Nürburgring 1970 – The Case for Seat Belts

Or the case against taking your VW Bug out on the track.

Or living in the early 1970s.

Video from the Adenauer Forst chicane at Nürburgring.

Direct link.

I think the VW that rolls at around 6:55 literally spills cans of beer.

Things to think about when driving classic cars in games like Need for Speed: World.

7 thoughts on “Nürburgring 1970 – The Case for Seat Belts”

  1. Azuriel

    I had a look of abject horror when I saw that convertible with the four people in it at 2:27. After the girl who nearly got smeared at 0:32, I thought I was about to see a quadruple decapitation.

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  3. Aufero

    Wasn’t the Ford Pinto version that had a tendency to burst into flames after rear end collisions an early ’70s phenomenon as well? Need for Speed always reminds me of the documentary they showed us about that when I took driver’s ed in 1977.

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  4. SynCaine

    Something rather primal about that video. Just human crash test dummies driving around, without a care in the world (love how people just open the door and walk out like it was no big deal they flipped three or four times).

    So did they just let anyone race around the track? Is that how all of this happened?

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  6. Wilhelm Arcturus Post author

    @SynCaine – Earl, our resident car racing expert, says that for $27 (price may have gone up, and is, of course, in Euros) you can take your car out on the Ring when they are not running events.

    I don’t know if this was just a particularly popular amateur weekend or if this was some sort of population culling event.

    @Aufero – Potshot used to have to drive just such a Pinto. Less well known from the era were Chevy pickup trucks that had the gas tank placed outside the frame and just inside the sidewall of the trucks, so getting t-boned in an intersection frequently ended in a fiery result.

    Once things stopped exploding in the 80s, we became more focused on Jeeps and Suzuki Samurais rolling over.

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