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Author Topic: Exploding Pinto is a Myth...Pinto Fires, NOT!  (Read 57234 times)

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Offline Scott Hamilton

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Exploding Pinto is a Myth...Pinto Fires, NOT!
« on: August 21, 2012, 10:19:33 AM »
Yet another confirmation that our cars were safer than most of that era/class.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/814821-how-much-lower-until-facebook-finds-a-bottom-lower-than-you-think
"What many people don't realize is that the public preoccupation with the Pinto as a death trap was based largely on a myth. Motorists didn't die by the hundreds. In fact, the Pinto was as safe or safer than many of the cars in its class. But the idea, given weight by the seemingly callous cost-benefit analysis of the Pinto Memo, cemented the idea that Ford had knowingly produced and sold a time bomb without regard for consumer safety. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) ultimately demanded the recall of the Pinto."

We need someone to write a narrative with facts that can be confirmed about this and post it on our site where search index's can get it out there. We can also include the many links of similar articles on the net. Your Site (FordPinto.com) holds a unique key in searches about the Pinto and especially about the Explosion premise. We could make a serious dent the public percention (at least on internet searches) with our information forefront on most searches. This can only increase our cars value...
What do you guys think?
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Offline r4pinto

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2012, 10:46:09 AM »
I think that would be a great idea Scott. It would help the public perception of the car, especially since a lot of people do have their own "Pinto story" and still like the car to this day. Easier to get looks out of a beat up Pinto than a classic Mustang.
Matt Manter
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Offline Scott Hamilton

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #2 on: August 21, 2012, 12:15:52 PM »
Easier to get looks out of a beat up Pinto than a classic Mustang.

You are right about that Matt...
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Offline Norman Bagi

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #3 on: August 21, 2012, 01:59:51 PM »
I personally would love to see this site promote the fact that the Pinto is not a death trap over appologizing for the Pinto.  This site is number one in google searches on the pinto and is a great platform for correcting popular opinion.  I have spent allot of time fighting the myths vs. the facts over the past few years, many people told me we could not change the story, it is written.  But in using the Stampede as a platform I and we (there are more than just one Stampede organizer or participant)  have been very successfull getting quality print to say that the Pinto was not a death trap.  NY Times, Ny Daily News, Wall Street Journal, Times News Herald, Kansas City Star, Denver Post, Etc, Etc, Etc.  The new story is now, the pinto was a better car than previously believed. Not to mention the television and radio broadcasts that many of us have been a part of.  We have nothing to appologize for and need to set the record straight. Of course we will not change everyones mind, but stories like the one above are in my opinion a direct result of the work we have done so far.  Let's keep the pressure on and defend our beloved Pinto's.

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #4 on: August 21, 2012, 06:08:54 PM »
What Norm Said - I have to say... I hear more of the... not a bad car, blown out of proportion, and they didn't really blow up than the other way these days. 5 years ago I had to put a fire extinguisher in front of my car at the shows just to shut up half of them, almost quit the shows cause it just felt like "pick on the Pinto day" and now.... no more fire extinguisher and more positive comments. You still have the negative comments, that will never stop but... it's a swinging the other way and much more positive experience. It's nice to see the Pinto get a little respect vs. the days gone by...
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Offline sedandelivery

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #5 on: August 21, 2012, 10:30:28 PM »
I constantly debunk the fire myth, urban legends catch on and people do not want to know the truth, they like controversy. BTW at the local shows all cars must have fire extinguishers in them to be judged, some shows even rent them out to participants for that particular show, or sell them if you like. I have been driving my Pinto a lot lately since it passed inspection, tons of fun!

