US Federal Safety Standard FMVSS-215 went into effect on September 1, 1972 (a Friday, in case you were curious). This standard mandated that all vehicles be able to take an impact from a 5 mph crash barrier on the front (2.5 mph on the rear) without sustaining any damage to safety, lighting, or fuel system components. In 1974, this standard was further amended to raise the rear impact requirement to 5 mph. So began the era of 5 mph bumpers.
While a few cars ended up having graceful and well-integrated 5 mph bumpers (the Corvette, for example), most just got battering rams attached to the front and rear, as in the case with our featured Maverick.
In order to provide enough room to absorb the 5 mph impact while still protecting the rest of the car, the bumper had to be mounted well ahead of everything else. A filler panel of either plastic or metal was needed to finish off what would otherwise be an empty opening.
Compare this 1972 Maverick. The bumper is almost even with the leading edge of the hood. The grille has to slope down and away from the hood in order to reveal the top of the bumper.
By 1974, this sloping grille is no longer needed to expose the bumper, and in fact, only serves to accentuate the protuberance of the 5mph bumper. This is why, as the ‘70s went on, most cars ended up with either blunt or upward sloping front ends. The downward sloping grill (which also had the unfortunate effect of scooping pedestrians under the car during impact) is a look that is seldom seen anymore in modern cars.
To visualize this, compare the upward sloping grille of the 1977 Pinto (above left) to the downward sloping one of the 1976 Pinto (above right) to see how changing the direction of the grille slope dramatically improves the situation. In the ’77 Pinto, the protrusion and filler panel is still there, but much better integrated and hidden by the grille and lamp assemblies. Alas, the Maverick would not live past the 1978 model year, and would never get a refreshed front end like the Pinto did.
The sloping, v-shaped grille on these Mavericks always gave the turn signals the appearance of being crooked and cross-eyed when viewed up close. Again, the Pinto handled this better, with the turn signal reflector being set flush into the grill (see the 1976 Pinto picture above again). Interesting how the Pinto handled these little styling details better. Of course, it doesn’t help that the grille on this Maverick is not quite straight, with multiple zip ties assisting in retaining the grille in place.
The rear end doesn’t fare much better, but at least the massive bumper helps to draw attention away from the fact that the Maverick uses the same taillights as the Pinto.
This could be a nice looking car, sans the “fake alloy” wheel covers and the barbed wire pinstripe. At least it has the extra cost rub stripes on the bumpers to somewhat disguise their massiveness. I wonder how difficult it would be to tuck them closer in to the body?
“I wonder how difficult it would be to tuck them closer in to the body?”
A pretty common modification- When the bumpers are mounted using telescoping dampers (most cases), you can drill a small hole in the damper and bleed the gas and fluid used to absorb impacts.
With the contents bled out, you an then compress the damper, and if desired, tack weld them in the new position to hold them in place. Of course this modification eliminates most of the protection offered by the 5 MPH bumper…
Being chrome perimeter bumpers they’ll still protect against corner scuff damage better than anything produced today, and it’s not like anybody buying a 70s car lately cares about keeping the 5-mph bumper systems optimal any more than they are to keep the maze of smog equipment fully intact.
That said some cars I don’t imagine will improve as much visually like that Futura, especially other 70s Ford’s; a lot of these bumpers were hung far out on the sides quite a bit too, no easy way to fix that.
Another issue I keep seeing a lot amongst American cars built in the 1970s and 1980s is separate taillamps and rear side running lamps. Affixing the separate side running lamps seems to contradict Detroit’s insatiable penchant for cheapness and choosing the least-common-denominator design when it comes to lighting systems.
It’s same with inboard front turn signal indicators between the headlamps when Detroit could simply combine both into one unit and save bit of unit cost.
“[T]he pinto handled this better … ” I don’t think I have ever seen those words combined in that manner before.
The irony contained within that statement somehow escaped me as I was writing it. A low bar, indeed!
Well, not only that, but since the Maverick pre-dated the Pinto, I think it would be more accurate to say that the Pinto used the Maverick tail lights, and not vice versa.
US Federal Safety Standard FMVSS-215 has to be the second most misguided automotive manufacturing regulation after the circumstances that led to door mounted seat belts several years later.
I believe the motivation was to save consumers and their insurance companies some costs related to minor fender benders. In the end, these systems were ultimately outmoded by the science of crumple zones and energy absorption to protect vehicle occupants vs. head and tail lights.
In the short term these systems added weight and complexity to the cars that cost consumers at purchase and again at the pump. Personally, my bumper system failed on my 1976 Olds Cutlass when the inner bumper guard beam rusted out, and collapsed over the bumper shock absorber after backing into the cement base of a parking lot light pole, costing me a replacement inner beam.
