1972 Oldsmobile Promo – New Bumpers

On April 9th, 1971 NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) issued its first passenger car bumper standard, becoming effective on September 1, 1972. This standard called for passenger cars, beginning with model year (MY) 1973, to withstand 5 mph front and 2 mph rear impacts against a perpendicular barrier without damage to certain safety-related components such as headlamps and fuel systems (the latter you would have hoped the manufacturers would have tried to avoid anyway!). In this video, you see Oldsmobiles unique approach to this mandate, with its “spring steel support bumper”, utilizing not only leaf like spring device, but coupled with a heavier bumper than the previous model year. In one of the slow motion shots, it almost looks as though the bumper springs UP more than in. The most recent revisions to the bumper standard took place in May 14, 1982, effective for model year 1983. This amendment reduced test impact speeds from 5 mph to 2.5 mph for longitudinal front and rear barrier and pendulum impacts and from 3 mph to 1.5 mph for corner pendulum impacts.