Small--On Safety: The Designed-In Dangers of the Volkswagen by Center for Auto SafetyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Ralph Nader is more well known for his book "Unsafe at any speed" which focus on the Chevrolet Corvair. What is probably less known is that he also targeted the Volkswagen's of the era. Some of the issues they found were the vehicles vulnerability to crosswind's, ejection during a rear-end collision, door latches that popped open easily in an accident and a poorly designed gas cap that could easily pop off. His harshest criticism was for VW Microbus which they thought should be taken off the roads completely citing it's almost complete lack "crush distance" the occupant has in a front end collision. This was even more vulnerable crosswinds due to it's light weight and slab sides.
A big issue I detected was not just that these vehicles had legitimate safety issues it was the slow response of the manufacturer in addressing and fixing these issues. Of course reading about automotive safety of the period most manufacturers were slow to fix items. Few even wanted to admit vehicles could be unsafe in any way often fearing it would hurt sales. In this light one could hardly point to Volkswagen as being the only automaker guilty of not addressing safety issues fast enough.
This was published in 1972 and I think by this time many of the issues were address by Volkswagen and didn't seem to hurt sales as I believe 72-73 were some of their biggest sales years. In any even Volkswagen was changing to more conventionally designed water cooled cars like the the Golf(aka: Rabbit in the USA) and by the end of the decade the Beetle was gone from the American market although it was still produced elsewhere up until 2003.
I became aware of this book after reading about other asking if these classic Volkswagen were safe for new drivers and is it okay for daily driving. As a VW enthusiast myself (I own a 74 Beetle) I was curious too. Even after reading this I still love the car. I would say this though I'd be hesitant to recommend these for brand new drivers or for daily driving. They are nowhere near as safe as today's vehicles with airbags and crumple zones engineered in. A stock air cooled VW is also very slow to keep up in today's congested streets. I've been a driver for over 3 decades and I'm hesitant to drive mine in heavy traffic. They also need a lot of hands on maintenance and they accelerate very slowly. To me these are classic collectables left to drive on weekend's unless you work five minutes down the street. This is just my two cents as I'm sure others may disagree.
I'd say this book would be an interest to Volkswagen enthusiasts just to be aware of the issues they had. I wouldn't stop driving one because of this book. These classic vehicles aren't driven as much as they used to.
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