“In the end, these systems were ultimately outmoded by the science of crumple zones and energy absorption to protect vehicle occupants vs. head and tail lights.”
I saw an interview with a life-long tow truck driver. He said when he started in the business that in an accident they would “bury the driver and hose out the interior of the car for re-sale.” Today, “the driver walks away, but the cars are totaled.”
Jay Leno has a joke about his 55 Buick Roadmaster. “Its the kind of car where if you get in an accident, they hose off the dash and your heirs sell it to someone else”. Same joke.
I remember ads from an insurance company demonstrating a 5 mph impact into a wall. A pedestrian walked into a wall at 5 mph and walked away with no evident injuries. Next a Model A Ford hit a wall at 5 mph and had a misaligned bumper and no other apparent damage. Then a current model year new car hit a wall at 5 mph and suffered significant damage to the front end. This was when the insurance was pushing for this law.
In the end, these systems were ultimately outmoded by the science of crumple zones and energy absorption to protect vehicle occupants vs. head and tail lights.
The 5 mile bumper had nothing to do with safety and crumple zones, which had already existed (although not yet perfected) well before these were mandated. The purpose of the 5 mile bumper was only to reduce spiraling repair cost from low-speed collisions, which were so high because bumpers had become mostly useless. 10-15 years earlier, they still largely worked to protect cars in minor parking bumps and slow-speed traffic crashes. But the stylistic extremes of the ’60s made bumpers a mostly a stylistic element and not a functional one, as they had been before.
The stylistic aspect could have been handled better, and it eventually was, by 1980-1982, when the most stringent requirements were in effect. And they did reduce repair costs. from Wikipedia:
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):[48]
1983 Horizon with Phase-II 5-mph bumpers: $287
1983 Horizon with Phase-I 2.5-mph bumpers: $918
1990 Horizon: $1,476
People bitch about repair costs nowadays, but there’s little interest in mandating anything to reduce them.
Consumer Reports complained about replacing the 5 mph standard with 2.5 mph standard.
Once the new standards went into effect, they would do a 5-mph impact (into a pole? I forget…) and then give the cost or repairing.
The new Golf (Rabbit replacement had come out), and the numbers were horrific…$900 front, $1400 rear? Something like that. I cringed…but I still bought a GTI
Not into a pole; they had a machine they called the Bumper Basher which could be positioned and configured to repeatably provide impacts highly consistent in every respect. I think they configured it to do the actual FMVSS 215/Part 581 specified test.
Paul,
Most of the driving public no-longer cares about “serviceability” or “repair costs” of automobiles. There are several reasons for this…
1. Today unlike the transition from the fifties-fins to sixties muscle to seventies through nineties “malaise era” vehicles are objectively and uniformly “getting better all the time.”
The trend since about 2003-2005 when the Chrysler LX, Ford Escape Hybrid, second gen Toyota Prius, Ford GT, and Porsche Carrera GT debuted, is for ever more efficiency, ever more luxury, and ever more performance. Depending on which market segment that you want to spend your dollars.
While I don’t agree with the direction exterior styling has devolved into, on almost all other fronts, every car made today is dramatically better than one made ten years ago, and one made ten years ago is dramatically better than one made ten years before that.
You could not say that about cars built from 1956, to 1966, to 1976.
A certain segment of the population believed that a tri-five Chevy with tail-fins represented “peak-car” and made maintaining and restoring these cars into a cottage industry. Even today it is still easier to find parts for a 1957 Chevy than any Toyota, Cadillac, or Lincoln from the 1980’s.
Another segment of the population believed that a Gen one Pontiac GTO represented “peak-car” and likewise made maintaining and restoring these and other pony and muscle cars from the era into a cottage industry.
By 1976, it was clear to most people that nothing made in that year or era was worth salvaging, restoring, or maintaining in original condition. This led to “pro stock” Pintos and Vegas. There are obviously a few exceptions such as the 1976 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible and a 1976 Bandit Trans Am. But for the most part cars of this era were the proverbial “driven hard and put away wet” types.
This behavior and indifference on the part of the buying public continues until today. I believe that it is because of the consistent improvements made to each generation of cars. The difficulty of working on cars with lawsuits emerging by independent auto mechanics for the “right to repair.” The prevalence of “zero percent financing and no money down leasing.”
On top of all of this is the fact that today cars have multiple airbags, so in case of an accident, an auto body shop now needs to rebuild an interior in addition to the exterior and the cost of new cars have actually deflated slightly (after rebates) since the 1980’s or leveled-off so there is no profit margin in the “auto salvage and rebuilt title” business.