Offline JoeBob

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #6 on: August 21, 2012, 11:23:40 PM »
After a car show I went to on Saturday, I decided that maybe I would present my car in a new way. You know how some folks have a poster with statistics. Only so many car made that year and only three with this engine and options etc. Well I decided to have a poster with safety statistics.
I started my research by reading the articles posted on this site under the heading "gas tank issue." The last article titled "My somewhat begrudging apology" had some statistics listed. These statistics looked good on the surface. They said something like there were 300 deaths in pintos and 320 deaths in toyota, 400 in VW etc. Well I got excited. This lookid like what I was looking for, until I realized that these numbers were meaningless. These numbers needed comparatives. Such as 200 deaths per 100,000 vehicles. Without knowing how many vehicles, any car with a small production would look terrific. If a car was listed as only 50 deaths, it could look excellent  unless you knew they made only 50 cars. Then you could realize that sample had a 100% fatality rate.
Doe anyone know how I could find out the true fatality rates for these cars?

Bill
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Offline FlyerPinto

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #7 on: August 22, 2012, 06:41:57 AM »
There were a total of 29 deaths in Pinto rear-end collision fires. Out of a total sales figure of 6,000,000 cars, or roughly 600,000 per year for the ten year run of the Pinto, that equates to a .0000048% rate, assuming one owner per vehicle. Mother Earth News apparently, and I say apparently because I don't have the proof in front of me, claimed the totals were much higher, a claim that was never truly refuted. The internal memo that was so damning in the Pinto case, the one claiming it would be cheaper to pay claims rather than fix the problem with the cars, was refuted in a graduate dissertation for law school  published a couple of years ago, an Ivy League school if I remember correctly. I can post the information later on. I would be happy to pull all this stuff together, I have most of it anyway and as I close in on my master's degree in American history, which I should complete in spring of 2013,  I am leaning towards writing my thesis on the automotive industry contraction of the 1970's, so this kind of fits in anyway. I get tired of the remembered hysteria and the misinformation more than I care to admit.
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Offline Norman Bagi

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #8 on: August 22, 2012, 07:01:36 AM »
Well first, here are the car totals. http://www.fordpinto.com/index.php?page=1971-1980_Ford_Pinto_Specifications the number was not six million, just about half that at 3.2 million units. The number of deaths related to fire, all fire nit just rear end hits was 27 as of 1976. So the number had increased since then. But the numbe was far less than the 800-900 per year reported by Mother Jones. The famous letter was actualy a memo from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that listed what an average payout in a loss of life lawsuit was. This was ne'er a Ford created memo. Most cars ofthe day had similar designs of the gas tank behind the rear axle. So this was not soley a Pinto design issue. The media also published that Ford did nothing to improve the design. Just look at the 71-73 bumpers vs. The 74-80'bumpers. Not to mention the recall for the extension of the filler neck and the cover over the backside of the gas tank. There is plenty of information and stats here. Just poke around and get them, don't just rely on my numbers or words or anyone elses.

Offline Norman Bagi

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #9 on: August 22, 2012, 07:12:35 AM »
I want to point out one more issue. Most people think Ford lost the lawsuit, this adds to the myth. Ford was actually was found not guilty and won the case. This is similar to the case against John Delorean. He too was found not guilty, but public belief was he was guilty and did time in jail. The case against Ford was for two girls who parked on the side of the road and were rear ended by a full size van traveling at high speeds. An autopsy revealed they were killed by the impact, not the subsequent fire. The video always shown is in slow motion, because showng an Impala hitting a subcompact car at high speeds takes away from the effect of the collision, the response would be "well duh!" but by putting it in slow motion it appears as though the car will explode while parallel parking it. Which we know not to be true.

Offline Scott Hamilton

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #10 on: August 23, 2012, 04:12:34 PM »
This is really good stuff.. I'm thinking of utilizing Zazzle or CafePress to make up 'placards' we can show with our cars or cards to give out that definitively combats the notion. Need someone to 'Word Smith' this out with references that can be fact checked. I will also put this into an article tied to all the search hit words and redo fordpinto.com meta tags to in essence 'push' this to the search engines.
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Offline OTTOGII

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #11 on: August 23, 2012, 05:59:23 PM »
I love where this is going! Our Pintos, still out on the road,need  more respect from the "I THOUGHT THEY ALL BLEW UP!" crowd. Otto N Austin   

Offline Norman Bagi

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #12 on: August 24, 2012, 01:52:46 PM »
I would also like to see the Mother Jones story and any others like it pulled off of the site. They are full of lies and deserve no merit in my opinion. If not pulled, maybe at least not put at the top or in a separate category of popular lies about the Pinto.

