Word: rear-end
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...beat out their planned obsolescence by several years, and with a vengeance. A classic example if the Ford Pinto, circa 1971-'75. It seems there's something wrong with the gas tanks in some of these Pintos that causes them to explode after a direct, though not necessarily hard, rear-end collision; this tends to fry the unlucky occupants. Late last year a California man sizzled by his Pinto won a $100-million-plus suit against Ford. Needless to say, the cars have been recalled--but apparently Ford didn't get them all. Maybe they didn't try hard enough...
Auto insurance is high, say the insurers, partly because manufacturers design cars that can crumple easily in minor accidents. Allstate Insurance Co. last spring offered a 20% discount on collision coverage for any car that could withstand a 5 m.p.h. crash without front-or rear-end damage. So far there have been no takers. Criticizing Detroit's 1971 models, Allstate Chairman Judson Branch complains: "Look at the bumpers! Still tucked against the sheet metal: a perfect battering ram and shock transmitter. Another model year down the drain as far as sturdier cars...
...line is the five-passenger K-70, which will make its debut at the Paris auto show this week. The K70 represents a radical departure in VW's diversification drive. It has angular lines and a water-cooled, front-end engine instead of the usual rear-end, air-cooled one. Already praised by Continental critics, the K70 will go on sale in Germany in November. Company chiefs contend that the K70 will not be brought to America until it has an automatic gearshift, which VW feels is imperative in this hotly contested U.S. market...
...American on wheels, the car bumper has now become a billboard. During election time, it advertises his political allegiance; during the offseason, as now, it is used for laughs-most of them so bad that bumper stickers may understandably raise the number of rear-end collisions before the summer...
...born Dr. Ayub K. Ommaya, of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness at Bethesda, Md. Detection, however, is doubly difficult in the peculiar and treacherous kind of injury known as "whiplash"-the result of the sudden forward-and-backward snapping of the head that is common in rear-end auto accidents...