Ford Pinto

dweezil

written about one of the original cases of exploding gas tanks. I've got it and will unass the title as soon as I get over this cold.
At any rate the circumstances of the case indicated that the girl and her two friends had stopped in the left lane of a highway to retrieve their GAS CAP and were hit from behind, causing the car to burst into flames. There was some argument over the speed of the van that hit them among the lawyers and witnesses.
I believe they found in favor of Ford in that case, though the data compiled from internal documents suggests Ford were well aware of the problem.
In addition, on the road the Pinto did no better or worse than the other contemporary small cars of the era and that was also brought out in the trial.
Sorry I can't find the book, I know that's a tease. I just reread it too.But I'll check when I'm feeling better and post the title.Great stuff, it's got pictures and photo stats of the documents, diagrams etc.
You could always go to www.google.com and type in Ford Pinto to see what pops up. Dave

andre1969

...if anybody wants to see a crash test of a Pinto. I posted it awhile back, but here it is again, for your viewing pleasure.

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~sharoon/a1/a1disate.htm. There's a lot of info about the Pinto case in general on this site, and if you scroll down towards the bottom, there's a place where you can click to get the movie. They rear-end a Pinto with a 1971 or so full-size Chevy. The Pinto sprays fuel and glass everywhere, and then a fireball erupts, which, ironically, looks like it does more damage to the Chevy than the Pinto! Now this could've been staged for eye candy, like the Chevy pickup that Dateline rigged with explosives a few years back to wow us with pretty pictures. This was a gov't crash test though, so it might be a bit more creditable. After all, the gov't wouldn't lie to us, would they?

dwgrizzle

I stumbled across this site the other
day and had to post my own life story
of a Pinto crash. I did not see any
other posts from folks with first hand
experience with Pintos in a crash. I
was really surprised after I had sold it
to find out how close I came to disaster.
Now that I am 30 years older and hopefully
wiser, I still shutter to think what my
life might have been like if the gas tank
had exploded. It is good that the folks at
Ford have been pressured by the likes of
Ralph Nader to make cars safer. I meet him
briefly about 5 years ago and watched as he
was being escorted through a large software
conference and show. It was interesting to
see how he was shown what the hosting company
wanted him to see and steered away from the
exhibits they did not want him to see. It
makes one wonder how informed he really is on
the companies he goes after.

dweezil

Couldn't get the video to work, but have seen that before.
There were additional law suits re:the "halo" style roof, one where a DEER had leaped onto the roof [or landed] and because only sheet metal formed the roof and not having any beam type braces the drivers wife was killed when the roof caved in.
The conclusion on that site though is rather self serving. They make it sound as if all the publicity had killed the car.It had reached the end of it's product cycle to be replaced by the Escort. "ceased production 5 months later...".
A running change was made in 76 that addressed the tank problem I believe and people were STILL buying them right up to the end.
This IS a classic example of Dinosaur Era Automotive Industry corporate think isn't it?

andre1969

yeah, I noticed that "ceased production 5 months later" comment, too! The truth is, the Pinto was a strong seller right up until the end. I think the final year though, they made too many, because I heard that a lot of the '80's were redesignated as '81's. I'd have to look it up, but I think something like 165,000 of these '80/81's were sold. By 1980, the Chevette was tearing it up, but the Chevette also had a 4-door hatchback, a model the Pinto lacked.

I didn't know about the roof problem, but considering how cheap and lightweight the car was, I'm not surprised. I have an old used-car guide somewhere that actually lists the non-wagon Pintos as weighing slightly less than the Escort 2-doors that replaced them!

dweezil

Small and cheap. "The car nobody loved but everybody bought". Amen. I remember you posted that earlier.
There's enough out there to indict Ford and the Pint without adding that little twist about the "safety" of them putting it out to pasture..Popular to the end.

lemko

My Aunt Linda bought a new 1972 Ford Pinto "Runabout" after graduating from nursing school. The car was white with a blackout grille and and a "USA" stars and stripes decal on the C-pillar. The interior was red, white and blue vinyl. My brother and I who were 5 and 7 at the time often rode in the back of this car and it was cramped even for us young kids. By 1976, this car developed a serious rust problem. Pretty soon the top of the front fenders were completely rusted througn and clumsily patched with sheet metal and pop rivets. Shortly thereafter, the front fenders were replaced and the car was painted "Earl Scheib Blue." My aunt finally got rid of this car in 1980 and replaced it with a new yellow Subaru DL wagon.

