Quote:
Originally Posted by unknownroad
That poor, poor car! 
Keep in mind that despite being 7" wider and more than 17" shorter, the Malibu only weighs 200lb less than the Bel Air. So even aside from design considerations, it's substantially denser than the '59. |
And has side-impact beams, and probably stouter pillars, firewalls and shock towers. 50 years ago they didn't use CAD to design the sheetmetal for optimal rigidity. Pretty common sense.