Luxury vehicles have always led the automotive industry by showing the latest features that can bring some positive changes in the car and driving. Later these features become standard on the regular vehicles in a few subsequent years. This contribution makes a huge difference in the automotive world, especially in the safety sphere. Many modern safety features that we find in today’s cars actually got included first as optional features in the luxury vehicles and now have become essential in many, after watching them making wonders on road. That indeed makes the journey of automotive industry an interesting one. Here we will focus on the safety features that evolved from being luxury to the regular essential ones.
Airbags
At the Hyundai dealer Deltona, we learned that Airbags got first introduced in the 1970s by General Motors offering this feature in their vehicles. Later since the year 1998 frontal airbags became standard in all passenger vehicles, and in 1999 SUVs, vans and pickup trucks made it standard too. Today the latest vehicles come with a variety of airbags to ensure protection for everyone in the vehicle reducing the impact of a crash. Apart from the frontal airbags now they are even present in a car as curtain, door-mounted, seat-mounted, tubular and as a combo pack.
Traction Control
Traction control is a feature that you get in every modern car model today. But if we look behind, we don’t see traction control in use until the decade of 70s. Buick was the first to offer this feature in their MaxTrac , while it got optionally upgraded in several other luxury models in the models released in the year 1971. Today we don’t see many vehicles that are bereft of this feature, while some use more advanced versions of traction control with anti-slip, engine timing, anti-lock brakes, and throttle control features to make driving even more safe even in adverse driving conditions.
Safety Glass
Until 1927, the windows and windshields of vehicles were made with common glass that used to break into sharp shards in an event of a crash, causing serious injuries to the driver and front seat occupants of the vehicle. In 1928 carmakers got the idea of adding tempered and laminated glass to the windshield to luxury vehicles to make them safer. Today the latest vehicles only use these tempered or laminated glass as a standard feature.
Headrests
In the decade of 60s, a headrest to a seat used to be a luxury option and not a requirement. Later it was discovered that these headrests are capable of preventing the occupants from whiplash and other injuries during a crash. Finally after the year 1969 the headrests became standard on all current vehicles.
The Bottom Line
If that feels interesting, and you are now curious to know more about how the current safety features have come into existence, you can look back a few decades back or ask the experts of the Hyundai Deltona experts to know their event of origination especially in the luxury vehicles and see them walking up to the current status of becoming a standard safety feature in most vehicles.