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Historical Footage: Have You Ever Wondered What Would Happen If You Crashed A 1970s-era Fiesta Into A Lightpole?


Historical Footage: Have You Ever Wondered What Would Happen If You Crashed A 1970s-era Fiesta Into A Lightpole?

The Ford Fiesta is an interesting small car. We got it in the United States for three years (1978-1980) as one of the many knee-jerk reactions to the 1970s gas crises and quickly realized that it might be a bit too small for a country filled with four-door sedans that weighed in at over 5,000 pounds, regardless of how well it sipped the flammable stuff. Once prices returned to normal and the spigots flowed normally, most of these wound up in rollover contests before they were unceremoniously squashed flatter than a bug. In Europe, however, they did well, certainly helped by young drivers who found the XR2 performance model a bit sprightly and zippy. Personally, I like them with the roof hacked off and the hatch mangled up, turning it into a micro-ute, but that’s just me.

For one reason or another, someone decided to test the Fiesta’s durability against a light pole. We don’t know who threw this test together or just how fast the car was traveling at impact, but what we do want to know, seriously, is where the engine wound up once the deforming was all said and done. Overall, the passenger compartment looks relatively whole, but that means nothing if the shifter is now an official part of your anatomy…or an intrusive extra you weren’t intending upon.

 


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6 thoughts on “Historical Footage: Have You Ever Wondered What Would Happen If You Crashed A 1970s-era Fiesta Into A Lightpole?

  1. Chevy Hatin' Mad Geordie

    1 – Be hideously injured!

    2 – Get done by the Police for drunk driving if you survived

    3 – Get a huge bill from the utility company who owned the streetlight

    4 – Rethink your idea of running little orange cars on railway lines with
    inflatable sex-dolls as drivers!

    5 – Be beaten to a pulp by your lass when she finds out you crashed her car!

  2. mooseface

    I’d like to see how a contemporary Fiesta will handle this. I imagine that it would look largely the same, except with airbags and crumple zones doing their dirty work for the passengers.
    All things considered, I’d much rather own an older Fiesta like this one; modern hatchbacks just don’t have the same simplistic dignity and balance of their predecessors.

  3. Greg

    They were kickass little cars. My Chevelle was out of commission one weekend and I went cruising my brothers 79 model Fiesta. Beat a 350 powered Nova three out of four times at the drags!

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