The original WWII Willys Jeep was as simple as it gets, no airbags, no seatbelts, no electronics just steel and guts.
It was a light and tough 4x4, easy to work on and you could fix almost anything with basic tools. You could tear the whole Jeep down in less than 5 minutes.
If someone tried to build one today, same size, same style, could it actually pass modern safety and emissions standards?
Or would the rules make a true “modern Willys” impossible?
Curious what engineers, mechanics, and everyone else thinks. It would save people so much money.
Ok so you add airbags, make it road worthy with today’s standards and still make it be able to tear down in 5 minutes. You make it electric to compete with China’s shitty electric vehicles. You make it cheap and easy to fix, no mechanics. Open source vehicle. Universal parts. Frame rusts out, order a new one and just replace it yourself in a day or two.
There’s a lot more engineering going on with safety standards than that. It’s not just slapping on seatbelts and airbags.
Getting impaled on the steering column used to be common in a crash. How the vehicle crushes around you, and not into you, is a big deal. There’s no way the old Jeep could even come close to modern safety standards.
Basically, having everyone drive around in a metal box at 60mph or more is inherently unsafe. Everything we do to try to make them safe also makes them heavy and expensive. Even then, it’s mostly focused on safety of the passengers, not people walking or biking outside the car. There are some exceptions, but pedestrians have particularly been ignored with the trend of oversized trucks. The project here would basically be speedrunning the last 80 years of car safety development, and you’d come to more or less the same result.
There’s some arguments out there that if we have cars at all, they should be limited to 20mph outside of highways. The chance of a pedestrian being killed in a collision goes up exponentially with the speed of the vehicle, and that factor really starts to take off after 20mph.
If that’s what would happen, then things other than a car start to look like a more viable option.
I think height and especially weight limits for non-commercial vehicles would also go a long way towards making roads safer too.
It would end the arms race of bigger and bigger SUVs to “keep my family safe”.
Would it though? The reason there’s an SUV/Truck arms race is mostly related to a tariff bypass for “light duty” vehicles. Basically, it’s cheaper and more profitable to convince Americans to love SUVs and Trucks because of some fucking chicken tax 80 years ago.
What makes you say Chinas EVs are shitty? Have you seen any of the specs? Have you heard about any tests? Have you read the recent reports from Western sources about quality?
And if you want to stick with state-side motors, you are likely looking for the Slate EV.
So modernize the vehicle? Sounds like a hobbyists project
Sounds like a dream. But on the unattainable side.