FCA Safety Centre: 20 thousand crash tests and a long history

The milestone reached by the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Safety Centre is a very important one and speaks volumes on the commitment of FCA to customer safety: that of 20 thousand crash tests from 1961 to today.
First established at the Mirafiori Plant (the first test was on a Fiat 600), the Safety Centre was transferred in March 1977 to its present, more modern and spacious site in Orbassano, where testing resumed at number 756 on a Lancia Beta that same month 40 years ago and continues to this day.
In 40 years of activity in Orbassano, FCA has capitalised on the skills of technicians and the precision of the test methods of the Safety Centre to develop all models (from the small 126 and 127 of the 1970s to the recent Giulia) to achieve safety levels which were once unthinkable. The excellence of results is also confirmed by the numerous quality awards conferred by independent third-party organisations.
After having undergone full renovation in 2010, the Safety Centre crash test facility can today carry out any kind of crash test at speeds of up to 100 km per hour. The rapid increase of these tests over the past years proves the commitment of FCA to testing the correct behaviour of an ever greater number of safety devices and other features in accidents on vehicles before they hit the market.
The double milestone of 20 thousand crash tests and the 40 years of the Orbassano facility is being celebrated by the opening of a sophisticated, new crash simulator which can reproduce accelerations up to 60 times the force of gravity typical of those developed in a real crash without actually deforming the body. This new system is one of the most powerful and complete available on the market today and is fundamental for fine-tuning components such as occupant retention systems, airbags, seat belts dashboards and seats. It will be used to expand the type of crashes which can be simulated off-vehicle to speeds of up to 90 kilometres an hour and study the kinematics of occupants in case of side crashes with a very high level of accuracy.
In short, the FCA Safety Centre is particularly active in continuously seeking new technologies to improve models and the safety of vehicle occupants and other road users.

Turin, 24 February 2017