 2009 Toyota Venza was rear ended by another Toyota while I was at a stop light. The damage to my rear bumper and underpinnings was around $2500. I was amazed at how much had to be replaced. Fortunately the insurance covered the cost.
Both vehicles that rear ended my vehicles were estimated to have travelled at around 5-10 mph.
As for asthetics, yes the 5mph were ungainly, but given the choice between heavy and ungainly bumpers that could withstand a 5-mph “bump” with minimum repair cost, and aesthetic plastic-covered “bumpers” that we have today, I’d take the former.
I recall the bumpers on 1930s cars, i.e, Model A Fords, were nothing more than simple flat steel bars that had some flex like leaf springs upon impact. By the 1950s and 1960s bumpers were nothing more than overstylish ornaments that offered hardly any protection.
As always, good article. How about a article on the evolution of bumpers and how effective or ineffective they became over the decades?
I like them. The mark vi I have has taken out a Bonneville with only a broken turn signal lens and a 20 foot tall lamp post. The ltd landau. I used to drive over the.years took out a s10 blazer, a neon 10 mailboxes, a highway barrel, a stop sign, a Buick century along with many other bumps. They should be put on every car.
Best safety stuff new cars should add is real 5 mph bumpers. They should have cornering lights and I think it’s time to go back to glass headlights, preferably the old round or square ones. They dont yellow Or blindpeople either and they are cheap. Now it’s either blinding xenon or yellowed horrible.
Amen to glass headlights and big bumpers!
I’d also like to have 4-wheel drums (in fact several of my older vehicles do) as the wheels stay clean and they freewheel much better.
Frank Lee wrote:
“…. and they freewheel much better.”
Can you or someone else here please clarify that?
Does it mean how drums behave when the car is coasting?
The pads on a disc brake tend to drag very slightly on the rotor. Or at least they used to; maybe not anymore. Drum shoes retracted fully, and did not drag against the drum, reducing rolling resistance.
I do wonder if that’s still the case with discs, given the many efforts made in reducing rolling resistance for fuel economy.
Thanks for that explanation.
Any reasons for why the calipers and pads on disc brakes were set to rub slighty like that – direction of applied braking force, etc?
To be clear, some 1983 and later cars do have 5-mph bumpers, although very few manufacturers stuck with the 49 CFR 581 Phase II standards from 1980–82, like your Mark VI has.
Having owned several “5 mph hour era” beaters, I can attest to the durability of the bumpers in low speed crashes. I hear a quite a few people say one of the reasons they now purchase trucks is that they have actual bumpers.
Pickup bumpers are for the most part weak junk; I sure see a lot of them tweaked out there. They can’t be 5 mph rated.
They are weak and completely inadequate to protect a 3-ton vehicle. And from my experience they seem to be just as expensive to fix as painted plastic bumpers. They can withstand scrapes and parking lot bumps a lot better though, and they don’t get beat up from road debris. I’ll take chromed steel over painted plastic every time, 5 mph rated or not.
This might sound hokey but today’s plastic bumpers keep a lot of money flowing in today’s economy. Just like they’re supposed to.
They sure help my bottom line 🙂 !
Speaking as a former taxi person, the battering ram bumpers were great. They should still be mandated, too, since modern bumpers are very fragile.
I’ve seen many the B body whack many different things but the bumper was extremely strong in all the cars.
While the 5 MPH bumpers were never inflicted on Australian cars, we did get a trickle down effect. The slim bumpers on the Holden HQ and Falcon XA-B were replaced by much heavier looking versions when they were facelifted into the HJ and XC.]
I did see a story on TV about a bunch of American uni students who made a one-use-only impact absorbing bumper using steel/alloy cans as the crush medium.
The comments have been interesting. From reading past articles I would have bet money that the prevailing opinion here would be against 5 MPH bumpers. But it seems as though most people, even if they didn’t like the looks, would prefer that functionality.
It sure would be nice to see a vehicle designed for durability and easy maintenance and repair. I think there would be a decent market for it.
It was called the Volvo 140-240, and it was available from 1967 through 1993.
Water filled bumpers:
http://www.automotive-fleet.com/article/story/1970/04/look-ma-no-dents-a-look-at-a-water-filled-bumper.aspx
I remember the water filled bumpers on some big city taxis back in the early 70’s. They were definitely add ons that didn’t look very attractive but it sounds like the worked pretty well. Though the weight addition had to be significant and you would need to add some sort of antifreeze for the colder climates so that they were still effective in the winter.
“Sir, do you know why I stopped you?”
“No officer, what seems to be the problem?”
