These cars actually seem pretty darn tough to track down. So many have gone to the crusher...
I remember seeing a Pinto once when I was younger (I'm 25), the only one I've ever seen up close is the one I own. I see classic vintage Mustangs all the time, and they are the norm. Kinda' ironic. ;D
Don't see many of them at all in this neck of the woods. I figured that the Dallas TX metroplex is huge, and being that we have saltless roads, there'd be quite a few Pintos to choose from when I started looking.
...I was wrong....
They ARE here, but they are out in the country (outlying areas) where folks have the room to park them. The biggest detriment to the cars here is the sun - it really rips up interiors, dries all the rubber out, and fades paint big time.
Chris
I've seen 1 since I bought mine maybe 10 months ago. Although before that I had no idea what one looked like.... I digress. I think people are finally thinking that they are classics. Im sure there are plenty out there because it seems just about anyone who was alive during the 70s had or knows someone who had one. A member has 2 in the same city as me (unless he sold them) but I've yet to see them.
out here they arent all that rare, just finding parts can be a pain in the arse. There is a girl that works for Checker auto parts out here that drive a full glass back 73-74. her father has about 15 restored pinto's and 4 or 5 parts cars so ya its nice to know people are bringing the pinto's bobcats back.
Here in Idaho they seem to be fairly rare. I know of a house along Franklin road that an orange and white stripe runabout sits at, and I see it now and then. I see a Pinto driving down the same road as me at least once, maybe twice a month. So I would say they are pretty rare around here.
The only yards that have them here ask an arm and a leg for parts off them, and I don't visit those yards often, if at all. Finding parts is hard for me over here in the west. :(
I find the question very interesting. Seems to me that I heard there were 4500 members to "fordpinto.com". Also I saw something about there being 217,763 or so pinto built in 1973 alone.
If only half of the pinto that exist belonged to "fordpinto" the amount would be 9000, round it for comfort and you got 10,000 (or so) pinto's are still here today.
With 200,000 plus built in 73 alone, this math doesn't work out very good. Kind of makes you think that there are alot of "Pinto's" that aren't registered (to this club)
Are they rare, I'd think most any car built thru the 70's would have rusted away by now, add to that, it was the "err" of bad steal, cheaply built cars and etc. and the answer is probably yes.
Then again, "Webster" gives two definitions to the same spelling. In one, "rare" is "under cooked" So, if the gas tank DIDN'T blow, I'd guess its "RARE" (ha ha)
Thanks,,,,,,,Jim at jimspinto
I think that a disproportionate amount got sent to the junkyard then because they got hammered by depreciating to nothing, being considered a cut-corner car with exploding gas tank. In the past few years the racers wanting spindles and the high price of scrap iron, thinned the rest of the Pintos out of the hills around here.
I think that where you live has plenty to do with how rare Pinto's are. On the West coast Pinto's were very popular and many were sold here and you still see them on the streets as transportation cars. Any car that was not a collector car from the start like the Corvette will begin to disappear from the streets but as long as they keep running and parts are available they will hang on. Five year old cars in the rust states depreciate to nothing and start to be junked early on. A Pinto from the West coast can spend most of its' life outdoors with not much damage but only cars on the East coast that were garaged and not driven in the Winter will survive. There were probably as many Pinto's sold on the East coast as on the West coast but most of those East coast cars are gone so in those areas Pinto's are harder to find in good condition.
id say there still out there. but u just hafta look harder for them but the with high price of steel. i still see them going to scrap ive seen about 4 on there way to scrap this year. as i work near the scrap yard some days. i even tried to follow a truck with a crushed 73 to try to get the bumpers but it was i no go.
Quote from: Pintony on August 12, 2008, 07:04:13 PM
All the southern east coast Pintos were used up in dirt track racing!!!
And they still are. There have been two Pintos I have tried to get in the last six months, both pre 74, both near Atlanta, each for $500, and both times I got beat out by someone buying and taking them to race dirt track...
Speak of the devil, saw an orange later model runabout hatchback making a right turn 1 block from my house today. ^^
Other than my own '72 and 71Pintoracer's '71, I have not personally seen a Pinto of ANY vintage on the road in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in many, many years.
There IS a white late-model Runabout that appears to be "permanently" parked at a house about fifty miles from me. It's hard to see from the road - appears rusty and might be a Bobact - can't tell from that distance.
A '77 wagon in "top-notch condition" popped up in the Bulletin Board (a local classified ad paper) last week. First one I've ever seen in there too. A buddy of mine was going to call and check it out but I haven't heard back from him.
In THIS area, they are rare!
Dwayne :smile:
I guy I work with has a son that drives an '80 sedan, might be the one you saw Dwayne, white w/ primer in the Grottoes area although he drives it a lot.