Offline Scott Hamilton

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #13 on: August 24, 2012, 02:18:13 PM »
I would also like to see the Mother Jones story and any others like it pulled off of the site. They are full of lies and deserve no merit in my opinion. If not pulled, maybe at least not put at the top or in a separate category of popular lies about the Pinto.

I can see this...

Here is something I found today....
http://dailybail.com/home/check-out-this-1977-televised-debate-over-the-ford-pinto-wit.html
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Offline Original74

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #14 on: August 25, 2012, 07:07:34 AM »
Hey Scott, love this!

Once we get our facts together, along with credible references, what would it take to get Snopes onboard? With the proliferation of fact checking any issue on the internet, Snopes would be a fabulous site to have our facts posted. Just wondering if anyone knows how to hook up with them.

Anyone bashing our cars will know what Snopes is, and the record they have for factual information. Just turn the naysayers to Snopes!
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Offline baliguy

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #15 on: August 26, 2012, 07:46:43 PM »
There was a little bit of an issue with the normal rear end and bare gas tank.  The sharp corner would do some damage to the gas tank in certain rear end collisions.  The fix was a large nylon/plastic over the bottom-front of the gas tank.  The 8" rears didn't have the issue.  It is ironic that Lee Iacocca made a decision to continue shipping Pintos before the fix made it made it to the assembly line and any cars they still had in house.  I don't recall if there was ever a recall for this.  Later, when at Chrysler, Iacocca was basically bad mouthing Fords safety record.  He got away with it because people just don't know or remember. 

Chevy, when settling law suites, made everyone sign non-disclosure agreement and the public thinks Chevy had no rear end collision explosion problems.  Chevy actually had a worse record.

Offline Norman Bagi

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #16 on: August 26, 2012, 10:06:53 PM »
The issue is not that a problem could not happen. The issue is the over exagerrated 800-900 cars per year as stated by Mother Jones resulting in fire related deaths.
Here is a crash test that did not result in an exploding Pinto, fuel did leak though. These imapcts are so forceful that the people in the car would most likely not survive the impact. Multiple Pintos were wrecked to get the right footage. Cars of the day were heavier and had huge steel bumpers.  It wasn't a matter of wheather or not this could happen as much as it would have had a similar effect on any other sub-compact car of the day and that the numbers were grossly exagerrated to sell magazines and boost tv ratings.



They then sped up the car and used an ignition source to get the desired effect.  They then put the video into ultra slow motion to play the test everyone is familiar with. This gives the effect that the Pinto would explode if Parking it.
I guess if we used the same train of thought Mother Jones did we would have banned the big bulky Chevy Impala for having a week windshield bracing as seen here.



