WASHINGTON -- Thirty-six people burned to death following gas tank ruptures in Japanese-built Toyota Corolla and Corona cars built between 1966 and 1979, a research group said today.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said it collected the data from police records, newspaper clippings and statistics supplied by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the government agency charged with ensuring auto safety.
Much of the institute's data originally appeared in a story published today by the Los Angeles Times.
'We have been trying for years to get (NHTSA) to pay serious attention to this issue,' said Dr. William Haddon Jr., president of the research organization, which is funded by the insurance industry.
At NHTSA, spokesman Ed Reiley said the agency began an engineering analysis on 1969-73 Corona and Corollas about six months ago, and the results will determine whether the agency will launch a full-scale investigation that could lead to a recall.
Toyota Motors Sales USA Inc., the American distributor based in Torrance, Calif., released a statement saying that tests by the government found the gas tanks to be free of defect. But Reiley said he could not immediately confirm that statement.
The institute said 17 persons were killed and six injured in Coronas from 1966 to 1973, and 19 persons were killed and six injured in Corollas from 1970 to 1978.
'It's clear that this is a much wider problem than the known reported cases would tend to suggest,' as evidenced by the frequency with which police arriving at crash scenes call fire departments because of fuel spills, Haddon said.
NHTSA figures indicate that 19 persons were killed from rear impacts that caused fires in 1969-73 Coronas. The gas tanks of the cars were changed in 1974, and the agency has reports of six fatalities in 1974-75 Coronas and Corollas.
In one test conducted by the institute in 1973, a second car was crashed against the rear end of a Toyota Corona at just under 40 mph, causing the Toyota to burst into flames that engulfed the dummy in the passenger compartment in less than a third of a second.