Here are the MSRPs of a 4-door Honda Civic EX for the past three decades adjusted for today’s dollar value:
1990 Honda Civic In 2020 US Dollars- $23,379
2015 Honda Civic In 2020 US Dollars- $23,063
2020 Honda Civic In 2020 US Dollars- $23,800
Now, let’s talk about what you get when you buy a Honda Civic EX today vs. in 1990. The ’90 Civic was a subcompact car with 88 cubic feet of passenger space. Today, the Civic is a midsized car with 98 cubic feet of passenger space. The trunk has grown from 12 cu ft to 15. Power has improved most dramatically. A 1990 Civic had 92 hp. Today it has 180 hp. Being a much, much larger car, fully three segments larger, and with double the power, the new Civic must get much lower fuel economy, right? Wrong. The new Civic gets dramatically better fuel economy with a 21% increase since 1990 to 33 MPG vs 26 MPG. The new Civic also emits less greenhouse gases and has a much better EPA smog rating. The new Civic will cost its owner $3,000 less in fuel over ten years of ownership. And remember, gas prices in 1990 (or any year) can also be adjusted for today’s dollar.
We could compare safety specs, but you know that every new Civic EX has Honda’s most advanced safety features. None had yet been invented in 1990. And then there is size and weight. Being larger and heavier, the new Civic is much safer if a crash does occur. The new Civic EX also comes with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay standard. That means you have Nav, music, and much more at no added cost to you.
https://www.torquenews.com/1083/myth-busted-cars-are-not-getting-more-expensive-1990-honda-civic-vs-2020-civic
Most people agree (myself included) that Toyota no longer builds Camry’s to the same standards of the 1992-1996 generation. How can they when they are now selling for the same, if not less than they did back then after inflation, and the cars are loaded with more “whiz-bang” technology than ever? The answer is that they cannot.
There used to be a type of person that would specifically order a Buick with manual “crank” windows instead of power windows, because “less stuff to break.” That person does not exist anymore. Most everyone today purchasing new cars believes themselves to be a “wise investor” or “smart shopper” and does all sorts of number crunching that just flat wasn’t done a generation ago. Add to that most people have had experience with technology today and things like power windows don’t break anymore unless an engineer designs them to break (such as the late GM B-Bodies that used plastic arms) even that was 25 years ago already.
There’s nothing in your lengthy and detailed comment I don’t agree with. In fact, I’ve made all of these points numerous times here.
My comment: “People bitch about repair costs nowadays, but there’s little interest in mandating anything to reduce them”. wasn’t meant to suggest I agree with that sentiment. I was just paraphrasing what I hear from other commenters, about how very modest collisions result in very expensive repair bills or being totaled. But realistically, most cars are adequately well insured, so it’s really more of a hypothetical issue.
“The 5 mile bumper had nothing to do with safety and crumple zones,”
Agreed. Perhaps I should have said “ironically, this became irrelevant with the eventual pursuit of crumple zones.”
Agreed that some style over function bumpers encouraged the regulation.
But, while some people saved some money on repairs, everyone was guaranteed to spend more on buying the bumper system and the fuel to carry it around.
And, in a more severe accident, repairing the bumper system itself would become an added expense.
On our older cars, some of my modern bumper covers carry marks from me pushing the dent back out. How may people repaired some minor damage completely on a 5 year old econo box?
It is hard to see how this penciled out as a benefit to the consumer.
No, sir, I think you still haven’t got it. Crumple zones and bumper performance specs aren’t redundant or conflicting. The bumper specs, as originally conceived and as evolved to the present day with regulatory and market-driven influences, are aimed at mitigating the cost and safety consequences of minor/low-speed impacts. Crumple zones are to mitigate the safety consequences of major/high-speed impacts. Ne’er the twain shall meet.
Also it looks like you’re still putting forth as fact what appears to be a guess or pet theory on how the cost/benefit equations balance out. If you want to see how it pencilled out, start here (US National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board) and here (3rd-party analysis of FMVSS № 215) and here (NHTSA regulatory analysis—these are notoriously conservative, not just selfgratulatory backpatting; look at the last line of the abstract!) and here (IIHS in re Transport Canada’s weakening standard) and (3rd party cost analysis of 5-mph bumper systems).
I agree that some level of minor impact damage reduction and overall passenger safety are not mutually exclusive and never said otherwise.
My point was that the regulatory emphasis moved far away from worrying about minor impact damage to the reduction of injury and death in impacts far exceeding 5 mph.
For some groups, the 5 mph bumper was a pet cause, and I’m sure that with enough studies, someone may have found some benefit that may be real, but it wasn’t sufficient to rally people around it any more.
Am I thrilled that my two current model Ford Fusions lead their way with a plastic grill that is extremely vulnerable? No, I think the industry could do a bit better.
Am I thrilled that our 2013 Mustang was wrecked by my son, all but totaled, and he walked away with just bruises? Yes. I’m not a neanderthal wishing it was 1971 again.
The public never really cared. They bought tender bumpered Corvairs, Mustangs and Camaros by the millions. The public does not seem to care now, and the situation is probably worse than it was in the ’60s.
