The C/K Pickup With Unsafe Side Saddle Tanks

The side saddle fuel tank design installed in over 10 million trucks B all 1973-87 General Motors full-size pickups and cab-chassis trucks (pickups without beds) and some 1988-91 dual cab or RV chassis B is the worst auto crash fire defect in the history of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Based on data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (formerly known as the Fatal Accident Reporting System), over 1,800 people were killed in fire crashes involving these trucks from 1973 through 2000. (Attachment A is a list of fatal C/K fire crashes by state since 1993.) This is more than twenty times as many fatalities as in the infamous Ford Pinto. Despite a voluntary recall request from the NHTSA in April 1993 (Attachment B) and an initial defect determination by Transportation Secretary Federico Pena in October 1994 (Attachment C), GM stubbornly refused to initiate a recall.
Like Ford and Chrysler, GM made pickups with gas tanks inside the cab in the 1960's. Because of concerns about the safety of placing the gas tank inside the passenger cab, the Big Three auto makers all considered relocating the tank outside the passenger compartment in the early 1970's. Chrysler engineers specifically rejected placing the tank outside the frame because of safety concerns saying, AA frame mounted fuel tank mounted anywhere outside the frame rails would be in a very questionable area due to the new Federal Standards requiring 15 MPH side impacts for all vehicles. . . . Any side impact would automatically encroach on this area and the probability of tank leakage would be extremely high.@ (Attachment D.)
GM engineers reached a similar conclusion in their early assessments with Chevrolet engineer Alex Mair recommending in 1964 that the fuel tank of the next generation pickup A must be mounted outside the cab and as near the center of the vehicle as practical.@ (Attachment E.) The safety concerns of GM engineers were overridden by management's sales concerns who wanted to install 40 gallon capacity to get a greater driving range, and used this as a selling point. The easiest way to achieve a 40 gallon capacity was to install two 20 gallon fuel tanks outside the frame rail where they were more vulnerable to rupture and puncture by sharp objects in crashes. In 1972, GM engineers recommended to the Vice President for Engineering that if occupants were not killed by crash forces, they A should be free from the hazards of post-collision fuel fires.@ (See Attachment F.) After GM management made the decision to place the tanks outside the frame, GM engineers recommended that shields be installed around the tanks to protect them. (Attachment G is an engineering diagram of one GM shield from 1972 while Attachment H is a GM crash test photo of another shield.)

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