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In automotive design, higher safety requirements, lower weight and CO₂ emissions, and compact design, all speak for the use of ultra-high-strength steels. But still today there is a lot of caution when such steels are used, due to presumed lack of formability and the ductility in the material after forming. In the current paper, a design in the ultra-high-strength steel Docol 1200 M will be shown, which clearly shows the potential in terms of safety and compact design when using such steels, but also the formability and ability to withstand deformations in a crash situation of the steel involved. The application is an inflatable side impact beam for a passenger vehicle. The inflatable side impact beam is a compact module made of thin-walled metal and pyrotechnics comparable to the ones used for airbag application. Within a few milliseconds, inflation causes thin-walled metal to deform/expand and the pressure to increase up to 20 bar inside the structure.