As Jim Klein points out, bumper height makes these efforts moot to a degree. As does the size and shape of the object hit, its density, brake dive, the angle of the impact, etc.
At some point, minor impact damage protection will provide a level of conflict with aerodynamics, vehicle weight goals, build costs and potentially complicate the approach to impact energy management as it relates to vehicle occupants. At some point, the trade-offs aren’t worth it, and it seems the regulators, the engineers, car companies and public have moved on from the regulatory priorities of the ’70s.
This video has a pretty good explanation of how one of the these systems works, and the product works well in a very specific circumstance. But, its limitations are obvious – it works great if you hit a flat barrier or another 1972 Oldsmobile head on without touching the brakes at a very specific speed.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh9zagKgkeM&w=560&h=315%5D
From what I remember reading, Ford in particular contributed to the repair cost issue by mounting their bumpers right up against the sheet metal, starting with the Mustang. You can definitely see that in the pre-mandate Maverick above.
Meanwhile, Chrysler got so much wrong with its ’74 C-bodies, but somehow managed to win the prize for best bumper integration.
He was acknowledging the consumer protection aspect of 5mph bumpers had more to do with protecting the functionality of headlights/taillights, and less about protecting the occupants wellbeing themselves. The flaw as paul points out is 5mph bumpers and crumple zones can in fact coexist. Cars to date still must withstand 2.5 mph impacts to protect the lights, your bumper paint will look terrible with spiderwebbed paint but you’ll be able to drive home at night.
I think the real flaw was the pitch that it would save customers(insurance companies) money on repair cost. If this were strictly a law about that they may as well have mandated bodyside rub strips to protect against door dings, curb feelers to help avoid costly tire or rim damage and outright outlaw stainable fabrics and carpets in interiors. I’m sure insurance lobbyists would have loved that, but in order to get legislation enacted there needed to be a good reason, and protecting lighting systems from going cockeyed from a minor fender bender is a much more rational sell.
We never saw the modern day aesthetics of 5mph bumpers, since it was nixed when those bumpers were only beginning to become better integrated, but I suspect there wouldn’t be a great deal of visual difference than what we have with painted plastic covers, and like has been said repairing/repainting them isn’t cheap, and the paint never matches quite right ever again. Chrome battering rams did benefit the consumer and padded profits for insurance companies, but that was a short lived execution by manufacturers before they figured out what what they really needed to do and still sell attractive cars.
In the end none of it really matters as there is zero enforcement of whatever bumper height regulations may exist and the obviously disparate heights of cars, trucks, and heavier equipment “bumpers”. It only possibly works where there is like-to-like impact but as soon as someone puts a 4″ lift kit on their pickup, game over for your car in the parking lot. You’d see a lot less trucks and Jeeps being sold if there was actually an enforced requirement to keep a bumper at ground level or whatever no matter the height of the rest of the body resulting in a dorky “look”.
I’m pretty sure there was a height standard, wasn’t that why the rubber bumper MGB suspensions sat higher? Also note on this Maverick the rear bumper actually sits lower than the small bumper one did, and the Torino rear bumper dropped down a lot from its 1973 position, so they’d match front bumper heights. Now I have never heard of this actually happening IRL in my lifetime but in some old 50s/60s hot rod movies there would be scenes of them getting hassled by police with tape measures checking their bumper heights while tallying up violations. But that could just be Hollywood writing.
When the standard was implemented it was at a time when cars were still dominant over light trucks, especially in cities where low speed impacts were presumably at the highest, so the class mismatch was probably just considered an unlikely variable back then.
There was indeed a height standard; that was one of the things automakers squawked loudest about. The reason why it’s basically null now: it doesn’t apply to light trucks and vehicles classified as such.
“Vehicles classified as such” include such obvious trucks as the Chrysler PT Cruiser.
Yeah, we did; Canada didn’t go along with the US’ weakening of the bumper standard. The Canadian test still specified 8 km/h (5 mph) until not very many years ago, when it was reduced to prioritise pedestrian protection. So we know exactly what modern 5-mph bumpers look like; they look the same as 2.5-mph ones.
Interesting, I hadn’t realized that! So I presume some or all 1983-recent cars sold in both Canada and the US had two variants of internal bumper systems? Would that mean there were possibly some cars sold in the US with 5mph bumpers in that time for production simplicity(sort of like how most cars meet 50 state emissions standards).
It makes me wonder on my Cougar, those were sold in both countries manufactured at the same Lorain Ohio plant with some region differences I was aware of – km/h speedometers, manual 3 point seatbelts instead of autobelts, DRLs – The front internal steel bumper is welded on the frame rails, but the rear one bolts on, so I wonder is the Canada spec cars used a different part there. or maybe they’re all 5mph compliant, there’s a good 6” of protrusion from the lighting systems on each end
Interesting that you mention the Cougar’s rear bumper. Two years ago my wife was rear-ended while driving our ’95 Thunderbird. As you can see in the picture below, the plastic bumper was scratched, but otherwise undamaged. However, the hidden steel bolt-on bumper was mangled.
