News:

Changes Continue... Scott Hamilton

Main Menu

Mini Classifieds

GRILLE NEEDED '71,'72,'73 for a '73 Pinto
Date: 02/10/2017 09:30 am
1980 Pinto-Shay for sale

Date: 07/07/2016 01:21 pm
79 pinto front,rear alum bumpers

Date: 07/17/2018 09:49 pm
Wanted 71-73 Pinto grill
Date: 03/09/2019 10:45 pm
Clutch Fork
Date: 03/31/2018 09:12 pm
1980 Pinto Wagon

Date: 02/29/2020 07:01 pm
Trailer Hitch - 73 Pinto Wagon
Date: 02/04/2018 08:26 am
Bellhousing for C4 to 2.0 litre pinto
Date: 01/30/2017 01:48 pm
72 Pinto parts
Date: 12/04/2018 09:56 pm

Why the Ford Pinto didn’t suck

Why the Ford Pinto didn't suckThe Ford Pinto was born a low-rent, stumpy thing in Dearborn 40 years ago and grew to become one of the most infamous cars in history. The thing is that it didn't actually suck. Really.

Even after four decades, what's the first thing that comes to mind when most people think of the Ford Pinto? Ka-BLAM! The truth is the Pinto was more than that — and this is the story of how the exploding Pinto became a pre-apocalyptic narrative, how the myth was exposed, and why you should race one.

The Pinto was CEO Lee Iacocca's baby, a homegrown answer to the threat of compact-sized economy cars from Japan and Germany, the sales of which had grown significantly throughout the 1960s. Iacocca demanded the Pinto cost under $2,000, and weigh under 2,000 pounds. It was an all-hands-on-deck project, and Ford got it done in 25 months from concept to production.

Building its own small car meant Ford's buyers wouldn't have to hew to the Japanese government's size-tamping regulations; Ford would have the freedom to choose its own exterior dimensions and engine sizes based on market needs (as did Chevy with the Vega and AMC with the Gremlin). And people cold dug it.

When it was unveiled in late 1970 (ominously on September 11), US buyers noted the Pinto's pleasant shape — bringing to mind a certain tailless amphibian — and interior layout hinting at a hipster's sunken living room. Some call it one of the ugliest cars ever made, but like fans of Mischa Barton, Pinto lovers care not what others think. With its strong Kent OHV four (a distant cousin of the Lotus TwinCam), the Pinto could at least keep up with its peers, despite its drum brakes and as long as one looked past its Russian-roulette build quality.

But what of the elephant in the Pinto's room? Yes, the whole blowing-up-on-rear-end-impact thing. It all started a little more than a year after the Pinto's arrival.

 

Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Company

On May 28, 1972, Mrs. Lilly Gray and 13-year-old passenger Richard Grimshaw, set out from Anaheim, California toward Barstow in Gray's six-month-old Ford Pinto. Gray had been having trouble with the car since new, returning it to the dealer several times for stalling. After stopping in San Bernardino for gasoline, Gray got back on I-15 and accelerated to around 65 mph. Approaching traffic congestion, she moved from the left lane to the middle lane, where the car suddenly stalled and came to a stop. A 1962 Ford Galaxie, the driver unable to stop or swerve in time, rear-ended the Pinto. The Pinto's gas tank was driven forward, and punctured on the bolts of the differential housing.

As the rear wheel well sections separated from the floor pan, a full tank of fuel sprayed straight into the passenger compartment, which was engulfed in flames. Gray later died from congestive heart failure, a direct result of being nearly incinerated, while Grimshaw was burned severely and left permanently disfigured. Grimshaw and the Gray family sued Ford Motor Company (among others), and after a six-month jury trial, verdicts were returned against Ford Motor Company. Ford did not contest amount of compensatory damages awarded to Grimshaw and the Gray family, and a jury awarded the plaintiffs $125 million, which the judge in the case subsequently reduced to the low seven figures. Other crashes and other lawsuits followed.

Why the Ford Pinto didn't suck

Mother Jones and Pinto Madness

In 1977, Mark Dowie, business manager of Mother Jones magazine published an article on the Pinto's "exploding gas tanks." It's the same article in which we first heard the chilling phrase, "How much does Ford think your life is worth?" Dowie had spent days sorting through filing cabinets at the Department of Transportation, examining paperwork Ford had produced as part of a lobbying effort to defeat a federal rear-end collision standard. That's where Dowie uncovered an innocuous-looking memo entitled "Fatalities Associated with Crash-Induced Fuel Leakage and Fires."

The Car Talk blog describes why the memo proved so damning.

In it, Ford's director of auto safety estimated that equipping the Pinto with [an] $11 part would prevent 180 burn deaths, 180 serious burn injuries and 2,100 burned cars, for a total cost of $137 million. Paying out $200,000 per death, $67,000 per injury and $700 per vehicle would cost only $49.15 million.