feature=related
or because it might hit a smaller car and kill someone, Pintos were not the only small cars of the day!
 As for the rear end issue, Ford did do a recall on the Pinto and extended the filler neck and installed a plastic shroud around the tank, there is dispute over wheather they chose to ignore the repair and figured human life was not worth as much as the repair.  I can only assume this was a manufactured story by the media because Ford won the case.  If the smoking gun and the ignorance of $11 dollar repairs were true, i amsure they would have lost on that alone.  However the Pinto was not the worse car in terms of fatalities or fires from crashes, many of the Japenese imports as well as some of the American counterparts had a worse track record for fatalities and fire. But here are the pinto facts. The NHTSA in 1976 stated 27 people by that point had died in Pinto related fires, that is all fires, not just rear end collisions. I understand their was a bigger issue with transmission fires, but that is another story.  In 1976 2,351,802 Pintos were on the road. If you went by Mother Jones story of 800-900 per year that number of 27 quickly becomes 4,800-5,400, just a slight exageration over 27 posted by the agency that actually keeps the records. The average for a fatality due to fire is 1 in every 87,103 Pinto's made at that time. To put that into perspective that is like going into a fully sold out football stadium alongside a fully sold out baseball stadium and saying someone in these two places will die in a fiery crash at some point in their lifetime.  By comparisson, if you went by the Mother Jones numbers,(5400) they claim 1 person in every 435 Pintos sold would die in a fire related death in their lifetime. Those odds I don't like, those are the odds they sold America. A violent collision weather read end, side impact or head on usually ends in death.  Especially if you put a big heavy vehicle against a compact car. The fault is not the car as much as driver who is not paying attention.  You can be driving a tank, if you drive off a cliff the tank is not at fault.  If you are driving a pinto and crash head on into an Isetta it will be like a mosquito hitting the windshield and the fault will not be Isetta design.
Now one more mathematical equation before we end, try to keep up on this one.  Mopther Jones report Ford would not repair the vehicle for $11 each because it was cheaper to pay for the fatalities.  Correct?  Well then the numbers they gave don't add up.  If it was an average of $12,000 buyout in court at the time (the so called smoking letter) and we established that In 1976 2,351,802 Pintos were on the road. If you did an $11 dollar repair on all those cars the total would be. $25,869,822.00, OK?  Now divide that by the number of fatalities Mother Jones reports to have happened by that date in time 5,400 and the buyout is $4,790.00 So what Mother Jones is saying is that Ford executives cannot do math and want to lose more money and kill people who buy their product! That is why Mother Jones lied about the amount of Pintos on the road as well stating their were over 6 million built by 1976.  What? Over a million units a year, WOW! I think their would be a record book somewhere discussing how Ford sold over a million Pintos a year for six years straight. But their isn't one, because it never happened that way. If hit hard enough the gas filler neck could break free, this was a bad design, no worse thatn any hundred manufactured designs that had the gas tank filler in the rear or behind the license plate, most of these had a rubber clamped connection that would break free in a rear end collision. Numbers don't lie, unless you are Mother Jones!

Offline Norman Bagi

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #17 on: August 26, 2012, 10:15:56 PM »
Check out this Commodore, it is a GM brand that was made in Australia,  Now I know why Fords are so popular in Australia.

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #18 on: August 27, 2012, 09:00:56 AM »
Excellent points ,all well made Norm.. Even a NASCAR Sprint Cup Stock car will suffer filler neck  separation when involved in a severe enough impact.. It was all Propoganda and distortions of statistics..
 
