Yugo 1986 Commercial: How to make an Unsafe Car Look Safe

Here's a doozy of a quote from a Yugo commercial; "the Yugo did better than Sprint, Hyundai, Audi 5000 and even a Cadillac."

Let's dissect that. This commercial was from 1986. The '86 Yugo's crash test results:

Driver: 1,415 HIC, 59 Chest G's (60% severe injury risk)
Passenger: 1,318 HIC, 38 Chest G's (43% severe injury risk)

Remember, "passing" is less than 1,000 HIC AND less than 60 Chest G's. So both occupants failed. Also, the "severe injury risks" used were not calculated in official ratings until 1993 (when the 5-star rating system was introduced), so it's just used here to show it, not to prove or disprove who "did better") Nevertheless, what they are saying is technically true. You also have to remember that the HIC results were looked at more than the Chest G's at the time, as the HIC was what was giving car makers the most trouble.

Sprint: that would be the Chevy Sprint.

Driver: 1,787 HIC, 51 Chest G's (80% severe injury risk)
Passenger: 1,799 HIC, 39 Chest G's (80% severe injury risk)

Checks out, the HICs for both occupants are significantly higher on the Sprint than the Yugo.

Hyundai: the Hyundai Excel, also new for 1986 and the Yugo's biggest competitor:

Driver: 999 HIC, 73 Chest G's (49% severe injury risk)
Passenger: 2,662 HIC, 55 Chest G's (99% severe injury risk)

The Yugo had a barely passing Chest G rating for the driver and a failing HIC; the Hyundai seems to have flip-flopped these, so it would appear to be a wash (from a 1986 perspective). But check out the passenger! That HIC would have left them stone cold dead! (Hyundai fixed this on 1987 models)

Audi 5000: self explanatory. The then-current Audi 5000's results looked like this:

Driver: 2,105 HIC, 39 Chest G's (91% severe injury risk)
Passenger: 557 HIC, 31 Chest G's (7% severe injury risk)

For the driver, the Audi 5000 did do much worse than the Yugo.

A Cadillac: The Buick Electra's results, crash tested for the 1985 model year, also applied to the Cadillac DeVille.

Driver: 1,550 HIC, 50 Chest G's (65% severe injury risk)
Passenger: 662 HIC, 37 Chest G's (11% severe injury risk)

It's not by much, but the Cadillac did do slightly worse than the Yugo for the driver.