SHOULD A 1970 BARRACUDA HAVE AIRBAGS INSTALLED?
Lawsuit against comedian-actor Hart the height of hubris, writes David Booth.
If the headlines surrounding our semi-simultaneous election cycles are anything to judge by, historical revisionism — the act by which our actions and/or words of the past are judged by today’s standards — has become an affliction from which there is no escape.
South of the border, Joe
Biden has been taken to task for his immigration policies as vice-president, even though the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — Obama’s so-called Dreamer program — were labelled as the most progressive of their era.
The same historical revisionism is about to loom large in the auto industry — in this case, judging cars built in the past by the safety standards of today.
According to numerous sources, Kevin Hart and SpeedKore, the company that hot-rodded his 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, are about to be sued by the passenger and erstwhile driver of the car because they failed to upgrade the ancient Plymouth with safety harnesses and airbags. If this crazy lawsuit is successful, the precedent would send a ripple through, if not the entire automotive industry, then certainly the large portion of it that is devoted to the restoration of old cars.
For those who don’t know the story, Kevin Hart bought a really silly car — said 1970 Barracuda which, according to Motor Trend, was powered by a monstrous mega-horsepower 6.2-litre supercharged V-8 from a modern Dodge Challenger Demon — built by SpeedKore, a reputable restoration shop specializing in resto-mods. Hart and friends go out for ride, then do a barrel roll off Mulholland Drive. Hart and friends are injured.
Hart wasn’t driving, which means the actual driver was probably not familiar with handling characteristics of a 1970s pony car with way too much motor.
For those of you who have never driven a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, imagine a very angry rodeo bull on roller skates. Whether handing over the steering wheel was smart or even actionable is certainly open to question, but what is truly scary, according to RightFootDown.com, is that Hart and SpeedKore are being sued by both the driver and passenger, Rebecca Broxterman, according to CarScoops.com, for failing to retrofit the car with safer harnessing and airbags.
It probably would have been possible to equip the ’Cuda with a five-point racing harness. Of course, that would have required the installation of a roll cage, making ingress/egress — not to mention buckling up — a little inconvenient. It would have also made carrying passengers in the rear seat impractical or at least unsafe.
The concept that SpeedKore should have installed airbags in a 50-year-old car is even more ludicrous. Besides the complete re-engineering of the steering column, the steering wheel and the vehicle’s electronics, all the sensors and computer controllers would have required an immense amount of calibration.
More important is what this could mean to future safety developments. Why would any automaker continue to develop advanced electronic safety devices knowing that in 10 or 20 years they could be sued for not having engineered the fully functional model way back in 2019? Could Chrysler and General Motors, for instance, be sued because they failed to produce anti-lock brakes before 1971? Could the safety gurus at Volvo be taken to court for not having developed the three-point seat belt before 1959? Could Ford be sued by an owner of a Model T for having failed to engineer independent suspension in 1908? As ludicrous as that may sound, it’s no more ludicrous that claiming a 1970 pony car should have an airbag.
What’s most interesting to me about all this historical revisionism, now that I’m talking politics again, is that its proponents are deluded enough to believe their pronouncements are so avant-garde, so forward thinking that they will not be dated when history revisits them in 20 or 30 years.
That, my friends, is the very height of hubris — and almost as stupid as trying to put an airbag in a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda. Almost.