by Bill Gray
The 2008 Mustang convertible helps keep you
safe on the road. Read more at Fordvehicles.com.
The Mustang convertible swept the top five-star rating for minimizing injury risks for (1) the driver and (2) passenger in frontal crash tests, (3) the driver and (4) rear-seat passenger in side crash tests, and (5) all occupants in potential rollover situations.
It also became only the seventh vehicle of hundreds tested to bat five-for-five since the federal agency added the rollover category to its tests in 2001. Six of those seven vehicles are Ford Motor Company products.
"It will be a major consideration for potential customers," says Jim Vondale, director of Ford's Automotive Safety Office. "Safety is a top-three purchase priority, especially for women. This accomplishment will reassure parents of teen drivers who clamor for a Mustang convertible."
"It punctuates that Ford Motor Company is a leader in safety, and it helps validate our Way Forward plan," adds Stephen Kozak, Safety Engineering Chief.
Vondale credits the 2008 Mustang convertible's perfect score to the addition of standard side air bags designed to help protect the head and chest in a side-impact crash, along with the previously introduced dual-stage driver and front passenger air bags, safety belt pretensioners and seat-weight sensing system for the passenger seat and crash severity sensing.
The Mustang convertible features a crash-optimized structure: If a collision is unavoidable, the 2008 Mustang convertible helps protect its occupants with a structure designed to absorb and dissipate crash energy and maintain occupant compartment integrity. Advanced restraints provide additional occupant protection, which includes passenger occupant classification as part of more than a dozen elements that make up the Personal Safety System -- a suite of restraint technologies designed to tailor their response to the severity of the crash and other factors.
A vehicle occupant's best line of defense in crashes is still the safety belt, says Vondale. Ford's industry-leading technology, Beltminder, reminds the driver and front-seat passenger to buckle up. The technology has been installed in more than 20 million vehicles. Both NHTSA and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) have noted the effectiveness of Beltminder as a significant life-saving technology.
The Mustang coupe also did well in the NHTSA tests, receiving a five-star rating for frontal crash, a five-star/four-star rating for side crash, and a five-star rating for rollover resistance.