 
The issue is not that a problem could not happen. The issue is the over exagerrated 800-900 cars per year as stated by Mother Jones resulting in fire related deaths.
Here is a crash test that did not result in an exploding Pinto, fuel did leak though. These imapcts are so forceful that the people in the car would most likely not survive the impact. Multiple Pintos were wrecked to get the right footage. Cars of the day were heavier and had huge steel bumpers.  It wasn't a matter of wheather or not this could happen as much as it would have had a similar effect on any other sub-compact car of the day and that the numbers were grossly exagerrated to sell magazines and boost tv ratings.   
They then sped up the car and used an ignition source to get the desired effect.  They then put the video into ultra slow motion to play the test everyone is familiar with. This gives the effect that the Pinto would explode if Parking it.
I guess if we used the same train of thought Mother Jones did we would have banned the big bulky Chevy Impala for having a week windshield bracing as seen here.
or because it might hit a smaller car and kill someone, Pintos were not the only small cars of the day!
 As for the rear end issue, Ford did do a recall on the Pinto and extended the filler neck and installed a plastic shroud around the tank, there is dispute over wheather they chose to ignore the repair and figured human life was not worth as much as the repair.  I can only assume this was a manufactured story by the media because Ford won the case.  If the smoking gun and the ignorance of $11 dollar repairs were true, i amsure they would have lost on that alone.  However the Pinto was not the worse car in terms of fatalities or fires from crashes, many of the Japenese imports as well as some of the American counterparts had a worse track record for fatalities and fire. But here are the pinto facts. The NHTSA in 1976 stated 27 people by that point had died in Pinto related fires, that is all fires, not just rear end collisions. I understand their was a bigger issue with transmission fires, but that is another story.  In 1976 2,351,802 Pintos were on the road. If you went by Mother Jones story of 800-900 per year that number of 27 quickly becomes 4,800-5,400, just a slight exageration over 27 posted by the agency that actually keeps the records. The average for a fatality due to fire is 1 in every 87,103 Pinto's made at that time. To put that into perspective that is like going into a fully sold out football stadium alongside a fully sold out baseball stadium and saying someone in these two places will die in a fiery crash at some point in their lifetime.  By comparisson, if you went by the Mother Jones numbers,(5400) they claim 1 person in every 435 Pintos sold would die in a fire related death in their lifetime. Those odds I don't like, those are the odds they sold America. A violent collision weather read end, side impact or head on usually ends in death.  Especially if you put a big heavy vehicle against a compact car. The fault is not the car as much as driver who is not paying attention.  You can be driving a tank, if you drive off a cliff the tank is not at fault.  If you are driving a pinto and crash head on into an Isetta it will be like a mosquito hitting the windshield and the fault will not be Isetta design.
Now one more mathematical equation before we end, try to keep up on this one.  Mopther Jones report Ford would not repair the vehicle for $11 each because it was cheaper to pay for the fatalities.  Correct?  Well then the numbers they gave don't add up.  If it was an average of $12,000 buyout in court at the time (the so called smoking letter) and we established that In 1976 2,351,802 Pintos were on the road. If you did an $11 dollar repair on all those cars the total would be. $25,869,822.00, OK?  Now divide that by the number of fatalities Mother Jones reports to have happened by that date in time 5,400 and the buyout is $4,790.00 So what Mother Jones is saying is that Ford executives cannot do math and want to lose more money and kill people who buy their product! That is why Mother Jones lied about the amount of Pintos on the road as well stating their were over 6 million built by 1976.  What? Over a million units a year, WOW! I think their would be a record book somewhere discussing how Ford sold over a million Pintos a year for six years straight. But their isn't one, because it never happened that way. If hit hard enough the gas filler neck could break free, this was a bad design, no worse thatn any hundred manufactured designs that had the gas tank filler in the rear or behind the license plate, most of these had a rubber clamped connection that would break free in a rear end collision. Numbers don't lie, unless you are Mother Jones!
Yes, it is possible to study and become a master of Pintosophy.. Not a religion , nothing less than a life quest for non conformity and rational thought. What Horse did you ride in on?

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Offline Scott Hamilton

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #19 on: September 04, 2012, 10:40:00 PM »
This is good, this is good!

How about GM being sued for rear end collision fires WITH a internal Memo almost exactly like Fords, ALL Car manufactures calculated these types of 'possible' losses...  Check this out!!

http://suif.stanford.edu/~jeffop/WWW/wsj_gm_fire_negligence.txt
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Offline Scott Hamilton

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Re: Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #20 on: September 15, 2012, 01:57:21 PM »
Quote from: SNOPES link=http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=26785
You may not have time to read all of this in one sitting. This is compiled from numerous reputable sources over the last decade or so (some of it pre-internet), like Automotive News, Wall Street Journal, Rutger's Law review, etc. I'm just condensing it here to be more compact (yes, this is compact...)

Remarkably, the affair of the "exploding" Ford Pinto--universally hailed as the acme of product liability success--is starting to look like hype. In a summer 1991 Rutgers Law Review article Gary Schwartz demolishes "the myth of the Pinto case." Actual deaths in Pinto fires have come in at a known 27, not the expected thousand or more.

More startling, Schwartz shows that everyone's received ideas about the fabled "smoking gun" memo are false (the one supposedly dealing with how it was cheaper to save money on a small part and pay off later lawsuits... and immortalized in the movie "Fight Club"). The actual memo did not pertain to Pintos, or even Ford products, but to American cars in general; it dealt with rollovers, not rear-end collisions; it did not contemplate the matter of tort liability at all, let alone accept it as cheaper than a design change; it assigned a value to human life because federal regulators, for whose eyes it was meant, themselves employed that concept in their deliberations; and the value it used was one that they, the regulators, had set forth in documents.