Due to how easy the steel bumper was to get off, the repair was rather reasonable (the steel bumper was replaced and the plastic bumper repainted). I don’t remember the exact cost, but the fact that the insurance company paid for the repairs on a 23-year-old car tells you that it wasn’t a huge expenditure.
You’re right—in some models there was a difference between the US and the Canadian bumper systems, and in other models there was not. It depended on whether, for a given model, the weakened US standard was enough cheaper to comply with to yield a savings despite the tooling, production, assembly, and service/parts costs of multiple systems. Sometimes it was cheaper to make one system comply with both regs, even though such a system was more expensive than one that would meet only the weaker US standard. I don’t know for sure, but my sense—bolstered by the IIHS comment to Transport Canada, linked above in my reply to Dave B—is that eventually the “one system that meets both regs” approach came to predominate.
FMVSS 215 was the result of substantial lobbying by the insurance industry and so-called “advocacy” groups. Car buyers paid more for these bumpers in many ways… higher purchase prices, slower performance and higher fuel consumption due to their heavier vehicles, and greater space consumption. Oh, and there was NOT a corresponding reduction in insurance cost… but just the opposite… higher insurance costs.
{{reliable citation required}}}
Got to say that model year 1950 was “peak bumper.” Here is a Chrysler Crown Imperial. The Desoto’s and Buick’s weren’t far behind.
That Maverick may be peak bumper–a decent-looking car horribly disfigured…. But it was a cheap car. Not just inexpensive. Cheap.
What of the poor rich cousin who lived in Westchester or Beverly Hills, and drove arguably the best car in America–a Mercedes 450SEL. Poor man! Take a VERY VERY expensive car, and disfigure it. The 74-76 W114/15 (240D/300D/280) also looked ridiculous with the new bumpers. They were merely VERY expense.
BMWs were almost as disfigured. Porsche did a MUCH better job.
Today’s cars….if people only knew what is underneath that front and rear fascia. A simple steel or aluminum boxed section that spans the track of the wheels. That’s it.
Yet, between better designed (and also HEAVIER) bodies and air bags, the new cars are a much better place to be in a collision.
Naw, it ain’t. Go watch this.
(This illustrates not only what seemingly-trivial structures actually do, but also the farce that is “CAPA certification” of cheap lookalike aftermarket parts. The video, purporting to show the superiority of “CAPA-certified” parts, compares only an OE component and a non-“CAPA-certified” aftermarket replacement. For some strange reason that certainly can’t be guessed, they don’t show us how the “CAPA-certified” aftermarket part does.)
Porsche did a MUCH better job.
Not so for 911 G-Modell, especially in the rear. The US version had the rubber equivalent of Dagmar bumper guards, which look like massive ballast, weighing the car down.
Same for 914 and its pointy Dagmar bumpers.
Even the rear bumpers fitted to 924 have black rubber infill bands.
Don’t forget the ’73 XK-E front bumper set up.
Maxi-Malaise. On the Pinto and Maverick, Ford likely should have handled their larger bumpers similarly to the sculpted body-coloured bumpers on the Mustang II. They worked much better visually.
I believe Dave Skinner’s Mustang II is the same, or a very similar colour.
Speaking of battering rams, check out this 74 Volvo 144. (side note 72-75 Volvo 1 series model spotting is dead easy based on door handles, vent wings and head rests)
The interesting side effect of the 5 mph bumper standard was Consumer Reports’ “Bumper Basher” which was a test rig that simulated a 5mph impact, after which CR added up the damage as part of each new car test.
A friend’s Dad had one of the these in 4 door form, trading in a late 60’s Ford Custom. Even at the time, it looked painfully bad with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I was afraid of the damage done to my 13 year old image by being seen in it. The 76 Pinto, let alone the 77, looks like art in comparison.
Mavericks were made through the 1977 model year in North America. For 1975 to 1977, Ford sold both the Granada and the Maverick as their “compacts.” The Maverick was still selling well and was a “low cost” compact car. The Granada was marketed more as a “luxury compact.” The Maverick was supposed to be discontinued when the Granada came out but sold well in the 1974 gas crisis. It got better mileage than the Granada. So they kept it going. The Maverick was finally replaced by the Fairmont for the 1978 model year. The picture is a 1977 Ford Maverick.
Thanks, I’ve corrected the text. Ford sold almost 100,000 Mavericks in 1977. Somehow I must have missed them all.