The government would, in 1978, demand Ford recall the million or so Pintos on the road to deal with the potential for gas-tank punctures. That "smoking gun" memo would become a symbol for corporate callousness and indifference to human life, haunting Ford (and other automakers) for decades. But despite the memo's cold calculations, was Ford characterized fairly as the Kevorkian of automakers?

Perhaps not. In 1991, A Rutgers Law Journal report [PDF] showed the total number of Pinto fires, out of 2 million cars and 10 years of production, stalled at 27. It was no more than any other vehicle, averaged out, and certainly not the thousand or more suggested by Mother Jones.

Why the Ford Pinto didn't suck

The big rebuttal, and vindication?

But what of the so-called "smoking gun" memo Dowie had unearthed? Surely Ford, and Lee Iacocca himself, were part of a ruthless establishment who didn't care if its customers lived or died, right? Well, not really. Remember that the memo was a lobbying document whose audience was intended to be the NHTSA. The memo didn't refer to Pintos, or even Ford products, specifically, but American cars in general. It also considered rollovers not rear-end collisions. And that chilling assignment of value to a human life? Indeed, it was federal regulators who often considered that startling concept in their own deliberations. The value figure used in Ford's memo was the same one regulators had themselves set forth.

In fact, measured by occupant fatalities per million cars in use during 1975 and 1976, the Pinto's safety record compared favorably to other subcompacts like the AMC Gremlin, Chevy Vega, Toyota Corolla and VW Beetle.

And what of Mother Jones' Dowie? As the Car Talk blog points out, Dowie now calls the Pinto, "a fabulous vehicle that got great gas mileage," if not for that one flaw: The legendary "$11 part."

Why the Ford Pinto didn't suck

Pinto Racing Doesn't Suck

Back in 1974, Car and Driver magazine created a Pinto for racing, an exercise to prove brains and common sense were more important than an unlimited budget and superstar power. As Patrick Bedard wrote in the March, 1975 issue of Car and Driver, "It's a great car to drive, this Pinto," referring to the racer the magazine prepared for the Goodrich Radial Challenge, an IMSA-sanctioned road racing series for small sedans.

Why'd they pick a Pinto over, say, a BMW 2002 or AMC Gremlin? Current owner of the prepped Pinto, Fox Motorsports says it was a matter of comparing the car's frontal area, weight, piston displacement, handling, wheel width, and horsepower to other cars of the day that would meet the entry criteria. (Racers like Jerry Walsh had by then already been fielding Pintos in IMSA's "Baby Grand" class.)

Bedard, along with Ron Nash and company procured a 30,000-mile 1972 Pinto two-door to transform. In addition to safety, chassis and differential mods, the team traded a 200-pound IMSA weight penalty for the power gain of Ford's 2.3-liter engine, which Bedard said "tipped the scales" in the Pinto's favor. But according to Bedard, it sounds like the real advantage was in the turns, thanks to some add-ons from Mssrs. Koni and Bilstein.

"The Pinto's advantage was cornering ability," Bedard wrote. "I don't think there was another car in the B. F. Goodrich series that was quicker through the turns on a dry track. The steering is light and quick, and the suspension is direct and predictable in a way that street cars never can be. It never darts over bumps, the axle is perfectly controlled and the suspension doesn't bottom."

Need more proof of the Pinto's lack of suck? Check out the SCCA Washington, DC region's spec-Pinto series.

Members
Stats
  • Total Posts: 139,593
  • Total Topics: 16,270
  • Online today: 489
  • Online ever: 3,214 (June 20, 2025, 10:48:59 AM)
Users Online
  • Users: 1
  • Guests: 236
  • Total: 237
  • Wittsend
F&I...more

My Somewhat Begrudging Apology To Ford Pinto

ford-pinto.jpg

I never thought I’d offer an apology to the Ford Pinto, but I guess I owe it one.

I had a Pinto in the 1970s. Actually, my wife bought it a few months before we got married. The car became sort of a wedding dowry. So did the remaining 80% of the outstanding auto loan.

During a relatively brief ownership, the Pinto’s repair costs exceeded the original price of the car. It wasn’t a question of if it would fail, but when. And where. Sometimes, it simply wouldn’t start in the driveway. Other times, it would conk out at a busy intersection.

It ranks as the worst car I ever had. That was back when some auto makers made quality something like Job 100, certainly not Job 1.

Despite my bad Pinto experience, I suppose an apology is in order because of a recent blog I wrote. It centered on Toyota’s sudden-acceleration problems. But in discussing those, I invoked the memory of exploding Pintos, perpetuating an inaccuracy.