In retrospect, Schwartz writes, the Pinto's safety record appears to have been very typical of its time and class. In over 10 years of production, and 20 years that followed, with over 2 million Pintos produced, no more people died in fires from Pintos as died in fires from Maximas...

The supposed design flaw of the Pinto, according to Byron Bloch, was that in a heavy enough rear end accident, the front of the gas tank could come in contact with a bolt on the differential, rupturing it, and allowing fuel to spill out, with the potential for a fire. it is, however, extremely hard for the gas tank to come in contact with any bolts that might be abole to accomplish this, unless the car is hit from behind at over 50 mph. And as was shown in the autopsy for the intital accident in '78 that started this controversy, teh occupants died from teh impact, not from teh fire (caused by an inattentive driver in a chevy van driving onto the shoulder and hitting their parked, but running Pinto from behind at over 50 mph).

In June 1978, at the height of the Ford Pinto outcry, ABC's 20/20 reported "startling new developments": evidence that full-size Fords, not just the subcompact Pinto, could explode when hit from behind. The show's visual highlight was dramatic. Newly aired film from tests done at UCLA in 1967 by researchers under contract with the automaker showed a Ford sedan being rear-ended at 55 mph and bursting into a fireball.

"ABC News has analyzed a great many of Ford's secret rear-end crash tests," confided correspondent Sylvia Chase. And they showed that if you owned a Ford--not just a Pinto, but many other models--what happened to the car in the film could happen to you. The tone was unrelentingly damning, and by the show's end popular anchorman Hugh Downs felt constrained to add his own personal confession. "You know, I've advertised Ford products a few years back, Sylvia, and at the time, of course, I didn't know and I don't think that anybody else did that this kind of ruckus was going to unfold." You got the idea that he would certainly think twice before repeating a mistake like that.

If ABC really analyzed those UCLA test reports, it had every reason to know why the Ford in the crash film burst into flame: there was an incendiary device under it. The UCLA testers explained their methods in a 1968 report published by the Society of Automotive Engineers, fully ten years before the 20/20 episode. As they explained, one of their goals was to study how a crash fire affected the passenger compartment of a car, and to do that they needed a crash fire. But crash fires occur very seldom; in fact, the testers had tried to produce a fire in an earlier test run without an igniter but had failed. Hence their use of the incendiary device (which they clearly and fully described in their write-up) in the only test run that produced a fire.

The "Beyond the Pinto" coverage gives plenty of credit to the show's on-and off-screen expert, who "worked as a consultant with ABC News on this story, and provided us with many of the Ford crash-test records." His name was Byron Bloch, and his role as an ABC News consultant was to prove a longstanding one; over the years he brought the network seven different exposes on auto safety, two of which won Emmys.

If the name is familiar, it's because the very same Byron Bloch starred as NBC's on-screen expert in the ill-fated Dateline episode about teh GM sidesaddle gastanks, that landed the network in serious trouble. More on that in a bit. Bloch was present at the Indiana crash scene, and defended the tests afterward. ("There was nothing wrong with what happened in Indianapolis," he told Reuters. "The so-called devices underneath the pickup truck are really a lot of smoke that GM is blowing to divert you away from the punitive damages in the Moseley case.") And he played a key role in assuring NBC the truck fire had been set off by a headlight filament, providing a crucial excuse for not mentioning the igniters. (A later analysis for GM found the fire had started near the igniters, not the headlights.)

In 1978, as in 1992, Bloch wore two hats. One was as paid or unpaid network consultant, advisor, and onscreen explainer. The other was as the single best-known expert witness hired by trial lawyers in high-stakes injury lawsuits against automakers. To many, NBC's Dateline fiasco seemed a freak, a bizarre departure from accepted network standards. Would any half-awake news organization have helped stage a crash test that was rigged to get a particular outcome? Or concealed from the public key elements--the hidden rockets, the over-filled tank, the loose gas cap? Or entrusted its judgment to axe-grinding "experts" who were deeply involved in litigating against the expose's target? Or, after questions came up, refused to apologize no matter how strong the evidence grew?