Seems a little odd…I worked for Hertz as a transporter (drove one-way rentals back to home location) summers of ’77 and ’78….of course, back then Hertz carried primarily Fords, though I’m sure that’s changed since then, and though I drove many Granadas (and in ’78 Fairmonts), I can’t remember ever driving a Maverick for them….the most common rental back then seemed to be the LTDII at our location, but I did also drive some Pintos, and a smathering of other makes, including imports. I think the Mavericks had 4 wheel drums, though the Pinto did have front discs, despite the large bumpers.
My co-worker/friend at my first professional job after school had a Maverick, which he traded in 1981 for a 1980 Pontiac Sunbird…he got a 24% loan (used car) for it. I think the Maverick was fine, just used up, as he had it during college (up in Maine).
I think back on those summers as nice ones…though we ended up getting paid less than minimum wage ($1.65/hour) unless you drove like a madman, as the trips were paid by the mile. They could also call you for a long trip late in the day, after you’d been up for hours, and even though New England isn’t large, the trips often contained multiple destinations that weren’t on the way for each other (we’d usually go out with several drivers in a large car, dropping them off at various destinations as we progressed where the cars to be picked up were located)…so you could be really tired by the time you finally got back to your home location. I wasn’t a speed demon, so I probably didn’t make out pay-wise, but at least I never hit a deer or anything, which did in more than one car I heard about while I was working for them.
Hope Hertz pulls out of its financial problems, though travel-related businesses are taking it on the chin till people are confident the Covid-19 is contained…and if they were weak before this, makes recovery all the less likely unfortunately.
One of the first instances of Detroit keeping the older car in production alongside its purported replacement. Short-term bean counting at its best.
I’ve driven a Maverick. It was the reverse of a Tardis. It was cramped and claustrophobic inside, given it’s exterior dimensions. Eleven years after the introduction of the Falcon on which it was based, I felt there was absolutely nothing about a Maverick that made it any better than a Falcon, and in most ways, I thought it was far worse. About the only exception is that I believe the Maverick had front disc brakes.
I had a 77 Cougar, Bumper group. Was hit about 10 miles an hour in the rear. No damage. The car that hit me was a 77 Custlass S. The bumper shocks did not return out. Common in those days. Got a nice pay out. Had the car painted and new bumper group on the rear
As long as the subject of how about the mandated seatbelt/ignition interlock for model year 1974?
You know, that’s a fine idea for an article. If nobody beats me to it, I’ll see about putting one together.
Go for it! I’d love to see this.
I’m in the apparent minority that really doesn’t mind the look of the 5 mph bumpers. Maybe it has to do with my age. I was born in 1980, so most of the cars on the road when I was growing up had these bumpers, so I just thought that’s what bumpers were supposed to be like.
I had a ’77 Datsun 280Z. These came with the impact bumper. Previous to this, many Zs had the front of their hood banged in when a larger vehicle backed into it. My one owner car had perfect sheet metal front and rear due to those bumpers. In my mind it was well worth the trade off in looks. Now every car has painted plastic, integrated bumper covers that can’t withstand any contact without damage. Repainting bumpers is not cheap. This is a bigger problem for owners of older cars that don’t carry full coverage insurance.
Years ago when I wasted time editing Wikipedia, I put a lot of work into the bumper article there, which eventually wound up pretty nicely complete, at least in terms of the US regulatory stuff. I see most of it’s still intact, and I see Paul N has quoted from it above.
(I also see by the edit history that there’s at least one active squabble brewing between two editors who appear to have been battling it out for at least five years…ye gods. This is why I quit editing Wikipedia!)
I don’t necessarily mind the regulation bumpers (most of them, anyhow) for reasons like WildaBeast’s, but also because I’m a form-follows-function kind of guy. There certainly have been unnecessarily ugly bumpers, but the regs did not force automakers to put ugly bumpers on cars—that’s just not what happened, though it’s an oft-repeated bit of “common knowledge”.
What the feds did was issue a bumper performance standard. It contained absolutely no requirements or prohibitions related to the bumpers’ appearance. Automakers chose to install ugly bumpers in many cases, arguably as part of a broader effort to turn public opinion against vehicle regulation in general. That’s entirely on the automakers, not on the government for requiring that car bumpers be functional, not just fashion accessories.
Proof: go look at the Endura bumpers on a Pontiac from the same era as this Maverick. They were basically the kind of bumper all cars have now, with a plastic fascia faired in and integrally styled with the rest of the body instead of a separate chromed steel bar.
(as for those Volvo bumpers: yes, please, I’ll take ’em! Great landing strip for auxiliary lighting.)
I think a big part of the scorn for them was how some companies (Ford, the European and Japanese car companies) just slapped compliant bumpers on their existing cars. So you get the jutting monstrosities like on this Maverick, or the RX3, or the piece of highway barrier they put on the back of the ’74 Thunderbird.
in contrast, Chrysler basically restyled everything in ’73 and ’74, and as a result their compliant bumpers- while still larger than ’72 and before- were definitely much better integrated into the design.
