Ye olde Volvo commercial. That’s quite a slide.

A brick lover has to be careful when searching YouTube with the term “Volvo 240″. It seems like half the videos involve groups of teenage boys hooning their car into the ground… or off the ground, flying through the air to the music of Rammstein.

The rollover at 5:35 is pretty bad ass. None of the glass broke. Keep watching to see in slo-mo.

We know Volvo loves to crash their vehicles to demonstrate safety features, but in a recent demo the crash was truly an accident. To show off their Collision Avoidance™ system with Full Auto Brake™ technology, Volvo launched an equipped S60 toward a stationary truck at 20 mph, in front of press and video cameras. Unfortunately, the system failed and the car plowed into the bumper, destroying the front end of the vehicle and the careers of the people in Volvo’s PR and engineering departments.

So deadpan; so awesome.

via: Drive, Wired, TechNerd

In the early 70′s Volvo created a fleet of 10 experimental cars to test various safety improvements. Although these cars weren’t put into production and were eventually destroyed, they had a number of innovations that found their way into the 240 model and that we take for granted today. These include crumple zones, air bags, anti-lock brakes, rear head-rests and rear window defrost.

Luckily Volvo engineers developed a better bumper configuration for their production vehicles, because that massive protuberance makes this car look like a snow shovel. Combine that with the round headlights and you’ve got the automotive equivalent of Mayor McCheese.

I love my headrest!

Via How We Drive.

In their Question of the Day “What Car Makes you Feel Safe?” Jalopnik shows the love for the 240:

For an almost 25-year-old wagon it’s quite nimble and we feel maneuverability is just as important as anything else because you’re best advantage in a possible crash is avoiding it.

This is the extended footage, which includes scary interior footage from the Bel Air.

A 1974 244 runs into a wall at 45 MPH and all the impact is absorbed by the front end, with the passenger compartment barely affected. Nice.

This ad has been posted and pulled from YouTube before, so we’ll see how long it lasts. 45 seconds of crash-porn, showing old bricks being thrown, crushed and rolled to test for safety. The twist is that this is supposed to show how BAD those cars were, because drivers needed to push the brake pedal themselves. With “City Safety” your car will stop for you. Meh.