Bull Bars

ARB SmartBar Bull Bars

When choosing frontal protection, don’t compromise with heavy bull bars that weigh down your vehicles or possibly your safety rating.

ARB SmartBar bull bars are the lighter choice, in many cases halving the fitted weight of many metal bull bar alternatives, without sacrificing safety. Our bars are designed to maintain a vehicle’s ANCAP rating and be non-corrosive, winch and airbag compatible.

The extra strong, one-piece hollow-bodied part has the unique ability to flex, absorb and disperse impact energy forces, then return to its original shape, keeping your vehicle moving. In many cases, our bull bars can flex up to 85% of their width and return back to 95% of their original shape in a matter of minutes of an animal strike.

INNOVATION

Today, ARB SmartBar continues to design and develop innovative products in response to a growing market need for lighter, more effective bull bars. At the same time, it proudly continues to defy trends by manufacturing on site at its roto-moulding plant in South Australia.

Continuous development utilising the most advanced manufacturing techniques and software applications available to the industry allows ARB SmartBar to make each bar unique to the vehicle make and model to which it is to be fitted. This ensures that the product is fully integrated into the vehicle’s profile without affecting the onboard safety systems, including airbag deployment and crumple zones.

Vehicle Safety

It goes without saying that when it comes to bull bars, safety is paramount.

Each of our bull bars have been tested to comply with all of the compulsory and non-compulsory sections of Australian Safety Standard AS4876.1-2002, demonstrating the superb safety capabilities and resilience of an ARB SmartBar bull bar – which is much more than a “plastic bar”.

We can proudly demonstrate that ARB SmartBar bull bars perform better than any available alternative under all impact conditions and offer a higher level of safety to their users. No other manufacturer in the world can make this claim.

“…a great leap forward in vehicle front crash safety…It shows that Australia is capable of good lateral thinking” – Graham Lawrence, Transport Research Laboratories in Europe

Factors such as vehicle design, crush rate, airbag deployment, approach angles, accessory fitment, strength, weight, and aesthetics are all considered when developing every ARB SmartBar bull bar.

We test factors such as impact and occupant safety requirements, material testing (UV rating), winch loads (static and dynamic), electrical interface, and lighting compatibility.

We’re meticulous in addressing all of these considerations, but our primary concern is always the safety of the vehicle, its occupants, other road users and pedestrians.

Pedestrian Safety

Tests by the Centre of Automotive and Safety Research (CASR) for Head Injury Criteria (HIC) measure the head trauma and accident survival probability of a person at certain speeds. This is how we measure pedestrian safety.

The results of these tests found that an ARB SmartBar bull bar outperformed all other frontal vehicle protection systems available.

In a simulated collision with a pedestrian at 30km/h it was proven that in many cases, a vehicle fitted with an ARB SmartBar bull bar is less likely to cause a fatal injury through impact than the original front vehicle assembly.

Exhaustive testing, along with the above test results are just some of the reasons that allow us to confidently stand behind our bull bars.

Europe’s only approved bull bar

Our StealthBar is the only bull bar in the world to have been approved for use in Europe in the last 10 years. Available internationally.

This focus on vehicle and pedestrian safety has made ARB SmartBar bull bars the number one choice for many emergency service vehicles in Australia.

If you value the safety of others around your vehicle or simply want exceptional frontal protection for your vehicle, chat to one of our stockists to find out more.