The widespread allegation was that, due to a design flaw, Pinto fuel tanks could readily blow up in rear-end collisions, setting the car and its occupants afire.

People started calling the Pinto “the barbecue that seats four.” And the lawsuits spread like wild fire.

Responding to my blog, a Ford (“I would very much prefer to keep my name out of print”) manager contacted me to set the record straight.

He says exploding Pintos were a myth that an investigation debunked nearly 20 years ago. He cites Gary Schwartz’ 1991 Rutgers Law Review paper that cut through the wild claims and examined what really happened.

Schwartz methodically determined the actual number of Pinto rear-end explosion deaths was not in the thousands, as commonly thought, but 27.

In 1975-76, the Pinto averaged 310 fatalities a year. But the similar-size Toyota Corolla averaged 313, the VW Beetle 374 and the Datsun 1200/210 came in at 405.

Yes, there were cases such as a Pinto exploding while parked on the shoulder of the road and hit from behind by a speeding pickup truck. But fiery rear-end collisions comprised only 0.6% of all fatalities back then, and the Pinto had a lower death rate in that category than the average compact or subcompact, Schwartz said after crunching the numbers. Nor was there anything about the Pinto’s rear-end design that made it particularly unsafe.

Not content to portray the Pinto as an incendiary device, ABC’s 20/20 decided to really heat things up in a 1978 broadcast containing “startling new developments.” ABC breathlessly reported that, not just Pintos, but fullsize Fords could blow up if hit from behind.

20/20 thereupon aired a video, shot by UCLA researchers, showing a Ford sedan getting rear-ended and bursting into flames. A couple of problems with that video:

One, it was shot 10 years earlier.

Two, the UCLA researchers had openly said in a published report that they intentionally rigged the vehicle with an explosive.

That’s because the test was to determine how a crash fire affected the car’s interior, not to show how easily Fords became fire balls. They said they had to use an accelerant because crash blazes on their own are so rare. They had tried to induce a vehicle fire in a crash without using an igniter, but failed.

ABC failed to mention any of that when correspondent Sylvia Chase reported on “Ford’s secret rear-end crash tests.”

We could forgive ABC for that botched reporting job. After all, it was 32 years ago. But a few weeks ago, ABC, in another one of its rigged auto exposes, showed video of a Toyota apparently accelerating on its own.

Turns out, the “runaway” vehicle had help from an associate professor. He built a gizmo with an on-off switch to provide acceleration on demand. Well, at least ABC didn’t show the Toyota slamming into a wall and bursting into flames.

In my blog, I also mentioned that Ford’s woes got worse in the 1970s with the supposed uncovering of an internal memo by a Ford attorney who allegedly calculated it would cost less to pay off wrongful-death suits than to redesign the Pinto.

It became known as the “Ford Pinto memo,” a smoking gun. But Schwartz looked into that, too. He reported the memo did not pertain to Pintos or any Ford products. Instead, it had to do with American vehicles in general.

It dealt with rollovers, not rear-end crashes. It did not address tort liability at all, let alone advocate it as a cheaper alternative to a redesign. It put a value to human life because federal regulators themselves did so.

The memo was meant for regulators’ eyes only. But it was off to the races after Mother Jones magazine got a hold of a copy and reported what wasn’t the case.

The exploding-Pinto myth lives on, largely because more Americans watch 20/20 than read the Rutgers Law Review. One wonders what people will recollect in 2040 about Toyota’s sudden accelerations, which more and more look like driver error and, in some cases, driver shams.

So I guess I owe the Pinto an apology. But it’s half-hearted, because my Pinto gave me much grief, even though, as the Ford manager notes, “it was a cheap car, built long ago and lots of things have changed, almost all for the better.”

Here goes: If I said anything that offended you, Pinto, I’m sorry. And thanks for not blowing up on me.

thecustommuffler
xx `78 Pinto
February 03, 2012, 09:05:52 PM
by thecustommuffler
I believe this is my first post here and have been lurking for awhile. Been trying to gather up as much info as possible. I am getting a `79(possible`80) Pinto this coming Monday thats all original minus the radio. The lady I`m getting it from has been storing it in her backyard since hurricane Katrina. It was her brothers car and he used it daily then died in Katrina. I`ve been trying to get this car for 2 years and it finally looks as if my persistence paid off. I`ll know when it comes off the hook at my shop, lol. Anyway, my plan is to tub it and stuff the widest possible tires under it that I can find, just short of having Goodyear make one offs. Its my vision of a Hotwheels car in fire engine red. I`ve seen a few on the web and that color on these cars just can`t be topped IMO. I am stuffing my 572 Ford motor that made 1100hp on 92. That was with a full hydraulic setup and dual point dizzy. I`m adding custom spacers that will probably be in the 3" range then my  ...
14 comments | Write Comment
oldcarpierre
xx Bad experience with ethanol fuel blend
May 07, 2006, 07:56:44 PM
by oldcarpierre
Guys,

Sunoco stations here in Ontario put up to 10 or 15% ethanol in their gasoline.   I have never had any problems with these blends with modern cars, or even with my 1961 Pontiac.   I fueled there with my new Pinto last week, and within minutes, the 2000cc started to stall repeatedly.   Lower idle speed, it seems, but also erratic idle (low, and then really low, and then none).   I don't have a tach, I am just going by the sound.