CBS, for one, may want to revisit its 1986 "60 Minutes" segment on supposed "sudden acceleration" in Audi 5000s. That show featured real-life footage almost as riveting as that on "Dateline": An Audi was shown taking off like a bolt without a foot on the accelerator -- seeming proof that the vehicle could display a malignant will of its own. Ed Bradley told viewers that, according to a safety expert named William Rosenbluth, "unusually high transmission pressure could build up on certain model Audis causing the throttle to open up . . . . Again, watch the pedal go down by itself."

Frightening stuff, eh? "What the viewers couldn't watch," wrote Peter Huber in 1992's "Galileo's Revenge," "was where the 'unusually high transmission pressure' had come from. It had come from a bottle. Rosenbluth had drilled a hole in the Audi transmission," through which he'd pumped in air or fluid at high pressure. (CBS still defends its segment.)

Clearly, NBC isn't the first network to run a dubious safety expose'. It's just the first to get nailed. For years the networks have relied on a small circle of outside experts to shape their coverage of safety issues. Most of these experts turn out to be deeply involved in the business of suing the companies and institutions targeted by the adversary coverage. And the result is likely to be a widening circle of embarrassment for the media.

NBC had to eat two separate helpings of crow: first for producing the rigged video, then for holding out far too long in its defense. In doing so, it was led astray by its outside experts, especially Bruce Enz of The Institute for Safety Analysis, hired by NBC to conduct the crash tests, and Byron Bloch, interviewed as an expert on the "Dateline" segment and active at the crash-test scene:

Enz's group rigged the truck with hidden incendiary devices, detonated by remote-control radio. Later, Bloch and others defended the idea. This was "among accepted test procedures," noted Clarence Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety, raising the eyebrows of many safety researchers.

Enz and Bloch assured NBC that the fire was actually set off by the filament of a broken headlamp, which conveniently meant there was no need to tell viewers about the Mother's-Little-Helper rockets. (According to Automotive News, GM scientists found in a super-slow-motion video analysis that the fire started near the rockets, not the headlamps.) The network also cited the experts as its source for having told viewers that a "small hole" had been poked in the GM gas tank at impact. Later tests showed the recovered tank fully intact.

And so forth. The use of a wrong-model, ill-fitting gas cap (it apparently popped out on impact) would have been noticed beforehand, if at all, presumably by those who groomed the truck for its big moment on film. NBC reporters would probably not have relied on their own direct observation to come up with what were later shown to be serious underestimates of the actual crash speeds. One bad decision was presumably wholly NBC's to make: showing only a brief snippet of the fire, which in fact burned out in about 15 seconds, after it exhausted the fuel ejected from the truck's filler tube. NBC's camera angle also made it hard for viewers to see that flames were not coming from inside the truck itself, as might have been expected had its gas tank really burst.

Given a fuller look, viewers might have concluded that you can get a fire from just about any vehicle if you bash it in a way that forces gas out of its filler tube and then provide a handy source of ignition. 

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Offline dga57

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Re: Exploding Pinto is a Myth...Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #21 on: September 15, 2012, 04:35:59 PM »
Finally!  Solid data to support what we've known all along!  The facts are well presented and well documented.  Other than a few typos and one use of a wrong word (should have been perceived instead of received), I'd say it's perfect!  I would suggest having someone go through it with an editor's eye; perhaps Matt Gunter, if he's available.  If the PCCA is going to put this out there in order to redeem the reputations of our little ponies, we want it as perfect as it can be!  Good work!!!
Dwayne :)
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Re: Exploding Pinto is a Myth...Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #22 on: September 15, 2012, 04:44:52 PM »
I agree Dwayne, that was perfect! Time to get this out so that people will be educated. Especially since Pintos are just as explosive as any other car can be. Lets face it. Any time you get flammagble liquids & spark together it can be dangerous, no matter the car.
Matt Manter
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Offline Scott Hamilton

