1997 Cadillac Catera

midsize luxury car / 4-door sedan

Crashworthiness

Rating overview
Moderate overlap front: original test

Other available safety features

  • Standard daytime running lights

Key

  • G
    Good
  • A
    Acceptable
  • M
    Marginal
  • P
    Poor
  • Superior
  • Advanced
  • Basic

Some ratings use a scale of Poor to Good. Others range from Basic to Superior.

Moderate overlap front: original test

Rating applies to 1997-2001 models

Tested vehicle: 1999 Cadillac Catera 4-door

The Cadillac Catera was introduced in the 1997 model year.

Overall evaluation
Structure and safety cage
Driver injury measures
Head/neck
Chest
Leg/foot, left
Leg/foot, right
Driver restraints and dummy kinematics
Dummy movement was reasonably well controlled. The dummy's head bottomed out the airbag and hit the steering wheel.

Action shot taken during the frontal offset crash test.

The dummy's position in relation to the steering wheel and instrument panel after the crash test indicates that the driver's survival space was maintained reasonably well.

Dummies' knees and/or shins routinely hit and often damage the areas under the dashboard. These areas are smoothly padded and contoured in the Catera.

Despite moderate intrusion into the driver footwell area, injury measures on the lower legs and feet were low.

Technical measurements for this test

Measures of occupant compartment intrusion on driver side

Test ID CF99016
Footwell intrusion
Footrest (cm) 24
Left (cm) 21
Center (cm) 19
Right (cm) 16
Brake pedal (cm) 11
Instrument panel rearward movement
Left (cm) 7
Right (cm) 4
Steering column movement
Upward (cm) 7
Rearward (cm) 5
A-pillar rearward movement (cm) 3

Driver injury measures

Test ID CF99016
Head
HIC-15 148
Peak gs at hard contact 46
Neck
Tension (kN) 1.6
Extension bending moment (Nm) 18
Maximum Nij 0.32
Chest maximum compression (mm) 36
Legs
Femur force - left (kN) 3.3
Femur force - right (kN) 2.6
Knee displacement - left (mm) 1
Knee displacement - right (mm) 1
Maximum tibia index - left 0.74
Maximum tibia index - right 0.64
Tibia axial force - left (kN) 2.3
Tibia axial force - right (kN) 3.2
Foot acceleration (g)
Left 113
Right 68

How the moderate overlap front test is conducted