131mirafiori forum

With all the focus and publicity on the crash protection offered by modern cars, I've often wondered how well the 131 bodyshell would stand up to a serious impact. Here are some pictures form the Spanish Seat 131 enthusiast site showing a serious frontal impact to a Seat 131 Diplomatic. I'd like to know what he hit and that it was more substantial than a traffic cone. In fact if you consider the damage to the engine area, the passenger cell looks remarkably well preserved.

(http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l250/kev131/060520093081.jpg)

(http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l250/kev131/060520093083.jpg)

(http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l250/kev131/060520093084.jpg)

(http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l250/kev131/060520093085.jpg)

(http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l250/kev131/070520093089.jpg)

(http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l250/kev131/070520093091.jpg)

(http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l250/kev131/070520093092.jpg)

(http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l250/kev131/070520093099.jpg)

(http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l250/kev131/070520093101.jpg)

Looked like a nice car pre-accident >:(

Certainly hit hard judging by the way it has buckled the roof....

Bet it would be a good breaker though!

I can just see you now Dave ...washing the blood out of the carpets and seat coverings....!  :D :D ;D

If it is a diplomatic version there is a high chance of it having factory upgrades to the structure as my Thema turbo has a lot of the armoured car structure fitted from the factory as it is all listed on the original build specs of the car....

by the looks of the engine i think they would want to change the timming belt before the start it  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

As far as I know, there is no difference between 2000tc 131's and diplomatic ones, they are all 2000tc twin cam 113bhp cars. So, if there is no structural improvement in racings, I can't find why should diplomatics have too. Diplomatic version was sold as an unique option for having an high end seat when seat 132 was discontinued in 1982. So it was a "patch" to cover a sudden fault in seat's production range and not a "new" car. Same way seat built a 2000tc version of ronda whith 120 bhp that showed weakness in many points, especially wishbones attacks, and not in the same way fiat built abarth ritmos with factory chassis reinforcements. It's a mere question of money, seat was poor and in 1982 it was being sold to Volkswagen.

Wowzers :o....looks like he went under the back of a lorry.

I don't know about the structural differences between the various 131s but I know that Fiat put a lot of design into crumple zone areas on their models long before NCAP existed.

Here is an article I was sent on the safety deformation characteristics of the 128, I would imagine that the 131 was designed to crumple away from the passenger compartment in a similar manner...

...

That's outstanding Gra! It's great to see that yet again FIAT were at the forefront of car safety long before it became law.  8)

i've read somewhere that 132 was the first fiat's model to have been crash tested and designed with crumple zones and reinforced cocpit.

my friends father died in a 131cl some 15 yrs ago when argenta plowed into him head on a b road. guy who was driving argenta walked away with no serious injury.
a lot depends on angle and hight of impact.
something like 10 yrs ago a golf mk2 rear ended my 132 going abouth 70 km/h (50mp/h) at moment of impact.. i had my car repaired after 4 days with no serious structural damage and golf was written off, engine block cracked, coolant and oil all over the road. my neck was sore for couple weeks, although headrest was properly adjusted. i don't even want to imagine what would happen if it wasn't there.
4 years ago a fiat punto mk2 ran through a red light and hit my lada into passanger side door at something like 80km/h withouth braking. the door ended up where passanger seat used to be, and seat was smashed into oblivion. both cars were written off, although one might expect that lada, which is bigger car would survive such impact. fortunately i was alone in my car. if i had a passanger there would have been very serious injury. i walked away with some bruises only. fortunately seat belt did it's job

Let's see them! Do you have any photos?

This is a 131 volumetrico from an italian forum, it crashed at 120Km/h turning six times around himself until it stopped (http://www.cinquino.net/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5390&whichpage=4#277415); maybe your experience crashing in a 131 was something like that?

fiat did it well as you can see from this (maybe already known) paper:

see the 131 B video its impossible


http://www.timsah.com/Inanilmaz-araba-tofas-Yurusun-yeter/ndTdra9fAwX