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Re: Exploding Pinto is a Myth...Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #23 on: September 15, 2012, 06:28:04 PM »
Here is anohter I found-
http://www.fordpinto.com/index.php?page=228
Still searching for the entire picture... It's a long read but well worth it. Posted here to make it search engine linkable...
Read this too!!
http://www.fordpinto.com/index.php?page=229
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Offline Scott Hamilton

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Re: Exploding Pinto is a Myth...Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #24 on: September 15, 2012, 10:30:49 PM »
Definitive Proof completely Fact Checked... From Lawyers...
http://www.fordpinto.com/index.php?page=230
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Offline dga57

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Re: Exploding Pinto is a Myth...Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #25 on: September 16, 2012, 07:18:43 AM »
EXCELLENT INFORMATION!!!
 
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Re: Exploding Pinto is a Myth...Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #27 on: February 15, 2013, 03:20:51 AM »
I was working at a Ford dealer (in suburban Chicago) when the recall came out for the fuel tank shield. The kit consisted of a black gas tank shield installed under the straps, a new filler neck that was installed from behind the fender, as it was installed from the outside of the fender. This way, in a rear end collision, the neck did not pull out of the tank as the rear quarter panels deformed. Also included was a new rubber "donut" to install the filler neck into the fuel tank. Last, but not least, as the recall came out in 1977, or 1978, an engineered repair panel was also available for cars that were rusted out around the filler neck, that was bolted on from the wheel well side to secure the filler neck.
 I was also kept busy doing piston scuff repairs on the 2.3 engines in the Pint's and Mustang Io's.(they left out an oil squirt hole in the rod to lubricate the lower cylinder wall and piston skirt.

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Re: Exploding Pinto is a Myth...Pinto Fires, NOT!
« Reply #28 on: March 22, 2013, 11:47:11 AM »
Since this may or may not be the correct thread, or category , I'll let you the moderaors, and or viewers decide..
First, many of you live in the Ethanol belt of the US (Read: Corn producers) and to you I say : Rethink your rationale for oxygenated Fuel!
There are over 40 blends of Re-Formulated gasoline out there in the marketplace. If you are driving a car made before 2001, look out! If you are driving a Pinto, then you definitely Read this!
 Ethanol blends are degrading any fuel line made of NBR that has no liner built into the hose. This would be any hose with SAE J30 R7 markings. My 1984 GTI began leaking immediately after the first blends of MTBE came out in the early 90's. I replaced every line made of rubber and still had issues with vapor buildup in the garage and near the fuel filler. Now we've been on the ethanol bandwagon for over 7 years now, and it has shown that even a Lined SAE 30 R9 hose eventually soften & leak at  hose barb fittings. My 2001 Dodge Dakota has had the evap canister lines to the Frame ( rubber hose) degrade enough to throw a fault code on the OBD system. twice!
In California, we switch fuel blends every Summer and Winter, every time this happens, the older lines swell up differently, and the clamp lose the grip and leaks ensue. This is now complicated by the EPA trying to get Congress to go along with 15% Ethanol or higher in some states, instead of 10% as we now have in CA. Write your congress and Senate member and stop this fraud, and ultimately war on Carbureted engines and even newer vehicles built since 1985.
 For now , Consider the newest product to save your Cherished ride. Gates "Barricade" fuel line is the newest fuel line that meets the coming standards for Fuel vapor "permeation" and resultant leak consequences for using ethanol fuels. Don't let this issue go into the Procrastinatio n file in your mind, DO it now ! Before the season is underway. Don't become a CarB Que!
 If someone drives By a Burning Pinto by the roadside, will they think "I guess the media was right!" ?
 Don't reinforce the myth, get crackin and fix it now!
 
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Yes, it is possible to study and become a master of Pintosophy.. Not a religion , nothing less than a life quest for non conformity and rational thought. What Horse did you ride in on?

Check my Pinto Poems out...

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« Reply #29 on: June 04, 2013, 03:57:31 PM »
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130604/AUTO0101/306040046/1148/rss25
 
At least 51 people have died in fires as a result of rear end collisions in 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokees and the 2002-2007 Jeep Libertys.

Chrysler refuses to recall the vehicles.
 
Mike