Carl F. Thelin

CRASHER CARL AT CAL

            I was in charge of the test track, which included the first CAL outdoor crash test facility. It was crude. Believe it or not (I have photos) the first thing done was to use a powerful crane to pick up a car by the rear bumper and drop it onto its nose. That was spectacular but stupid. It was hardly realistic. The car fell to its side. If CAL had used dummies, we would have to strap them tightly to keep them in a realistic position. That fizzled. Before I came in 1969, CAL had built the beginning of a real crash test facility. They had a 530 foot paved road leading up to a massive reinforced concrete crash barrier. A long, deep concrete-lined pit was just in front of the barrier. A single railroad track secured to the center of the road guided the test car. The contractor placed a three inch diameter pipe front to back in the barrier when the concrete he began pouring concrete. A 3/8 inch steel cable ran through the barrier and came out aligned with the guide rail. A scaffold atop the barrier reached way out in front. Several high speed movie cameras looked down at the cars. The pit was deep enough that other cameras could look up at the bottom of that car, to observe the fuel tank. Very bright lights shone on the bottom of the car as it crumpled against the barrier.

            The NHTSA specified that cars must hit the barrier at 29.5 mph plus or minus a half mile per hour. It is hard to keep your car that steady even with cruise control. NHTSA warned us in the contract, if the crash speed was outside that 1 mph band, we had to buy another car and do the test again – at our expense. Oh boy!

            When CAL handed the job me, the towing system was almost a joke. Technicians placed the test car at the far West end of the guide rail. The towing cable was a long chunk of 3/6-inch elevator cable. We had to be careful with it because if a crash slightly kinked or squashed the cable, we had to replace it. We secured a quick release clamp to the frame under the front of the car. The clamp held tightly to the cable until it hit a trigger two feet in front of the crash barrier. We also welded a pair of flanged wheels under the car. They gripped the head of the rail to ensure that the car stayed on the track until just before it reached the pit.

            The tow cable ran down the track into the hole in the barrier and farther out to the East end of VERF, where we had anchored a huge pulley. That grooved pulley was the size of a sewer manhole cover. It was flush with the ground. The cable went around the pulley and went back to the West. We secured the cable to the rear of a bright red modified Plymouth Road Runner with big dragster tires and a 426 Hemi engine. That car had a fifth wheel at the back.  We put a precision large-scale speedometer on the hood so the driver could attempt to hold his speed within a one mile range. I’m kidding – right? Nope.

            When we were ready, the tow car accelerated down the paved road that closely paralleled the crash track. It went to the other end of VERF. The poor driver would try to keep his speed close to 30 mph when he reached a traffic cone that marked the point where the test car should be at the barrier.

            Fortunately, CAL had a lot of work with the New York State Police gathering statistics of real world crashes in New York State. We were able to collect a large fleet of worn out police cars and a few abandoned cars, as well. The cop cars were whole and undamaged – just old and worn. They were good enough for our initial crash testing. After wasting several of those cars, we gave up on the Road Runner idea.

            I asked the mechanic crew to put the Runner on jack stands behind the barrier. They removed the rear axle and replaced it with a large truck axle, which was welded to the bottom of the Plymouth frame and body. A technician removed the cover of the differential and welded the differential gearing solid. Now all the torque would go only to the passenger side of the axle. He also removed the truck brake and wheel from the axle. He bolted a wide large-diameter grooved pulley at the end of the axle shaft. The drum was aligned behind the back of the cable-hole through the barrier. A small rubberized pulley attached to the barrier rode on top of the cable coming out from the hole. It turned a generator which connected electrically to a modified cruise control in the Plymouth.

            At the East end of the tow track, we had another giant grooved pulley, on a horizontal axis, equipped with a giant air-operated brake. We chained a ½ inch steel line to the rear of the test car frame. If the speed of the test car did not stabilize when it reached a “decision” mark on the track, we remotely operated the brake and saved the car for another run.

            When everything was secure for operation, we built a small building at the side half way along the length of the track. There we housed several high-speed tape recorders getting the electronic data from the test dummies. Then the electronic technicians developed computer controls to operate the tow system. In our shake down, we ran a bunch of old cars into the barrier at the correct 29.5 mph speed. Then we ran a few at 60 mph. That was spectacular. The car’s engine ended up in the back seat. I told my people that even the cockroach in the trunk would have died.

            To educate people how crashes were portrayed unrealistically in movies and on TV, I set my cassette voice recorder at the side of the track near the barrier and let it run during the count down, the run up, and the impact. Instead of the long drawn out screeching and banging you saw and heard in movies, the real crash was brief like a gun shot. The high energy part is over in less than a tenth of a second. Following that, you could hear the faint noise of glass raining down from the sky.

            By now, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was impressed with our system. That 500 horse power Hemi engine and our control and filming systems were setting high standards other contractors were encouraged to copy. Never satisfied, our sponsor asked if we could crash even bigger things like a pair of cars into each other, or a heavy truck or bus. Well, maybe not. Homes that grew up around the VERF limited the length of the track which limited the run up speed. To pull a 60,000 pound truck up to 60 mph in 530 feet did not seem possible.

            Soon, (another chapter) we had three 500 horsepower engines teamed together in the system we called TANTOS – the Tandem Towing System. Now our VITS – Vehicle Towing System – was ready to do it. Crashing trucks and buses (with dummies) became a big deal.

NEXT:  Big money from Washington NHTSA