It might surprise you to hear that car manufacturers aren’t required to publish their crash test ratings. This could explain why you don’t see collision test ratings for expensive exotic cars, but it doesn’t explain why manufacturers would want to keep the information private. Crash-test ratings usually help buyer’s perception of the safety individual vehicles, so why would these significant manufacturers keep their ratings private?

Porsche withholding ratings

For how much you pay for a new Porsche you could find yourself disappointed to come up empty-handed on a search for crash test ratings. For a company that sells upwards of 60,000 new cars every year not disclosing their crash test ratings for any vehicle doesn’t seem to put a damper on sales. Just because the ratings aren’t public doesn’t mean that extensive testing isn’t completed by the manufacturer, rather that we just can’t access the results.

Jaguar makes the list

Another popular luxury brand, Jaguar, also chooses to keep its crash test ratings private. Some companies may choose to keep ratings private for one or two, or even a handful of cars, but like Porsche, Jaguar decided to keep crash test ratings for every model private. Only selling around 30,000 new cars a year, they are far less popular than Porsche, but again, it doesn’t seem to hinder sales. According to Consumer Reports, these aren’t the only high-volume sales manufacturers that keep their ratings on the down-low.

Land Rover crash testing is private, too

Land Rover takes the cake when it comes to new car sales, and among the almost 100,000 new cars they sell each year, they also choose to keep crash test ratings of all of their models private. For a brand that has notorious problems with reliability, it is surprising to see that sales continue to skyrocket regardless of the consumer’s inability to access crash test ratings. Perhaps owners have just come to expect that buying a Land Rover just kind of is what it is.

The NHTSA and IIHSA do not require car manufacturers to release crash test ratings to the consumer public. While it could help the public’s overall view of the brand itself, there could be many reasons each car manufacturer chooses not to disclose the information. Regardless of the reason, it is apparent that withholding the ratings does little to dampen buyer enthusiasm when it comes to these popular brands.