Toyota dealer displays car hit by truck in showroom to prove its safety

Dealers and brands tend to steer clear from crashed cars as such vehicles are said to negatively impact the image of the brand.  However, a Toyota dealer in Surprise, Arizona, has a completely different take on this. Toyota of Surprise, Phoenix -Arizona,  is displaying a mangled Camry sedan, in order to showcase the car’s excellent safety levels and crash worthiness. In fact, the Toyota dealership has placed the crashed Camry as a centre exhibit, and is directing  prospective customers towards the crashed car in order to highlight how well the vehicle took the massive impact, and  managed to keep the passenger cabin intact.

What happened here?

Here’s an account of what happened to the car from a Toyota of Surprise, Arizona, dealership staff member,

Let’s hear it for the Toyota Camry. This is a 2018 Toyota Camry LE. This vehicle was an innocent victim on I-10 in  Phoenix during morning rush hour. Ramon Suarez, one of our Toyota of Surprise Team Members, was heading to Sky Harbor Airport to pick up a customer flying in from California. In route, Ramon was slammed in the back by a semi-trailer, which pushed him into another big truck in front of him. The picture demonstrates the force with which the Camry was hit. Here’s the great news: Ramon walked out of the vehicle because the Toyota did everything it was supposed to do. The entire passenger cabin is intact, and all four doors still work properly. So impressive! If you ever wonder which are the safe vehicles out there, here’s an easy answer. Thanks for taking a look.

Modern day cars are built to absorb impacts from crashes, both from the front and rear. Crumple zones engineered into the cars’ structures allow them to absorb impacts, isolating the passenger cabin. This helps the occupants of the car walk away from high impact crashes. This is also a reason why modern day cars look heavily damaged after a crash while passenger cabins remain intact.

In case of this Toyota Camry, the latest generation of the sedan is built on the Toyota New Generation Architecture (TNGA) platform. The same car, in hybrid form, is sold in India as well. An executive sedan is priced at Rs. 37.46 lakhs, and is positioned as a comfortable, large car meant for those who want a chauffeur-driven, super reliable car. The car is a hybrid, and uses both a petrol engine and an electric motor. Combined outputs are rated at 202 Bhp-213 Nm. A CVT automatic gearbox is standard. The car gets nine airbags, ABS, ESP, traction control and hill-hold assist as standard fare. It’s assembled in India through the CKD (completely knocked down) kit route.

Via Toyota of Surprise