[Big Dave]

If you have to ask, you don’t know safety regs.

It’s not so much the air bags, belt tensioners, etc – it the side door beams and the body structure to support them. The door has to be of minimal thickness, so the beam has to be of shallow section. It is asked to do its job “the hard way” so the only response is to make them of thick metal and fairly large. Add to that heavy structure to support it in the “A” and “B” pillar areas, and you rapidly get 400 pounds a door of extra weight.

An old mid-60s Chevy II Nova weighs in at about 2300 pounds with a six, but is by today’s standards a 24-karat deathtrap. Volvos have a well deserved safety reputation, but are very heavy for their size and predictably suck gas.

The feds and the courts demand safe cars and that means heavy cars. Add in the deleterious effects of Tier II engine regs and there’s little wonder where the MPG went.

You wanna legislate technology to get better MPG? Outlaw the automatic transmission. Safety would be improved as well. You’d have to be an octopus to jabber on the cell phone and shift gears.

I'm glad I'm not conceited enough to think I know more about the car biz than Bob Lutz.