Audi A3 Awarded Top Marks for Safety - Next Car Pty Ltd

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Audi A3 Awarded Top Marks for Safety

19th November, 2007

Audi A3 Sportback

The highly regarded Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in the USA has awarded the compact Audi A3 its highest rating of “Top Safety Pick”. This makes Audi the only German manufacturer to have three award winning models in its ranks as the Audi A4 and A6 have previously been honoured with this top safety rating.

The IIHS, on behalf of the US insurance industry, regularly carries out crash tests on passenger vehicles of all kinds to establish their safety standard. Experts and car buyers alike, both within and outside the USA, pay close attention to the results. The latest outstanding result for the Audi A3 is the outcome of a frontal, rear and side crash test which the A3, like the A4 and A6 before it, completed in the USA.

The side impact test is a particularly challenging part of the IIHS crash test series. In this test, vehicles are struck from the side by a moving barrier at a speed of 50 km/h. The barrier is shaped to resemble the front end of an SUV. Structural deformation as well as the kinematics and stresses to which passengers are subjected are then evaluated.

The IIHS also evaluates the risk of neck injuries in a rear impact. Audi models score top marks in this discipline as a result of the optimised design of the seat structure, seat components and the geometry and position of the head restraints. The existence of an electronic stabilisation programme (ESP) as standard has a positive effect on the rating and this feature is standard for all Audi vehicles.