I had a serious head-on crash with a road-side barrier in April of 2014 in my 991.1 C2S. A guy texting in a pickup drifted into my right rear tail while it was raining hard. The car snapped left and I hit the concrete barrier at 70 mph head-on. The car bounced off the barrier and went backwards across three lanes and hit the other side of the road concrete barrier in the rear of the car. I then spun about 3 times coming to a stop. I had smoke in the cabin from the steering wheel airbag going off. Couldn't see anything. My rist had 3rd degree burns on them from the steering wheel. When I hit the second barrier my head snapped down and I bit my two front teeth entirely through my tongue. My shoulder required surgery due to the sit bet tensioner compressing my AC joint on my left shoulder. I have been driving 911s since 1984; I have always been concerned about a frontal collision. Not anymore. The car was totaled but it certainly didn't look that bad. The car had 12K miles on it. It was my DD to work. The airbag knocked the hell out of my face because I was only about 10 inches from it when it went off because I attempted to ensure that my arms were not locked up for the impact so I leaned forward forgetting about the airbag. Oh well I now have a 14
C4S. I was thoroughly impressed at how this Porsche survived the head-on impact and rear impact.
The guy that hit me went to jail. Attempted to leave the seen of the accident but fortunately a State Trooper "unmarked" was two cars back. This was the second time the guy had caused an accident due to texting while driving. The car is rock solid for most crashes as long as you don't turn upside down I believe.
Cheers,

 

Thanks for that story. Do you buy chance have any pictures you can post? I am glad you came out ok. The text drivers are horrible now days. All over the damn road. I saw a young girl go off the road at about 60 mph and almost lost it. Head down on the phone. Driving a motorcycle and trying to be safe is real scary. I don't have one anymore!

 

So glad to hear you are okay after this accident! After reading your story, and having a conversation with a lead Porsche tech about how the 991s are built and how they do in a crash, I feel much better now when I drive my 991. Attached are some pictures of a 991 showing different materials used (e.g., aluminum, metal) in their construction. Unfortunately, I don't have the color codes. I think we can at least tell that everything in blue (doors and frunk) is aluminum and green is metal.

The take away from this is from my conversation with the Porsche tech, he said A LOT went into the design of a 991 to keep the occupants as safe as possible. After all, it's German engineering!

The person who shared these pictures with me asked me to keep the source confidential, so I cannot divulge the source. However, I can say that these pictures were taken at a Porsche training center. Hope some of you find these pictures interesting!

 

These are amazing pictures. I have never seen anything like this before. Very Cool! I think you are right as to blue for aluminum.

On my 991 window sticker, under safety, it says high strength boron & steel safety structure. I am sure that composes the safety cell. So I assume that is the red parts. I may be wrong, but kinda makes sense. I am sure the different color metals crumple differently up to the safety cell.

 

I'm sure some can find this - in the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart they have a 991 cut-out with a summary color coding of the various metals and alloys used throughout the body.

 

Attachment 1011848=+1

 

Found this:

 

There you go. Thanks

 

What I find amazing, as a mechanical engineer, is how they bond these dissimilar metals into a single structural body. Many of these metals don't play nicely together yet those engineers worked this out over time - very cool.

 

Jay - What I found out from speaking with a Porsche tech is that instead of welding, Porsche uses an EXTREMELY strong glue formula to "glue" many parts together. This helps to increase rigidity and reduces flex.

 

So this would be serious super glue

 

Instead of imagining a head-on collision with a 6,000LB SUV and a 3,000LB Porsche, picture two head-on collisions, one of two SUVs hitting each other and one of two Porsches hitting each other. Even if the crashes occur at the same closing speed (which is unlikely with the lower momentum and better breaks of the Porsches), the higher-grade chassises and lower total mass involved will make the Porsche collision far far safer than the SUVs.

Heavy SUVs are far more likely to kill or maim people in other cars and spare their occupants in an accident, but that doesn't make them "safer", it makes them a menace to everyone else on the road.

 

When I was checking out LSA airplanes. One maker did that as well. Bonded than riveted the skin down to the airframe. Making less chance of oil canning and making a stronger more responsive air frame.