“You have a leak in your bumper, that’s an automatic safety citation but I’m going to let you go if you get it fixed today. Have a nice day.”
Thank you for this link. A 1970 Coronet with a huge black front bumper appears in the closing credits of the Klugman/Randall “The Odd Couple”, and I’ve always wondered what the story was.
When I I was college a fellow student stole a taxi a drove it into a building just to see the water filled bumper explode.
I have accepted the body-color everything, but can anyone please explain to me WHY it costs so much to have a plastic bumper cover replaced? I mean, it’s thin, PLASTIC and flexible. Or is just pure profit?
Old-school chrome bumpers were rather expensive, I can understand that, but not bumper covers.
This just happened to me and should be a warning to all of you. I tapped a newer Accord’s rear bumper in front of me at a McDonald’s drive thru. My license plate bracket bolt poked a hole in her plastic bodycolor cover at like 2 mph. I wrote her a check for $1,000 after she got two estimates which were these:
Parts
Shop #1: $135
Shop #2: $408
Body Labor
Shop #1: $352
Shop #2: $197
Paint Labor
Shop #1: $214
Shop #2: $265
Paint Supplies
Shop #1: $183
Shop #2: $183
Misc
Shop #1: $41
Shop #2: $49
Total
Shop #1: $925
Shop #2: $1,102
There was an extra charge for the 3-coat white pearl paint. Then there was a TBD in case the “park assist” hardware was damaged.
Shop #1 was going to repair the bumper. Shop #2 was going to replace it with a reconditioned one. So these costs aren’t even for a new bumper cover, which would have cost $600 min. A recon bumper cover is about $340.
My agent said anything over $1,000 would have affected my insurance rates for three years and I didn’t want to take a chance I have four cars.
The woman was a doll. I felt really bad even though I paid for everything including her car rental. She now has a bondo-ed up rear bumper and had to take time to get those estimates. I’m out $1,000 for something that wouldn’t have even left a mark on an old 70s or 80s bumper.
this was a bit more a $1000
It is interesting to ponder this article with others that have 40 years of collective experience each following this article.
I owned a true battering ram car in the form of a ’76 Cutlass Supreme. It had the only bumpers I’ve ever had to do maintenance on. The first, after a very slow speed slightly off center back-up into a cement light pole base at a gas station. One side of the bumper pushed in, and the shock absorber got stuck in the compressed position. A body shop pulled it out for me.
A few years later, the main rear steel support beam behind the chrome metal cover rusted out, and the bumper began to fall off. I had to replace the beam, and do a lot of clean up on the cover where it sat against the old beam and corroded.
I had a ’72 Pontiac that had a reasonable bumper design, but no energy absorbtion. A neighbor had a habit of parking their ’78 Impala in front of my house with the rear of the car hanging in front of my driveway. It finally happened, I didn’t notice it until I felt the bump. My bumper was fine, and I caught the Impala on its protruding bumper wrap around, so it was fine.
The Pontiac was much older when I had it compared to the Cutlass. You can probably guess which bumper I preferred.
I have plenty of other anecdotes. I will spare you those, and approach this another way.
When the 5 MPH rams came out, and you hit certain objects in certain ways, you were fine. In a sense, you bought insurance from the manufacturer, and after a few bumps of the right kind, you may have come out ahead after figuring the initial cost of the bumper and ancillary costs related to fuel usage.
On the other hand, if you never had such bumps, you effectively bought insurance you technically didn’t need. Kind of like the wheel protection policy my Ford dealer tried to sell me with my F-150 – those wheels are expensive, don’t ya know?
My conclusion is the 5 MPH went overboard. The upfront costs, weight costs, fuel costs, performance cost, added repair costs when an accident was beyond the capability of the bumper were a lot of negatives against the POSSIBILITY that you MIGHT one day get a benefit from the bumper in certain defined situations. Kind of like the benefit you get in Paragraph 36, Section 2 of your insurance policy if your car is in the body shop for more than a week and they pay you $15.00 a day for a rental car. Thanks, but no thanks.
I usually prefer to self-insure when I can, so I don’t buy a lot of silly policies or pre-paid repair contracts. I don’t like dealing with the insurance provider if I do have a claim, and I don’t like paying for a policy I never use. I’m many dollars ahead in life due to this philosophy.
So, while I appreciate a bumper more sturdy than what they put on a ’64 Corvair, I don’t need the guaranteed losses of an over engineered solution that I may never get a benefit from.
Having fought another round in the insurance wars recently, I have to add one more comment here.
The article states that the insurance industry, which lobbied for the standard, gave an average of $15.00 back annually on cars with the 5 MPH bumpers.
