Hi guys,
New to the forum and to Pintos. My son turns 16 in September and so we recently started looking for a unique, inexpensive car that we could work on together to get ready for his 16th birthday. He really wanted a 70's or 80's hatchback or wagon. His first choice was a mid 80's Toyota Corrola GT-S hatchback, aka AE86. Besides the fact that a decent one was way out of our price range, a new to driving 16 year old should NEVER get a RWD, stickshift "sports car" as there first car! The search moved to other cars such as a Chevette, Gremlin, Pacer (he wanted one bad but could not find an affordable decent one), Omni, Relient/Aries wagon, Pinto, other old Toyota's and Datsuns. After a long search of local cars (up to 2 hour drive) and finding nothing but over prived rust buckets we began looking on ebay where we stumbled upon this....
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1978-Ford-Pinto-Wagon-Original-Stock-Survivor-/300880692849?ViewItem=&item=300880692849&forcev4exp=trueNeedless to say I was the high bidder. I still can't believe I bought a car in California that I had never seen in person. Then I still had to ship it cross country here to Florida! Anyway, it arrived Friday and it looks better in person. There is some surface rust at the battery and I have found 2 very small rust bubbles starting but otherwise there is no rust anywhere. If the California plates on the car are any indicator then the last time the car was on the road was in 2003.



Car will remain mostly stock with the exception of upgrading the stereo which will be done without cutting up any original parts of the car. We had planned on painting the car because of the few dents but it looks so good I am having second thoughts. I will be posting for needed parts any opinion and help in the near future as we get more into the car.
Thanks,
David