Top 10: Euro NCAP family car results
The European New Car Assessment Programme (or Euro NCAP for short) was launched in 1997 to independently test the safety and crashworthiness of new cars, initially awarding each car a maximum of five stars for adult occupant protection and four for pedestrian safety.
We’ve already taken a look at the results of ’90s superminis, so now’s the turn of that era’s family cars. These are the mid-range saloons and hatchbacks that pounded the motorways throughout the late ’90s and beyond, popular with family car buyers and company sales reps alike. So which ones were the safest according to Euro NCAP? Read on to find out…
By Paul Guinness, Contributor
On sale in the UK from 1994 and remaining a popular choice for the next six years was the original Laguna, another car featured here to have its three-star rating effectively downgraded via a ‘strike-through’. The car performed extremely well, but there were a few concerns: ‘The driver’s head protection would have been judged as good … but was down-rated because head contact on the airbag was unstable,’ said Euro NCAP. Renault made safety improvements to the Laguna from May 1997, which would almost certainly have created a higher rating.
See the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNEGe-QgT7s
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