But, those bumpers cost an extra $675.00 in inflation adjusted dollars. Insurance for comprehensive coverage (theft, weather, etc.) is based in part on value of the car. So, this category had to go up!
Insurance does not usually give up money!
Count me in as a hater of the big ugly 5mph bumpers. I get the advantages, but when it comes at the cost of aesthetics, count me out. Not only that, I probably despise regulations by gub-mint nannies more than every other CC’er combined. Mostly because theyre applied in ways that make no sense whatsoever. Its one thing to come up with a reasonable standard of safety for a sedan or minivan that will be slogging thru its life dealing with the drudgery of shuttling kids around…that’s reasonable. But to apply that same standard to a muscle car, 4×4 or sportscar that is more likely owned by a single person with fewer responsibilities and where the appeal and useage of that vehicle is compromised by excessive junk…I cant see it.
One reason I like Jeeps, trucks, and old school 4x4s so much is that its easy to scrap the cheesy stock bumpers and upgrade to something a million times better. Those tubular pre-runner style bumpers not only look the business, theyre functional. They can shrug off a good whack with just a bit of paint scrape, and semi-gloss black is an easy touch up assuming you don’t actually prefer a few battle scars. And if some fool in a plasticky appliance mobile wants to roll the dice against that…HE’ll be my crumple zone.
No matter; cars available in the first world—sedans, minivans, and sports cars alike—are regulated (and therefore built) in accord with the overwhelming majority of car buyers, who don’t agree with you. Your view holds some sway in the likes of China, though, where life is cheap.
I don’t really feel the need for 5 mph bumpers, but bumpers, any real bumpers, instead of the easily scratched and damaged piece of molded plastic that is attached to my car’s body, would be so appreciated. I’d be so happy with even little rubber bumper guards. Just to protect the car from the little scratches that happen when you’re parallel parking. Remember bumper rub strips?
I see some aftermarket rubber bumper guards, as well as rubber front license plate frames that function as bumpers and I’m going to get those for my next set of new wheels.
What I would like to see, with regard to modern bumper standards, is a clear federal requirement for manufacturers to DISCLOSE what level of bumper protection new cars offer. Some states require this (I think California requires it to be on the Mulroney sticker), but there’s no real consistency to that and it doesn’t get anything close to the level of annotation that fuel economy ratings do. I would like to see that change.
I’m not talking about changing the bumper requirement, but rather creating a consistent framework for describing bumper strength (based on existing and past regulatory language) and then federally requiring new car and truck manufacturers to disclose that information to consumers in some intelligible way.
It wouldn’t require any new engineering or styling changes or anything like that, but it would help shoppers understand what they are and aren’t getting. That way, buyers who don’t care, or who plan to baby their new cars and keep them in thermostatically controlled padded garages, can ignore them, but people who would prefer 5-mph bumpers can shop for them.
A mechanism by which for this kind of non-regulatory, market-based pressure to be applied exists: NCAP. Have you seen the proposed upgrades to US-NCAP currently under discussion?
I haven’t, no. Generally, for safety regulations, I’m not a big fan of “market-driven” mechanisms because I think they fly in the face of the entire foundation of regulating safety standards in the first place. With bumper protection, though, it might be more appropriate — “how ugly do you want to be versus how well-protected against parking-speed idiocy do you want to be” is not the worst consumer-oriented tradeoff and it does acknowledge that there isn’t necessarily a one-size-fits-all answer.
Also, manufacturers already have the information on what standards their bumpers meet — I would just like it if they had to share that information on all new cars/trucks.
I’m definitely right with you—I am still offended at something a NHTSA staffer told me recently with a shrug: “Well, yeah, we could try to put out a reg on [area of vehicle safety that gets much more attention in the rest of the world but is laxly and outdatedly regulated here], but it would take years, and we’d get pushback from industry.” My instinctive reply to an attitude like that is “Who the hell cares how much the automakers bitch and moan? They’re the regulated party. You’re the regulator.” But while that should be the end of the discussion, it’s not; the entire regulatory system in the US is a (deliberately) slow, adversarial mess.
In that pathetic context, a market-based approach—using NCAP to encourage the automakers to build in safety performance and equipment that’s better than the law says it minimally has to be—makes some sense. But it still grinds my gears that we’re stuck with a system that can’t be budged and has to be worked around like this.
I agree with this. There is so much meaningless in the real world statistics readily provided by mfgs and published in magazines in performance, efficiency and safety that you’d think there’d be one about durability and wear resistance, which 5mph bumpers would fall under. I wholeheartedly disagree with the sweeping mandate as seen in the 70s but I can totally understand the desire for people, especially in urban areas with street parking, to seek out that feature.
