Ferrari F430 Sales May Be Banned in U.S. for Airbag Issues(UPDATE -exempted now)
05-23-06 | 11:53 AM
#18
G35x - RWD/AWD goodness
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 2,950
Likes: 1
From: Michigan
Ferrari F430 Avoids NHTSA Ban
WASHINGTON — Dodging a possible ban on sales of cars built after September 1, Ferrari was granted a waiver from the federal safety agency from the advanced airbag requirements.
Facing a potential ban on sales of its bread-and-butter F430 Modena model, Ferrari successfully petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for an exemption on a crash safety requirement meant to protect children and small women from injury by airbag deployment in a crash.
The company demonstrated that few such small women and virtually no children ride in its cars and that it would be impractical to upgrade the cars to meet the more stringent requirement. Further, as a small company whose sales are half the government's 10,000-unit threshold for consideration of economic hardship, the company's profits would suffer a $53 million dent from a ban on sales of the cars.
The car not only provides a wide variety of advanced active and passive safety equipment such as stability control and seatbelt pre-tensioners, but the shortcoming in the airbag test only applies to those small occupants when they are out of the normal seating position.
"We think that Ferrari made a very compelling argument for a two-year exemption," said NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson. "We evaluated [Ferrari's petition] and we think it will have minimal if any effect on safety," he said. "It is really for a very narrow portion of the advanced airbag test."
NHTSA's research couldn't find any examples of such occupants being injured in crashes of F430s or 360s, and the company will install a manual cutoff switch for the passenger's side airbag and offer customers a child safety seat that will automatically deactivate the airbag when it is installed.
The exemption applies to model-year 2007 and 2008 cars, after which the F430 will be replaced by a compliant-successor model.
What this means to you: You still can't afford an F430, and even if you could, production is pretty much sold out for the rest of the model run, so in any case, you probably still can't have one. Put simply, the ruling is sort of like the guy in The Terminator who comes back in time to prevent the cyborg from killing the future rebel leader's mother. Or not.
Source: http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...ticleId=115461
Facing a potential ban on sales of its bread-and-butter F430 Modena model, Ferrari successfully petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for an exemption on a crash safety requirement meant to protect children and small women from injury by airbag deployment in a crash.
The company demonstrated that few such small women and virtually no children ride in its cars and that it would be impractical to upgrade the cars to meet the more stringent requirement. Further, as a small company whose sales are half the government's 10,000-unit threshold for consideration of economic hardship, the company's profits would suffer a $53 million dent from a ban on sales of the cars.
The car not only provides a wide variety of advanced active and passive safety equipment such as stability control and seatbelt pre-tensioners, but the shortcoming in the airbag test only applies to those small occupants when they are out of the normal seating position.
"We think that Ferrari made a very compelling argument for a two-year exemption," said NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson. "We evaluated [Ferrari's petition] and we think it will have minimal if any effect on safety," he said. "It is really for a very narrow portion of the advanced airbag test."
NHTSA's research couldn't find any examples of such occupants being injured in crashes of F430s or 360s, and the company will install a manual cutoff switch for the passenger's side airbag and offer customers a child safety seat that will automatically deactivate the airbag when it is installed.
The exemption applies to model-year 2007 and 2008 cars, after which the F430 will be replaced by a compliant-successor model.
What this means to you: You still can't afford an F430, and even if you could, production is pretty much sold out for the rest of the model run, so in any case, you probably still can't have one. Put simply, the ruling is sort of like the guy in The Terminator who comes back in time to prevent the cyborg from killing the future rebel leader's mother. Or not.
Source: http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...ticleId=115461
05-23-06 | 12:05 PM
#19
Lexus Fanatic
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 5,813
Likes: 1
From: The Bay Area, CA, USA
Originally Posted by Overclocker
Put simply, the ruling is sort of like the guy in The Terminator who comes back in time to prevent the cyborg from killing the future rebel leader's mother. Or not.
05-23-06 | 01:09 PM
#21
Originally Posted by newr
That is a bunch of bull... 
Instead of banning the car, I vote for banning small women and children... from being in the car that is.. 
Instead of banning the car, I vote for banning small women and children... from being in the car that is..
05-23-06 | 04:37 PM
#23
Lexus Champion
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 2,175
Likes: 0
From: Connecticut
Originally Posted by 4TehNguyen
or have the women upgrade their frontal airbags
M.
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