I wasn't talking about how safe the 2CV was but rather the fact that someone mentioned the engineers at Citroen had their way with the 2CV as far as it's mechanical design without management getting involved.
Where as the engineers at Ford wanted to create a small car with some added safety features and correct any design flaws before it went into production but Ford management wouldn't go for it because it added cost to the vehicle. They wanted to get this car into production ASAP because of the oil embargo which caused the demand for American V8s to go to nothing in the early 70s.
I don't know how true this is but I heard some idiot in management at Ford made the comment that it was far much cheaper to pay off the family of people killed in their cars due to their faulty designs, than it was to recall millions of cars to correct known safety defects. As with the case of the Ford Pinto.
In case nobody is familiar with this car's issues, the problem was the fuel tank was at the very end of the car. The top of the fuel tank also served as the floor of the boot. So sometimes when the car was hit in the rear, the tank would be damaged and cause a fire or explosion.
Here is an exaggeration from an old movie called Top Secret:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKQ-U-rnLdoJust goes to show how much big business really cares about what they sell to their consumers when it comes to making money for their shareholders.
Ford rushed to get the Pinto into production during the OPEC oil embargo. They did use the German built 2.3 liter engine to power it so they were good to go on engines.
GM answer's was the Vega.
Chrysler's answer was the Cricket which was a re-badged Hillman Avenger. The Hillman was later replaced with re-badged Mitsubishis.
