[CasterTroy]

Originally Posted by goof2

One issue I have is the amount of rust that appears to come out of the Bel Air. In both videos, the shot from the Bel Air side, the car absolutely pukes what appears to be a cloud of dust from rust. I can only assume some of that cloud is comes from the frame.

Actually, the report stated the "cloud" was not in fact rust, but 40 yrs of road grime. I'll try to find where I saw that....but in the mean-time

September 18, 2009, 11:21 am
More Details About 1959 Bel Air Crash Test
By Christopher Jensen
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released on Thursday a video of a crash test between a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air and a 2009 Malibu to demonstrate how car safety has improved. Not to simplify matters too much, but the Malibu won. And several Wheels readers speculated in comments that the car didn’t contain an engine, which would have affected the test.

Armed with these conspiracy theories, I returned to David Zuby, the senior vice president at the institute’s crash-test center in Virginia. He explained that when the institute went looking for a 1959 Bel Air to crash-test there was one thing the organization didn’t want and some things it did.

“We didn’t want to crash a museum piece,” Mr. Zuby said. “We were not looking for one that had been restored for museum or show quality.” But the vehicle had to have a solid structure, although a little surface rust would be acceptable.

They found what they wanted in Indiana. “The frame was sound and all the body panels were sound,” he said. It had a 3.9-liter 6-cylinder engine and was in driving condition.

The car was bought for about $8,500 and had about 74,000 miles on the odometer, which was broken. It was trucked to the test center in Virginia.

Mr. Zuby said the cloud that shows in the crash video wasn’t rust. “Most of that is road dirt that accumulates in nooks and crannies that you can’t get it,” he said.