Take a closer look at Chrysler’s ’73s. Many of them sprouted bumper guards just like the kind that had been optional before, but now with great big rubber blocks on them. Those were specifically to pass the 1973 version of the bumper standard, which had only a straight-on barrier impact test. When the standard evolved to also require corner impacts, Chrysler’s bumpers came to be just about as protuberant and chunky as Ford’s and GM’s and AMC’s and…
But generally better integrated into the body and front end profile.
I don’t necessarily mind the regulation bumpers (most of them, anyhow) for reasons like WildaBeast’s, but also because I’m a form-follows-function kind of guy. There certainly have been unnecessarily ugly bumpers, but the regs did not force automakers to put ugly bumpers on cars—that’s just not what happened, though it’s an oft-repeated bit of “common knowledge”.
What the feds did was issue a bumper performance standard. It contained absolutely no requirements or prohibitions related to the bumpers’ appearance. Automakers chose to install ugly bumpers in many cases, arguably as part of a broader effort to turn public opinion against vehicle regulation in general. That’s entirely on the automakers, not on the government for requiring that car bumpers be functional, not just fashion accessories.
Proof: go look at the Endura bumpers on a Pontiac from the same era as this Maverick. They were basically the kind of bumper all cars have now, with a plastic fascia faired in and integrally styled with the rest of the body instead of a separate chromed steel bar.
(as for those Volvo bumpers: yes, please, I’ll take ’em! Great landing strip for auxiliary lighting.)
See also this previous CC piece on the subject.
My mother had a 1974 Ford Maverick. One day she was rear ended at a freeway exit. Her rear bumper sustained only a slightly tweaked bumper guard whereas the other car, a late 1980s car sustained heavy front end damage. We later learned the other car was considered totaled.
If you think the Maverick looked bad with the 5mph bumpers, here’s what Checker did.
Looks like they took a street guard rails and attached it. Doesn’t look pretty but sure looks strong. I’ll bet a 5mph “tap” wouldn’t even faze it.
I’d rather have a ugly bumper rather than a aesthetic “bumper” that results in $2k repair bill.
I’ve seen some Checker taxis with rubber tube like bladders filled with water (or some liquid) on their bumpers. They would squish or burst with a low speed impact to minimize damage.
The rear end actually fares far worse than the front to my eye, the front bumper at least follows the same horizontal path as the original small bumper, but the original rear bumper was U shaped, with the corners wrapping up and giving the taillight panel a tight tidy appearance. The battering ram version on the other hand loses those upward corners And makes the taillight panel look massive and boxy. It doesn’t distract from the Pinto taillights at all, if anything it accentuates them, appearing all on their own in that flat expanse and in combination with the bumper system gives the whole rear end design a rather cobbled together look.
Let’s not forget that this wasn’t so much a consumer protection law as it was an insurance company protection law. If you bumped into the barrier and made a claim on your car, you got no benefit of anything over your deductible. If you bumped into another car and that driver made a claim against you, you got no benefit because the insurer paid 100% on the liability claim.
I would love to see a comparison of the added costs of the engineering and manufacturing of the bumpers (and the added price tacked on by the manufacturers) vs. the premium reduction received by insurance buyers. I would wager that what we really had with these was a transfer of insurance company claim costs to the car manufacturers and owners. I don’t recall any great consumer outcry when the standard was lowered.
Ehhh…I donno about that. It could be so, but I think without the data you muse about we can’t say for sure whether the US bumper regs benefitted mostly consumers, mostly insurors, both, or neither—all we can do is guess.
It’s worth mentioning that there was a CC on the Maverick’s seventies’ cousin, the Mercury Comet, that showed how bad those 5 mph bumpers could really be. The Comet, in what was obviously a cost-cutting move, used the same 5 mph front bumper as the Maverick. But because the Comet had a more protrubing prow (a Mercury styling gimmick to seperate it from the Fords), the bumper went out even ‘further’ with an even longer filler plate. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Ford had designed a Comet bumper that followed the grille/hood line, but I doubt they felt like spending the money on car due to be cancelled soon. So big ole filler plate it was.
As to why some cars like the Corvette, Mustang, and Firebird got 5 mph that didn’t look so bad, there are a couple of reasons. There were loopholes in the law where cars scheduled to be cancelled got away with lesser standards (Chrysler cars like the E- and B-bodies). Likewise, I suspect the manufacturers made more of a conscious effort to handle bumper styling of more style-oriented cars, too. Lower market (and lower profit) cars like the compacts and subcompacts? Not so much. Ford’s full-size cars didn’t fare much better.
