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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.

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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.

1978 Mercury Bobcat

Started by stutrac, August 20, 2011, 09:27:43 AM

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JoeBob

If you don't buy it, tell us where it's at.
Bill
77 yellow Bobcat hatchback
Deuteronomy 7:9

bbobcat75

that car was on ebay like 8months ago very nice car in pics, all pics make cars look better, must see in person to make for sure its A++ car.   if it is a great car then i say its worth what you feel you should pay for it. My 75 bobcat is just as clean with a v6 with 38,000 miles, auto c3, factory air and p/s and p/brakes and i would not take less then 10,000 for it.

so good luck

eric
1975 mercury bobcat 2.8 auto
1975 ford pinto - drag car - 2.3l w/t5 trans - project car

dga57

Quote from: stutrac on August 21, 2011, 02:36:26 PM
that is my issue i do not want to loose money, i know my Galaxie will hold  value because or the 429 and a convertible and a XL but for me to spend $7500  or $6500 on a car and loose say $3k in 2 years i just can not afford to do that, i watch e bay auctions and i see the value or certain cars in the dumps,i saw a restored Pinto Wagon  go for $2800  in the same shape as the Bobcat it was located in Ca, i can not throw money way, that is why i am undecided on a Pinto or a Ranchero as my fun car,i do like the pinto as a fun old school car but it is a dollars and cents thing too,even if i offer him $6500 i just think it will be hard to get my money back, this time i want to at least get my money back.

With all due respect, and at the expense of possibly sounding like a jerk, if you're concerned about not ever losing any money I would advise you to forget cars and find a new hobby.  In today's economy there are no certainties... not even real estate or gold.  Values are all over the place and the market is too unstable to predict.  Forget eBay and check collector car auctions instead, and you'll see what I mean.  I love my collectibles but they are just that; interests not investments.  If I chose to liquidate now, I would accept fifty cents on every dollar I've spent on my collection and be happy to get it.  If you truly love the Bobcat, make the seller an offer... if not, leave it for someone who will love it.  Sorry if this sounds harsh, it's just reality.  Now, with all that said, that is one sharp Bobcat!!!
Dwayne :smile:
Pinto Car Club of America - Serving the Ford Pinto enthusiast since 1999.

sedandelivery

That is the nicest Bobcat I have seen since they were new!

dave1987

I don't think he was exaggerating when he said it was super clean! X_X
1978 Ford Pinto Sedan - Family owned since new

Remembering Jeff Fitcher with every drive in my 78 Sedan.

I am a Pinto Surgeon. Fixing problems and giving Pintos a chance to live again is more than a hobby, it's a passion!

blink77


stutrac

that is my issue i do not want to loose money, i know my Galaxie will hold  value because or the 429 and a convertible and a XL but for me to spend $7500  or $6500 on a car and loose say $3k in 2 years i just can not afford to do that, i watch e bay auctions and i see the value or certain cars in the dumps,i saw a restored Pinto Wagon  go for $2800  in the same shape as the Bobcat it was located in Ca, i can not throw money way, that is why i am undecided on a Pinto or a Ranchero as my fun car,i do like the pinto as a fun old school car but it is a dollars and cents thing too,even if i offer him $6500 i just think it will be hard to get my money back, this time i want to at least get my money back.
1971 Pinto

r4pinto

Quote from: stutrac on August 21, 2011, 01:20:54 PM
all i could say it is super clean, it is a hatchback the big issue i have is resale down the road will i ever get my money back??? if i buy the car i will have $7500 into car, i will offer him $7500, i think anything over that, i would by a Ranchero that i know i could get parts for and will hold the value a little bit more then a Bobcat

If you want a car you can buy & hold its value so you can get back what you paid for it then don't buy a Pinto or Bobcat. The cars are popular but that is an issue people have with them. Taking a loss if sold. As for the pic you can edit it with microsoft paint to shrink it down. Either that or post the pics on a site like photo bucket or other picture site & put the link on here. I know you say its clean but without pics nobody can tell you exactly one way or the other. You may say it is clean but to be honest my opinion of a clean car is probably different than your opinion of a clean car.. The same is true of other members on here.
Matt Manter
1977 Pinto sedan- Named Harold II after the first Pinto(Harold) owned by my mom. R.I.P mom- 1980 parts provider & money machine for anything that won't fit the 80
1980 Pinto Runabout- work in progress

stutrac

i am unable to post pics it says file to large,but any way is is clean
1971 Pinto

stutrac

all i could say it is super clean, it is a hatchback the big issue i have is resale down the road will i ever get my money back??? if i buy the car i will have $7500 into car, i will offer him $7500, i think anything over that, i would by a Ranchero that i know i could get parts for and will hold the value a little bit more then a Bobcat
1971 Pinto

phils toys

in carlisle this year there were 2 bobcat wagons  both were priced around $5000 oone was rough on the out side but nice inside  the other was good over all but i dont think eather sold. without pic i think $8000 is high but the mileage is very low with will add to the price  some. dont forget the odomiters rolled over at 100,000. right now  my maverick says 178 miles
hatch  or wagon( villiger )   can affect the price as well
2006, 07,08 ,10 Carlisle 3rd stock pinto 4 years same place
2007 PCCA East Regional Best Wagon
2008 CAHS Prom Coolest Ride
2011,2014 pinto stampede

meandmymercs

Wow to me that seems way over priced..  I just recently bought a 77 bobcat  4spd from the original owner with 65,000, its a rust free and in perfecct  condition except the worn bucket seats.. i only paid  $750.00 , and its a runner. waxed the car and it looks great. me and the wife have been enjoying it a LOT already.. this was luck finding this one.. good luck wiht your search.. we wanted a pinto but well i am addicted to old mercs.  later David
77 merc bobcat
70 merc cyclone gt
61 merc meteor 800
64 merc comet caliente

r4pinto

It sounds like a good car, especially being 8 out of 10 but I noticed you said it has am/fm radio which more than likely not be original. Most of the cars only had am radio, so it sounds like that was changed but that isn't a big deal. Pintos & Bobcats in that kind of shape are not a dime a dosen, as most were used & abosed, as they were built as throw away cars.

Anyways, it could be work 8k but the question is of course is... Is it worth it to you for 8k?
Matt Manter
1977 Pinto sedan- Named Harold II after the first Pinto(Harold) owned by my mom. R.I.P mom- 1980 parts provider & money machine for anything that won't fit the 80
1980 Pinto Runabout- work in progress

stutrac

on a scale of 1-10 10 being perfect i say the car is a 8
1971 Pinto

stutrac

car is all orig rally rims factory paint no A/C ,auto,am+fm radio,no rust, stock inside,27k miles,no dash cracks,no P/S
1971 Pinto

r4pinto

Does it have any rust? how is the interior & exterior? Original or modded? What options? How low mileage? What options does it have?

With what you said it is hard to know whether or not 8k is too high. The bobcats were rare to begin with, only being made from 1975 to 1980 so it is possible depending on the overall condition that 8k is right on the money.
Matt Manter
1977 Pinto sedan- Named Harold II after the first Pinto(Harold) owned by my mom. R.I.P mom- 1980 parts provider & money machine for anything that won't fit the 80
1980 Pinto Runabout- work in progress

stutrac

what is the going price for a super clean car low milage, i saw one i have a interest but i think the price seems a little high, asking price was $8k way over priced i think any input?
1971 Pinto