Front engine safer than rear?

[Finlandia]

XJ Flyer said:

I think there is often too much emphasis on old v modern as opposed to just sufficient amounts of metal to combine all the required different jobs of crumpling to cushion the impact,resisting intrusion,and transferring as much energy as possible into the opposing car.

From at least the point of view of the old 140,amongst some other notables such as the examples I've listed,it is the ability,to combine all those different,often contradictory,requirements,that matters.

IE the Volvo showed that it can do the job of cushioning the impact with a solid object 'in addition' to having massive reserves of resistance to intrusion of the bulkhead.With the ability to transfer energy into a weaker structure being an obvious by product of the combination of the former two abilities.The same would apply in the case of modern cars.In general the more metal that has been used in the construction the more chance there is.

Take the 140 and drive it into a tree, or any kind of offset crash, then see how it protects the occupants. In its time it was the best, or very high up the crash list, now it's just an old death trap when comparing to modern cars.

As the head of research at Folksam said, a small modern car would fare much better in a crash than the 140.