So stuff like the Maverick and Comet just floated along with whatever railroad ties Ford felt like tacking on until their useful model life petered out.
The B bodies are a mystery to me with regard to those loopholes, both Plymouth and Dodge received new sheetmetal on the coupes in 1973, and Plymouth in particular not only changed bumpers, but changed to an even smaller angular front bumper from the flat 71-72 loop. That’s not exactly an aging body withering on the vine like the E-bodies Javelin or Mustangs, I don’t know how they got away with that unless the name change from Satellite/Coronet and Charger over to Fury and Monaco in 1975 facilitated it.
It’s actually pretty clever if that was the case, but this is 1970s Chrysler we’re talking about…
How ChryCo managed to get around the 5 mph bumper rules that everyone else had to follow for the restyled ’73-’74 Satellite coupe would be a good read (well, for Curbivores, anyway). Could it be the explanation for the funky quarter panels that ‘sort of’ looked like the ’71-’72 cars? It might also explain how the ’73-’74 Charger looked almost identical to the ’71-’72 Charger, despite the fact that none of the sheetmetal interchanged.
Speaking of the Charger, it’s funny how the ’73-74 loop bumper carried over and was able to meet whatever weak bumper regs they got away with, while the ’71-’72 Satellite got a complete new doghouse. Couldn’t Chrysler just have tacked on big rubber bumper guards onto the ’71-’72 Satellite loop bumper, too?
I don’t think the change-up in names for the 1975 Plymouth intermediate applies, though, for the simple reason that the Charger name continued on.
I’m going to say it was Chrysler’s government connections that let them slide on the ’73-’74 B-body bumpers. Chrysler, more than Ford or GM, was a big government supplier, not only of fleet vehicles, but defense contracts, as well. So you can bet they had some good internal contacts who could pull strings and get some fine print written into the regs to let them off the hook.
What makes you think Chrysler got around the 5 mile bumpers?? They obviously didn’t. Which is why the ’73 Satellite dropped the loop bumper and has a compliant front bumper, just better integrated than many others. But take a look at the ’73-’74 Gran Fury; its bumper doesn’t stick out any more than the Satellite’s, and its ’74 rear bumper is about the same as the Satellite’s too.
Different manufacturers used different techniques to meet the rule. Chrysler’s were clearly more effective visually.
That looks like MY1974 B-body coupe. The bumper guards used to meet the 5 mph regs have a chrome base. The prior year cars had larger bumper guards that were all black rubber. And there’s a reason…
Chrysler- for the most part- restyled their cars at the same time instead of lazily tacking on a compliant bumper. thus the resulting look was much better.
who’d’a thunk that if you move the lights into a less vulnerable position you wouldn’t need as big a bumper to protect them?
I’ve never been certain that the 73 Plymouth’s didn’t, but it is a standout among 1973-1974 cars in that the front bumper is rather thin, most every other manufacturer had their bumpers fill the whole lower portion of the front and rear ends ends, leaving no prominent valence panels below like on the Satellite. Moreover the bumpers gained the more expected bulky appearance with the 1975 Fury redesign.
Also note that while the Satellite dropped the loop bumper in 1973, the 1973 Chargers did not. It’s not conclusive that they did or didn’t, but these are reasons that would make me think that’s plausible.
I’m going to guess that the top of the ’71-’72 Satellite coupe loop bumper was too far forward of the bottom to pass the flat-wall collision test with big rubber bumper guards on the bottom of the bumper like the Charger.
Meeting just the flat-wall test was the loophole that Chrysler seemed to have exploited. The actual reg required not only the flat-wall collision, but also offset impacts on the bumper corners, as well. That’s the part that Chrysler was able to avoid, at least for 1973.
I don’t think they were alone, either. Seems like none other than the Maverick (and maybe the Pinto) did the same thing, but had strengthening behind the bumper for 1974. In one of the past CCs on the Maverick, someone even posted pics of the front bumpers between 1973 and 1974. The difference is subtle, but it’s there.
Here’s another 1974 Maverick currently listed for sale.
https://barnfinds.com/one-owner-39k-original-miles-1974-ford-maverick/
I wondered how the Maverick would look had it got the Pinto slopping grille?
Is it just me or does the first picture remind anyone else of Mater from the cars movies?
They may have been ugly, but they were functional and did what bumpers were intended to do. Back in the day I owned a 1975 Mercury Comet, the Maverick’s arguably higher-class twin. I remember stopping behind a newer late 1970s/early 1980s Datsun 310 at a stop sign at the top of the hill on snowy day. The Datsun in front of me, started pulling away from the stop sign, then lost traction and slid backwards (at very low speed) into the front of my Comet. The Comet suffered no damage while the whole rear bumper of the Datsun was caved-in under its tail-lights, although the Datsun was supposed to have met the same bumper impact requirements as the Comet.