Minimum Sports Car Size

[RWebb]

any thoughts on what the min. amount of crush space is, that's needed in front of the driver to meet modern safety standards?

any material - steel, CF, or Al

and assume the engine is in the rear, amidships, or underneath the occupants

I realize that the 550/RS-60 had the "structural integrity of a beer can" but after watching the BBC guys restore and flip a Bug-eyed Sprite, I am wondering how small a car could be made today.

[RSBob]

Calling all automotive structural engineers.....

[87maniac]

the toyota mr2 spyder was small, light, modern design.
Anything since has been lighter / more lotus-like than the MR2 spyder (2000-2005)?

[tctnd]

It's simply not possible to answer this question without defining many many parameters. There is much more to it than "crush space". F1 cars hit the wall at 180 and the driver is bruised; semi trucks run into bridge abutments at 30 and the driver dies. Whatever it takes to decelerate the occupant from the defined speed at a survivable G load (and prevent foreign object intrusion) will do the job.

regards,
Phil

[haycait911]

Smart Car. safe and small.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by haycait911

Smart Car. safe and small.

But without the noted deceleration science of the F1.

Top Gear had a Smart ram into a concrete block/wall at high speed. Cabin was fine, G Force was too high for occupants (i.e., death). I can't remember if they had dummies or not.

Not something you normally encounter and not discounting the Smart at all.

[Driven97]

The Smart Car collision strategy is to use the crumple zone of the other vehicle for deceleration.

Next size up would probably be the Chevy Spark and Mitsubishi Mirage.

Or you could go the Morgan route and make a three wheeler, counts as a motorcycle so it's exempt from crash regulations.

[kach22i]

The standards keep changing, so you are hitting a moving target.

Opel Speedster
Opel Speedster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joint Lotus development[edit]

The already developed Lotus Elise Series 1 was unable to be produced beyond the 2000 model production year due to new European crash safety regulations, and Lotus needed a development partner to meet the investment requirement.

The Lotus Elise S2/Opel Speedster design was based on the Elise chassis, modified to accept a General Motors engine in place of the Rover K-series engine used by the first Elise.

I say the Elise and it's offspring (Tesla/Opel) is as small and light as you can go. This design is already obsolete, but mostly because of the additional airbag/sensor requirements.

[Elombard]

I would think that if you have the motor somewhere other than the front that you could design a structure that would provide the crush zone necessary in a pretty small space. I think the air bags handle a lot of the safety. Were the airbags used in the smart car crash on Top Gear? I did not see it.

[kach22i]

I think the Smart car has the shortest/smallest crush zone in the North American market.

Crash Test Results of a Smart Car to a Large SUV | Car Chat with Auto SuperShield


The Smart Roadster seems to have a deeper crush zone, perhaps they expect it to go faster?

Smart Roadster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[718]

Is the front crush zone of the Smart smaller than the one of the Toyota MR2 Spyder?

Anyone have scaled drawings?

[Bob Kontak]

Here's the Smart crash I mentioned - think it was Top Gear but Tiff Needell is the narrator. Old show? Edit: "Fifth Gear" is the show.

Also, slight angle vs head on. Tiff says from "70 mph to zero in ONE SECOND" Ha. More like a few hundredth of a second

smart car safety crash test - YouTube

[aschen]

the problem is not fully constrained so no one can really say definitively.

An elise/exige has a fiberglass crash structure for front end collisions. It is about 2ft by 3 ft by 1ft. It might pass crash testing if the car had any bumpers.

The new alpha 4c is probably about as small as you can go in a fed car. I am interested to see the specifics of the front section of that car as it is almost as light as an elise, yet it has real bumpers.

If you ever look under the skirt of an elise its hard to imagine how it could retain its light weight while adding much structure. The 4c has a carbontub which is around 50lbs lighter than the elise's aluminium one though.

[RWebb]

Alfa Romeo 4C To Gain 220 Pounds For U.S. Market

that site has a direct side shot of the car - the distance from the driver to the front is longer than it appears, the lower edge of the windshield makes it a bit of an illusion

My view is that a sports car should be as small as possible - as much like a motorcycle for 2 people and luggage as you can make it.

[aschen]

I few years ago when they announced the 4c they were claiming around 1900 lbs. I said on another forum that I would eat one if it was federalized under 2000 lbs. Several years of Elise ownership showed me just how eextremly drastic measures must be taken to make a modern car so light

[Flieger]

Originally Posted by aschen

I few years ago when they announced the 4c they were claiming around 1900 lbs. I said on another forum that I would eat one if it was federalized under 2000 lbs. Several years of Elise ownership showed me just how eextremly drastic measures must be taken to make a modern car so light

The Euro one is under 2000 pounds. The one for America has to be fatter (of course) to save us from ourselves.

[aschen]

I think that us the Italian estimate. Read no fluids no air in the tires and some cheerful optimisim

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by Flieger

The Euro one is under 2000 pounds. The one for America has to be fatter (of course) to save us from ourselves.

They probably are adding 50 lb.s of cup holders to the US version

[Mtbkracr]

I say buy a Beck spyder, beef it up and throw a WRX STI running gear in it and see how quick you could kill yourself. That's my plan.

[Flieger]

Originally Posted by Mtbkracr

I say buy a Beck spyder, beef it up and throw a WRX STI running gear in it and see how quick you could kill yourself. That's my plan.

I like the Beck body, but want to drape it on a custom chassis and suspension. And with 911 power just for the sound and nostalga.