Chevy & GMC Vans

On the old board someone posted a link to an article where a study of traffic fatalities was done based on the vehicles involved. The Astro / Safari vans had the lowest fatality rate of ANY vehicle. Period. You might not end up in one piece, but you'll likely live to tell about it.

I'm sure I could find the article if I put some effort into it...

Quick question, didn't they dramatically change the Astro in like 99 to help it hold up better in these type of situations?

The gold van folding up in the initial post is a 1999 model year if I'm not mistaken.

The Astro has a full frame. You can see where the frame came in handy in some of the pictures. I don't know if what our van did was typical, but that's what it did for us. Everything folded up around us. Look at my steering wheel and the instrument panel. Everything worked. Look at the guy who hit me... I knocked his cab sideways (admittedly he hit a tree after hitting me, but I don't think the tree destroyed his cab).

http://nastyz28.com/astro/van18.jpg

The kid driving the truck survived too. Apparently he bailed out just after it hit the tree. By the time I got myself out of the van (less than a minute) to begin doing what I needed to do and glanced over at his truck, he was completely on fire. I glanced over at him and said "he's dead". Then I looked in at my wife and said "and I think she is too".

Hey Mike, looks like you beat me back here. Thanks for posting the link. These vans are very safe, even though they are not a full framed vehicle....the frames are actually almost identical to the later 2nd gen camaros, I ordered some parts for my old van that were same stock numbers as my 79 camaro I had.
Glad you all are getting back to normal life, I remember how we watched you all go through this on nastyZ day by day.

Also very glad your family survived this crash.

Forget that!! If it's a head-on I'll be kissing my a$$ goodbye!!!

Christine,,,any possibility we could watch this,,you know, just to make sure you actually were able to accomplish this.

It seems to me that the van folds right under where the frame ends and the unibody starts. Wonder if there's any way these vans could've been put on a full frame...

chemist wrote:It seems to me that the van folds right under where the frame ends and the unibody starts. Wonder if there's any way these vans could've been put on a full frame...

Well not so much a full frame,but moreover frame ties reinforced with a x'ed rollbar or cage.If it was only frame ties the energy involved in a front end crash might want to shift the body left or right.The thing to consider is that energy being adsorbed by the components taking the shock and or transferring it back.These vans had a record of damaging the foot area and injury to feet/legs.

3 years age i rolled my first astro , it was a 94 and we all walked away unharmed. it was a combo of muddy road and going to fast.
ya want to know the funny part , a year later on my second astro the tranny went and i called a junk yard and they had a tranny from a 94 astro well you guessed it , it was from my first astro and the van is still at that yard .