That’s actually how I went back in time and killed my dad. Modern cars rule.
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There’s a vivid image from the trailer of a skull wrapped in cloth falling from some great height and shattering on a floor. I remember thinking that it was surely intended to evoke some clever symbolism about the cost of human lives during warfare (particularly as the cloth resembled a turban) – but no, it turns out they were conducting safety experiments in which they were actually dropping skulls.
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Jinxies! Also, his reconciliation that his work in Vietnam was horrifying is one of the main reasons I recommend The Fog of War, there’s a real understanding from him that he fucked up just looking at the numbers and not the reality.
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Seen it…sad and creepy. I’m sure Rumsfeld is lining up for his film, so he can blather about unknown unknowns and how if only the Iraqis had just said something about not wanting to be blown up…
Rumsfeld is a lot more cagey in his version. McNamara accepted he’d fucked up. That he acknowledged on day one of filming that he would be a war criminal in any other time and place. Morris wanted to get more out of Rumsfeld and he was being his usual asshole self. I think Morris and I are both unsatisfied with him as a documentary subject.
If you seriously intend to spray down the undercarriage and engine compartment of a vehicle with WD40, I hope you plan to follow that by repacking bearings, greasing the bejesus out of anything that moves, etc.
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I would think that a car that old would be compromised by rust.
Another point is that seat belts never reduced the total road deaths. If you doubt this look at the road fatalities (try UK) and see if you can predict when seat belts were made mandatory. It’s all down to Risk compensation.
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Not drowning it in WD40, lol! Would take a lot more than a spray-down to compromise greased fittings. 
Been doing it for 20+ years with nary a problem. An occasional spray-over with WD40 is common practice for many folks that use their vehicles in harsh conditions.
pretty much.
I guess it was the “few gallons in a sprayer” that led me to picture a pretty thorough dousing, but I suppose removing the gritty bits would be important. My aversion to WD40 comes from seeing quite a few vehicles, bicycles, and other machinery that folks sprayed with WD40. Usually what they were trying to “fix” ended up worse than if they had done nothing.
As a relatively mild solvent to clean dirt and debris off parts, that kind of makes sense. Live and learn.
I do doubt this claim. I doubt it very much. Automotive death rates have been dropping steadily for generations, just as one would expect with the gradual introduction of new safety features (including seat belts).
You can’t look at a chart tracking per-capita automotive deaths and draw a line at a single point where seat belts should have dramatically lowered the death rate because there wasn’t a single point in time when everyone started using them.
Just a few variables to consider:
- When did seat belts first become an option on new cars?
- When did they become the norm for all new cars?
- When did they become legally mandated for all new cars?
- At what point in time did the new seatbelt-equipped cars make up a majority of cars on the road?
- When did wearing a seatbelt become the cultural norm?
- When did three-point seatbelt harnesses become available?
- When did three-point harnesses become legally mandated on new cars?
- When did seatbelt use become legally compulsory?
(Note: seatbelt use is STILL not legally required for adults in all U.S. states, and is generally not required in any vehicle built before seat belts were mandated for all new cars.)
So it’s not like we went from “nobody wears seat belts” to “everybody wears a modern three-point seat belt” overnight. The shift took decades and it’s still not universal.
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Not to disregard modern safety advances, which are miraculous, but the Bel Air they picked had the X frame design. The X frame was considered weak even then. Especially in a offset frontal crash. They picked the worst possible classic car to do this, trying to prove a point. A 65 Cadillac with a full frame made out of the equivalent of train tracks would have fared differently. I drive a truck with ABS, airbags all around, crush zones and all the others, but this video was rigged.
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Hrm, yes, suppose I could have phrased it better. I have a 3-gal sprayer that I just keep around for such, but I certainly don’t use it all at one go! Dunno - maybe a quart total for the whole job? I just spray enough to get all the surfaces wet. A few spots might get several passes just because I’m trying to get into nooks and crannies nearby. Never paid attention to how much actually gets used though.
Especially bicycles with caliper (non)brakes - whee!
For desert purposes the key is really neutralizing the alkalinity of whatever dust the carwash didn’t get off.
Extra bonus tip for those reading this far - keep your bikes on the bike-rack when going through the carwash. Then flip them around for a second pass. Wipe 'em down after and if you use dry (wax-based) lube all the time then a re-lube is all you really need to do. (And hey, everybody loves a relube, amirite? 
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Only a bit, if you consider that Nader’s egotistical Presidential run in 2000 put GWB, Cheney & Rummy in the White House to start their endless wars and bankrupt the nation.
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Oh, I get it now.
I thought you meant you had the '58 Chevy on the trailer and you were towing it with something else.
I was going to reply to @david1 with basically that question, but your response was much more thorough 
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So McNamera’s baby, the 1960 Ford Falcon, is much, much safer than this car, right? (You gotta say yes. I was literally just driving one of your nephews around town in one yesterday.)
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Remember when we had to raid the junkyard to find some seatbelts to install in that thing?
Yeah, I’m considering upgrading those…
Why on earth would you tow a car on a trailer? It’s a car! It drives!
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