'course wieght is an other interesting topic- the 80;s
and 90's Imps are roughly the same amount of mass and
have about the same hp engines....
And I always hear people talk about the newer ones
being big slow tanks, lol.
But it is interesting that the RWD M-body is the same
wieght as a FWD eek-based model. Makes me wonder what
they stuck in the 90's model to make it weigh about as
much. I remeber Donovan's k-car had something like 300
or 400 lbs of stuff removed from the interior
alone.... the Imperial is larger and I would guess
it's interior pieces wieght thus even more....
--- Mark McDonald <tomswift@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Dear Dale,
>
> One of the advantages of unibody construction is it
> does not require
> heavy gauge steel, or as much steel, as body on
> frame construction. A
> unibody derives most of its strength from the way
> it's put together--
> two thinner, lighter pieces working together to do
> the work of one heavy
> piece. If you were to completely disassemble some
> unibodies you would
> be surprised how thin and flexible the panels are--
> it's only when
> they're welded together that they're strong.
>
> I worked in a H**** parts dept. for a summer and I
> was amazed at how
> easy it was to bend a door skin from one of these
> cars-- I could've bent
> it in half easily. Not so with an Imperial! But
> when you put it all
> together, it's very strong.
>
> Mark
>
> MNTwin1@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> > It was interesting to see the very definite
> difference in the gauge of
> > the sheet metal. The New Yorker, which is
> unibody, has a much thinner
> > gauge metal floor. The Imperial, body on frame
> construction, was
> > definitely thicker. No wonder these cars weigh as
> much as they do. I
> > would have thought the unibody car would have
> thicker gauge steel.
>
>
>
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