Chevrolet Spark Becomes The First Small Car To Ace IIHS Small Overlap Crash Test

Nearly all of the smallest vehicles on U.S. roads failed to get passing marks on a tough new crash test from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the Virginia-based group that prods automakers into building safer vehicles through its crash tests, said just one minicar out of 11 tested received an acceptable rating in the small-overlap front crash test. That makes minicars the poorest-performing group of any evaluated so far.

General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet Spark received an acceptable overall rating in the small-overlap test, along with good ratings in the IIHS’s four other crashworthiness evaluations, to win a Top Safety Pick award.

MattDarringer - 1/22/2014 9:38:30 AM

0 Boost

The Spark is a pretty good car given its rush adaptation to the US market. The next Spark already running around in "final" prototype form will no doubt be that much better.

MrEE - 1/22/2014 7:00:06 PM

+1 Boost

Many small cars on the IIHS list with good and acceptable result, Spark is the only Minicar. Decent result but how is an acceptable overall rating in the small-overlap qualify as an "Ace"??? Good is the top rating, picture tells it all.
Another example of inaccurate/false headline.

MrEE - 1/22/2014 7:46:32 PM

+1 Boost

The bigger story is it is the only GM model on the 2014 Top Safety Pick list!!! Keep up the turn around GM.

t_bone - 1/22/2014 8:29:57 PM

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Scary photo but shows the engineering doing its work correctly.

Vorana - 1/23/2014 12:31:13 AM

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Isn't that little Spark a Korean concoction anyway with a Chevy badge..?