dpwestlake

Back in high school I was strongly advised not to get a pinto by a friend who had a summer job installing windshields in pintos at the ford plant in Edison NJ.

jlflemmons

Old Joe had a little momento
in the shape of a seventies Pinto.
It fell in the sink, tapped a glass with a clink,
and the whole house became an inferno.

sorry, couldn't help myself. But in another light, friends loaned me a 72, I think, white Pinto to use while my car was in the shop. The Pinto had been parked under a pecan tree for many months, so you can imagine what the paint looked like. When the time came to return the car, I decided to do something nice and clean it up. Well, the paint was in bad shape anyway, so I washed the car with SoftScrub and bleach. Turned out gorgeous! The softscrub removed all the oxidation and the bleach took out the mildew and tree sap. When I pulled the car up to their house the look on their faces was priceless. They thought I had the car re-painted. The little thing actually ran pretty good considering it was one of those "Only new car sold in America for under $2000."

Jim

groovy2

I was the happy owner of 3 Pintos! Before you call me a masochist, let me explain.......
As dweezil previously posted, they were almost a modern Model A, very simple and somewhat reliable. Also, no one with any personal pride would steal one as long as something better was close by (almost always).

During the 80's, I drove 20 miles in each direction to work in one of the worst parts of Detroit. Almost every week, someone at the office had their car stolen from the lot across the street. Never my Pinto work car!

I used to buy them with blown motors or tranmissions and repair them to get at least 50K more miles from them. Simple to fix and unsightly as Hell with lots of rust, the more the better...a great anti-theft device! My Pintos always ran well, were theft-resistant, and very cheap to operate. It also saved wear and tear on my "good" weekend car.

ghulet

funny you should bring that up, a co-worker and her friend used to car pool to the train (suburb of Chicago); one day they get off the train and the friend's Pinto had been stolen. I gotta wonder why still.

stickguy

It makes logical sense. Most old cars are stolen for parts, not because people really want them, and what was more likely to need parts replaced than a Pinto (other than a Vega, of course).

ghulet

I didn't think there were any left on the road. Maybe some guy who actually had one running stole it to replace his own (sick love story).

northstart

Most people over this side of the Atlantic only know the Pinto name because of its inline 4 cylinder OHC engine. This engine has always been called the Pinto. Ford has used this unit for many years’ with great success.

This came to a head a few years back when they produced the Escort Cosworth. With 4-wheel drive, A twin cam head and a large Turbo they produced one of the fastest cars in Europe.

It would eat a 911 without breaking a sweat and there were more than a few Ferrari customers complaining that they lost the battle to a Ford on curvy roads. Ferrari were rumored to have even went to the European court to complain about the Escort Cosworth. Ha!

So, I don’t really know much about the Pinto but it has sure given us a lot of fun.

ndance

Ummm...are those really turbo/4wd? The only Cosworth Ford cars I've ever heard of were rear wheel drive n/a cars. You do see the odd twin cam Escort in the U.S. (methinks even those goofy early cars with the fins) every once in a while.

I have seen articles on the Cosworth Sierras. With the turbo 16v four in those things, they look like real machines.

northstart

The Cosworth Sierra's give rise to the Escorts sharing the same although shorter floor pan, no-longer in production Ford have anounced palns for it replacement based on the Focus.

ndance

http://www.turbocharger.co.uk/rs-cosworth-escort.html

Never heard of it. Looks pretty darn cool. It's really a pity all of the UK and German four wheel drive high performance cars never make it over here (in the U.S.).

northstart

I think it has something to do with the engine emissions as well as safety standards. I read somewhere that the Porsche 911 that’s sold in Europe has to have almost 200 modifications to bring it into line with US safety and emission regulations.

avalanche325

I just saw a blue Pinto Runabout with a brand new paint job! It looked like it was supposed to have a vinyl roof, because it had a trim strip across the rear pillar.

Otherwise, it looked like brand new.