Um…do you also disagree with the “sweeping mandate” for seat belts? Emission controls? Headlamps? Brakes that work? Tires that withstand?
Old post but no. I don’t believe regulation should be treated as all or nothing, safety and emissions prevent scenarios that cannot be undone(life changing injury/death, and damage to the planet. 5mph bumpers are not that, they save the consumer (insurer) money IF they get into a minor fender bender. Ok then. So how come there was no law that mandated corrosion protection? Rust is a greater visual blight, a true inevitability – and one that came quickly back then – on any car driven in certain regions, dangerous to vehicle operation at all times of day (not just at night if the headlights got knocked crosseyed in a low speed impact) yet no legislation, why? Could it be because insurance companies don’t cover rust repair, therefore their lobby never gave a damn about it like they do scenarios they are actually liable for? So much for consumer advocacy!
Posted November 2, 2016 at 1:41 PM
In the early 1990s, my friend in Texas bought Audi A4 that had one of those first headlamps fitted with newly approved DOT HB2 (9003) bulbs and cut-off pattern. In other word, HB2 is ‘similar’ to H4 bulbs but with tighter tolerance.
Unfortunately, a big chunk of stone struck the lens, severly cracking the glass. The replacement cost $400, a princely sum, because NHTSA demanded that the lens be glued to the reflector housing as to ‘prevent’ the idiots from touching the flaming hot bulb.
In Europe, you can buy the lens replacement for less than what it cost to fill up a fuel tank.
I can also add another idiotic regulation: fixed external rear view mirrors. You have no idea often I have seen the broken mirror dangling from the adjustment cables, clanging against the front doors eternally. They are also murder on our legs and torses if we are not careful where we walk.
OliverTwist wrote: “In Europe, you can buy the lens replacement for less than what it cost to fill up a fuel tank.”
Vs $400 in America – all about the money here! 🙁
Are we really “free” – as in, free to bust our tails
to afford the air we breathe?
I ran a fleet of cars, all of which had the battering ram bumpers.
Unlike today’s cars, one could actually touch, or bump, something and not have any damage. Taxi owners loved 5 mph bumpers.
A new wrinkle has been added to the issue.
In the 70s bumpers not only had to meet an impact standard, they were also subject to a height standard, so, when cars whack, they whack bumper to bumper, to minimize damage.
While, as far as I know, the car bumper height standard is still in force, the protection is not there anymore, because SUVs and pickups are not subject to the same height standard.
Today, for the second or third time, in recent years, I saw the immediate aftermath of a sedan hitting the back of a “full size” SUV. As best I could tell from the quick glance I took, the back of the SUV looked fine, while the grill, headlights, radiator, front fenders, and hood, of the sedan were smashed almost beyond recognition. Most of the strength in the front of the sedan seems to be in the rails that support the front suspension, powertrain, and bumper. The SUV bumper is so high, it overrides all of that, and destroys the plastic and sheet metal above.
The insurance industry isn’t going to like paying claims for cars smashed to smithereens by SUV/pickup bumpers that override the protection built into the cars. So what next? Insurance industry lobbyists pushing legislation to require sedans to have big SUV/pickup height bumpers?
My wife’s 73 Cutlass had them. For some unknown reason the car was hit at least 5 times in the front or back and sustained no damage.
Had her car been a 72 Cutlass…
I did a lot of engine work over the years on cars with the 5 MPH bumper.
Oh my aching legs.
I had a couple of 70’s cars with big bumpers, a ’77 Datsun 280Z and a ’77 Coupe de Ville. I especially appreciated them on the Z, so many were damaged in parallel parking incidents. Earlier Zs were commonly seen with “snubbed noses” the center peak was smashed in. The ’77 Z had a squared off design with two indented lines that ran parallel with the bumper and were painted flat black, with two rubber over riders. They worked fine and really protected the front end. I later bought a ’72 that had the typical punched in nose look. Those spindly ’72 bumpers fit the design better, as they were on the original cars. The 5 mph, unit was incorporated as an add on, but looked fine to me. The Cadillac bumpers were designed for it and they too, looked good to me. At least they actually offered some protection.
The bumpers in my 60’s and ’70’s Rivieras were contoured to the body but didn’t do anything to protect the sheet metal. Modern plastic bumpers aren’t worth a damn. Couldn’t they incorporate a rubber rub strip?
Would be nice to see European sized license plates as the global standard.
Consumer Reports tests in the late 70 through at least the 80s included their “Bumper Basher” which replicated a 5 mph or later 2.5 mph impact, followed by a damage assessment and repair estimate. It was instructive whose cars survived unscathed
I don’t decide what I drive based upon bumpers. Thanks to seeing cow catchers on many cars growing up, I don’t really look at them, unless it seems that they are missing. There are many new vehicles that appear to not have bumpers. Those look odd to me.