Back in the 80's and 90's most cars on the track were pintos because the engines were so durable. The vegas and even the monzas with the iron duke couldn't stay with the pintos. The little cars were sitting everywhere and weren't worth anything. I bought many for 25, 50 bucks and never over 100, one guy gave me 3 just to get rid of them and two of them ran. Sadly for the most part we stripped them and junked the shells if they were rusty or wagons. :( (I'm sorry everyone) I have 3 left that I was going to strip and junk until I started looking around on e-bay and then joining the PCCA and seeing how popular they had become again. So the 3 I have left are safe for now! '80 sedan, '75 MPG hatch (nice solid car that might be a driver again one day) and a '71 sedan.
Nope, Jimmy - that's not the same car. The one I saw should be so lucky to have a little primer on it! Actually, it's in the opposite direction, altogether.... it's just south of Buena Vista and, since it appears that they've been mowing around it, I'm fairly confident it hasn't been driven lately. I spotted it last winter and it doesn't appear to have moved since then.
Dwayne :smile:
It is pretty much known they are rare. Other than the car shows, I have seen one on the road in the past three- four years. That is pretty rare, I have seen dozens of Ferraris by comparison, I guess I haven't seen many 1971 ferraris though, but alot more Pintos were sold in those years. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the bad publicity killed the car, but when people see one they remmber good times in them. The PCCA and Pinto owners have kind of brought the Pinto back into some peoples minds, so in a way that has brought about a resurgence of interest, which has more people looking to get and restore them. But they still remain and unless Ford reissues them, will always remain a rare car.
Basicaly,.. no.
On the whole they are not rare. Any day of the week I can do a tri state search and locate between 5-8 on craigs list alone.
However,.. they are a "special interest" car. And they have an attractive body style. Its the reason there are so many still around.
Like many other cars, there would be some limited editions that are from somewhat - extremely rare.
In my book a "rare" car has to start out that way. or be one of the few examples that remains. Some cars fall into both catergories.
History shows that we are currently in the era that is the time to horde.
What I mean is,.. many cars seem to go through cycles of desireability. I'm speculating here, but I believe the Pinto is on the "cusp" of becoming collectable.
It seems to be at the point where fine examples are starting to be worth a few bucks but the public interest isnt high enough to demand top dollar,.. so cars like mine and yours are very cheap,.. which makes them prime canidates for the shredder. (I bought my car for $75 over scrap value).
What usualy spurs the next step is people get tired of the same old thing. How many 302 mustangs can you look at before they get boring?
In the early eighties I would buy 64-67 GTO's for $600-$800 in great condition! I probably totaled 10 of them! Chevelles and Camaros commanded the street market, and most popular magazines were geared to chevrolet. At that time a 66 Chevelle was worth about $2500,.. if you saw one for $800 it was a roach.
However by 1990, that changed dramaticaly,.. the Chevelle and the Camaro continued to rise in value,.. but suddenley, so did the GTO,.. to the point where some models will even command a higher dollar than their Chevy counterpart.
To further expand on this, let me share something I heard at Hemmings once,.. "if the car was popular when it was new, it will be popular when its old,.. some just take longer than others". Popularity = Value
The pinto was definately a "popular" car if take into consideration that it was "marked " as a death trap it continued to sell to the tune of a couple million
Ok Blah Blah Blah I've gone on long enough.
Quote from: gordie on August 12, 2008, 04:57:38 PM
I think that where you live has plenty to do with how rare Pinto's are. On the West coast Pinto's were very popular and many were sold here and you still see them on the streets as transportation cars. Any car that was not a collector car from the start like the Corvette will begin to disappear from the streets but as long as they keep running and parts are available they will hang on. Five year old cars in the rust states depreciate to nothing and start to be junked early on. A Pinto from the West coast can spend most of its' life outdoors with not much damage but only cars on the East coast that were garaged and not driven in the Winter will survive. There were probably as many Pinto's sold on the East coast as on the West coast but most of those East coast cars are gone so in those areas Pinto's are harder to find in good condition.
Back when I still had the garage, I'd hired a mechanic who had gone to Calif. He'd returned after a few years, said something about never getting any experience on newer cars because everything on the road in southern Calif. was at least 10 years old, sometimes alot older then that.
I'd purchased a new Dodge truck (1997) and just scraped it because the frame rusted thru. Ran good, at over two hundred thousand, but the rust mites ate it.
Then again, someone said "If you want to live in Paradise, you gotta pay" The North East sucks weather wise, but the cost of living isn't that bad
Jim at jimspinto
No pintos are a dime a dozen bobcats are rare ! :lol:
Seriously I know of 2 other pintos in my area with in 35 miles but i have only seen 1 of them at shows. The winters around here ate them up. Scrap yards around here have not had anything like them in 10 + years. and sort of laugh when i ask about them. but just about everyone had one . I do not think mopst people think of the cars from the 70's other than muscle cars as very collectable yet , but in the last few years i have seen more showing up.
phils toys