Chrysler’s new Dodge Dart sedan, which replaced the Caliber hatchback earlier this year after a Detroit show debut, has been named a 2012 Top Safety Pick by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
The car has 10 standard air bags and one of the auto industry’s highest content ratios of high-strength steel. The first product of Chrysler’s alliance with Fiat [a Fiat-branded version of the Dart is built and sold in China], achieved the maximum possible rating in each of the four crash tests used by the IIHS to evaluate occupant protection, the primary attribute of a Top Safety Pick. The 2013 Dart achieved a score of “good” in tests that simulate rollover, rear, side and moderate-overlap frontal impacts.
The IIHS rating scale comprises grades of good, acceptable, marginal and poor.
“We had high expectations for the Dart and our engineers delivered,” said Reid Bigland, Dodge-brand president and CEO.
Top Safety Pick is the highest safety honor bestowed by the IIHS. “Winners afford buyers the best overall protection in four of the most common kinds of crashes, and help them avoid crashes altogether with electronic stability control,” said IIHS president Adrian Lund.