When I bump into something, I expect damage whether it has a rugged bumper, a flexible bumper or anything else.
The “ugly bumper” period was pretty short. Within 5 years, all manufacturers had incorporated a larger bumper into their product’s designs without a lot of problems.
Finally – I would like to see a new car with a shiny front bumper. It is a look that should come around again.
I like shine too but think chrome bumpers are unlikely to come back dude, due to cost and environmental concerns.
The mid-70s Chevys (Camaro, Vega, Nova, perhaps others) had simple, bright, unpainted aluminum bumpers, front and rear, which were both light and sturdy. While the hidden reinforcements and the “shock absorber” bumper mounts were heavy, the bumpers themselves were light. Not being plated, they could be bent back into shape, too, within reason. They were also easy to find in the junkyards (a long time ago), as they were somewhat “universal” across trim levels and model years. An all-around thoughtful solution to the constraints of the day.
There may be a somewhat hidden benefit to the “sturdy bumpers with shock absorbing mounts”. We found it true in circle track racing. Actually mounting the bumper/shock absorber combination yielded a much less “harsh” jolting to the neck and back, in the inevitable front-to-rear bumping and jostling that went on. Not only was it easier on the driver’s body in “moderate” bumps, but it allowed for the easier keeping of the car under control. What was likely going on was a progressive transmission of the energy of the “bump”, rather than the jolting “shock” that a typical rigid race car structure of the day would transmit through to the controls and the driver’s body. So the big bumper system was the front line in the progressive “crush” and reduced transmission of the g-forces of the crash into the bodies of the occupants, in a way that was more comprehensive than that of a simple collapsible metal bumper, mounted to the car with simple bolts and brackets. I suspect the 5-mph bumpers were part of the “controlled crush” movement that came about in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Or perhaps they were coincidental in time. But in my experience, they actually worked along those lines, in the real race-car world.
Both yes and no. The idea of controlled crush was not new to the ’70s — if you read old magazine articles, you’ll see various experimental safety cars from the sixties designed with that in mind, and in fall 1967, the U.S. Department of Transportation launched an experimental safety vehicle program for testing and R&D purposes. However, until crash safety started being regulated seriously, manufacturers weren’t very interested: It was expensive, it would require too much buyer education (crumple zones significantly increase the likelihood that a car will be written off after a crash, leading to the inevitable ignorant punditry about how much tougher cars used to be), having new car buyers thinking about crashes was seen as bad for marketing, and automakers REALLY didn’t want to give the impression that they were legally responsible for occupant safety in collisions.
A 5-mph bumper needs to have a means of compressing (either within the bumper itself or within its mounts) to absorb the force of an impact. That force increases exponentially with speed.
As big as 5-mph bumpers are, 10-mph bumpers have to be gargantuan; see for example the Volvo Experimental Safety Car, https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressreleases/5024/volvo-experimental-safety-car-from-1972-a-concept-car-long-before-its-time-in-the-field-of-car-safet. Even those aren’t going to provide much protection against a 20-mph or 30-mph impact. Protecting occupants against higher-speed impacts requires creating a rigid cage-like structure around the passenger compartment and using all or most of the structure outside of that cage as a crumple zone. (It may also require provision for shifting the engine out of the way so that it isn’t pushed through the firewall into the passenger compartment.)
So, these are related concepts, but they operate on two very different scales.
I feel it, I feel it, I’m tilting at windmills again…
I like bumpers, I feel they serve a purpose. As well they should. While how much is up for debate, but for both the hitter and hittie I think they’re a good thing. I’m happy to debate how much, but I’ve seen some that literally wouldn’t hold up to a good kick. That’s not good, rather not acceptable, at least to me. Back in the 70’s some manufacturers handled it well, others not so much, they were downright fugly. If some can do it well, others can’t argue that it can’t be done. Unless of course they’re GM, in which case nothing applies.
Again, tilting at that windmill, I have an Infiniti QX4, AKA Nissan Pathfinder. It has no front bumper. It does have a bumper cover, that plastic thing that typically goes over the bumper, but only a knife edge stiffener to hold it up and keep it off the pavement. How can you have a bumper cover without any bumper?
Man this joust is getting heavy. If I were king, bumpers would be at the same height, regardless if for a sports car or passenger truck, AKA pseudo utility vehicle, or pickup or even semi. As well as headlights, but I’m really getting out there on this one, only Daniel Stern might be with me on it. Might.