The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) introduced a small overlap rigid barrier (SORB) crash test in 2012. In the IIHS SORB tests, the rigid barrier primarily impacts a vehicle's outer edges instead of the main longitudinal structures traditionally designed to absorb frontal impact energy. Due to the test condition, the front wheels are often forced to move rearward and into the footwell, contributing to significant and localized intrusion in the occupant compartment. To investigate the design countermeasures for such a severe test mode, the full vehicle model developed in the final phase of the Future Steel Vehicle (FSV) program by WorldAutoSteel was adopted as a baseline. In this study, innovative countermeasure design concepts for the front end structures, especially bumper beam, shotgun, front rail, A-pillar, hinge pillar, and rocker, were proposed and optimized with the FSV full vehicle model. The optimized designs helped the vehicle slide away from the small overlap rigid barrier and converted more impact energy to vehicle kinetic energy. When used together with ultra high strength steel (UHSS), the intrusion into the occupant compartment was reduced and the overall structural rating was improved from “Marginal” to “Good” in the SORB test. In the meantime, the design concepts reduced intrusion in the IIHS 40% overlap deformable barrier (ODB) test and maintained a similar crash pulse in the US-NCAP full frontal crash test. The potential mass reduction opportunity with the design concepts and UHSS was also evaluated.