I did not attempt to readjust the idle.   I used up the gas to almost empty, and put some ethanol-free gasoline.   The idle speed went back up (and went back to being consistent).   No more stalling.   She purrs again.

Has anyone else seen this?

The province of Ontario is considering legislating the addition of ethanol to all gasoline.   I don't know when, but it is coming.   Perhaps one of you lives in an area with the same law.   Is there a way to run  ...
26 comments | Write Comment
vonkysmeed
xx Tour D' Orange - SoCal
December 30, 2012, 11:14:32 PM
by vonkysmeed
What: Tour d' Orange 2013
Where: Meet at the corner of Redhill and Fischer in Costa Mesa, CA.
When: Staging cars at 7:30. Cars leave at 9am sharp.
Why: To start your year off with a burn out! "Please no burn outs" but lets put 2012 behind us.

My pinto is down, but planing on going on my motorcycle.  Looks like a cool event.  Any pintos going?
2 comments | Write Comment
bob hess
xx v-8 pinto
August 20, 2014, 09:26:20 AM
by bob hess
Hey Guys ,
Any & all help would be greatly appreciated.
I've been a Ford Guy all my life . ( Shelby , mustangs mostly ) . And recently  fell in love with what I've seen other guys do with V-8 pintos .
So my question is , I read to beware of " junk " V-8 swaps . How can one tell what is a good swap ?
I'm very busy , so I'm considering having a exp. shop ( Phily, NJ area ) do most of the drive train install for me .  I'm shopping for a 79 / 80 runabout now . Any idea of the cost for Labor .   ( I know the sky's  the limit when it comes to HiPo parts.
Many Thanks ,
Bob
38 comments | Write Comment
blupinto
xx No Taillights
December 23, 2016, 11:48:00 PM
by blupinto
Hi All!


              At my home I have Dwayne's "New" Pinto. It has been to the paint shop and looks good enough to eat! When she went there, her taillights worked. When she came back her taillights worked. The morning I was to take her to work (with Dwayne's permission) her lights worked. I know because I go to work when it's still dark, and I did sort of a pre-op, focusing on side markers, taillights, headlights, and turn signal lights. About a mile from my house someone drove beside me on the small "expressway" and informed me that I had no taillights. I pulled over, and sure enough he was right. I turned around and went home, parking her and jumping into my Rodeo.  Since then I have looked up the fuse chart (nothing there for taillights, brake lights, etc.), replaced the brake light switch, checked to see if there were cracks, breaks, wear on wire insulation, changed bulbs... still I have no taillights.  ...
39 comments | Write Comment

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 40

Attention Stampeders and Newcomers,

The Pinto Stampede will join up and meet Friday March 1st at the Concourse De Lemons, 14 North Fletcher Avenue Fernandina Beach, FL 32034.

The show runs from 1:00-5:00 pm. So you cand rive in the morning, enjoy the show. Hang out with the other Pintos and head back

...

Read More

1 Comment

The Chattanooga Motorcar Festival is inviting examples of under appreciated cars to participate in the main concours on Oct. 15, 2023. Take part in a real, live fancy schmancy concour and share your love of the Pinto with the concours crowd.

BONUS – Concours entrants get two 3-day tickets to the event,

...

Read More

0 Comments

"Carlisle Pennsylvania - Pigeon Forge Tennessee"

Final call for the Stampede,

I am doing the final numbers, and if you want to join in, there is still time, if you want to meet up because we are in the neighborhood, just let me know and I'll tell you when we are passing through and you can ride with us
...

Read More

0 Comments

We need more Pintos to overcome the Mavericks, so we can have an awesome police-escorted parade of Pintos!

It's in August 13, 2022, and here's the flyer:

https://carcruisefinder.com/ohio-car-shows/event/pinto-vs-maverick-car-show-challenge-2022/

Hope to see you there! Happy Motoring!
Dan

...

Read More

1 Comment

We are a week and a couple of days from Carlisle '22. I am planning on bringing my Pinto and some spare parts down to the Ford Nationals. I am hoping to see some if not all, some of the fine folks that I met on the 50th Pinto Stampede. Norm has assured me that this show and swap meet are one of the favorites

...

Read More

1 Comment
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 40