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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.

ranger roller cams

Started by lostandfound, January 12, 2006, 12:53:05 AM

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Tude

not to sure the exact year tht they started doing the roller cams in the 4cyls but i know that a 88 ranger 2.3 has it

also i know that in 85 or 86 they started putting roller cams into small block ford v8s (in the fullsize cars like grand marquis, lincoln, ltd, and crown vics) and it is almost imposible to kill one i ran one in 10 or 11 demoes much less around the farm playing the motor lasted for 2 cars and 4 years then i pulled it and put it in my 74 f100 and then a week later the tranny went out. the motor is so loose it isnt funny i didnt put new bearings or rings into it becouse i didnt want to see how bad it was LOL
custom fit hammered and bent


fast34

I have tried one, the ford motorsports multi-doweled one.  Made little or no difference..  I do have a question for you all.  The book says to set initial timing @ 20 degrees BTDC, at least for my automatic.  When I do this, it pre-detentes, (pings), under light accel.  I have checked and made sure the vacuum hose was on the correct carb. port, made sure the centrifugal advance was working right, everything I think is right but it still does this.  I have gone to setting timing @ 16 BTDC with no vacuum advance and it runs pretty good, but I know it would have better part-throttle power with the vacuum hooked up.  Anyone had this problem??  Even running higher grade gas made no difference, except to my wallet!!!  Does the Ranger cam need a different timing set-up to run right?  Is there a way to limit the amount of advance the vacuum diaphragm gives??  I know the older Ford v-8s (like the 390) had a screw inside where the hose connects, that could be adjusted with an Allen wrench.. Any thoughts???

turbopinto72

Hey Fast, try an adjustable cam pully.
Brad F
1972, 2.5 Turbo Pinto
1972, Pangra
1973, Pangra
1971, 289 Pinto

fast34

I have one in the new 2300 I built for my car.  I have noticed no power gains but maybe alittle better low end torque  They work with stock Pinto lifters also.  I would rather have a performance non-roller than this stock ranger one.  Best thinf about them wear wise, is that they are billet. 

Pintony


wagonmaster

Also, we comrades that live in the Peoples Republik of California and have to maintain the government mandated smog systems, adding the roller cams makes sense. Anything that can be done to reduce friction in the engine that would free up any horsepower is always welcome! The engine may not always produce MORE horsepower, but it's using LESS horsepower to operate and overcome the friction in the valve train with a roller cam!
Brien - wagonmaster
'85 LTD LX
'85 LTD Squire wagon

turbopinto72

I have ran both the Ranger roller and an Esslinger Roller in my cars. The Ranger roller worked well on my stock 84 SVO motor. Actually, It was not the cam that failed but a rod out the side of the block. My Esslinger Roller is a 585 lift X 234 dur. at .050. That cam worked ( is working ) well but I could most certianly use about 600 lift X 260 dur. roller. AnyHow, Of the guys I hang with they would say most any roller on a turbo car is a good thing.
Brad F
1972, 2.5 Turbo Pinto
1972, Pangra
1973, Pangra
1971, 289 Pinto

turbo toy

The Ranger roller is a good cam.It is basically a stock cam with the same specs as a slider,but the ramps are a little different due to contact area.HP gain due to less friction  will be minimal,you will gain some HP but not enough to feel.There are lots of performance roller cams available for the 2.3,but they are expensive.If you are wanting to install it just for reliability and you can pick one up complete for a good price go for it.

lostandfound

it was pretty bad enough that i have to replace it it looks like some one ran it out of oil its pretty scored up so i thougt mabey a little less friction
1979 2.3l sedan wooohooo

lostandfound

i was just wondering about if it would work i cant find a good used slider cam bc at the junkyard they are all pretty fried so i heard about the wear or almost non on a roller cam and theres a ranger sitting there so why not i wasnt trying to get horse power
1979 2.3l sedan wooohooo

Pintony

Hey Bill,
Please elaborate on the turbo guy's not using a performance cam.
This is something I have nver heard about.
from pintony

Pintony

Quote from: 77turbopinto on January 13, 2006, 02:26:46 PM
The question is why. That's a few bucks for not much, if any, power gain. The big boost turbo guys use them to reduce friction, that's all. The cams are basicly stock n/a ones. There are good aftermarket performance ones out there to pep-up a n/a engine.

Bill
Hey Bill,
OK,
Lets say that a 2.3 is putting out 80 HP and the lower friction of the roller cam allows the engine to make 8 more HP! Thats 10% MORE!!!!!
I do not know how much more power the roller cam makes.
BUT More is MORE even if it's only 4 HP it is still 5% MORE.
5% is a heck of alot more than say... Using synthetic oil to make more power.
You guys know who you are that have tried it!!!!! ;D
I would take a roller cam over a slider any day.
The roller cam is like ZERO wear ZERO wories>>>>>
From Pintony

77turbopinto

The question is why. That's a few bucks for not much, if any, power gain. The big boost turbo guys use them to reduce friction, that's all. The cams are basicly stock n/a ones. There are good aftermarket performance ones out there to pep-up a n/a engine.

Bill
Thanks to all U.S. Military members past & present.

turbo toy

Not all Rangers hhave roller cams,I have one from a 91.You will need the cam,roller followers and lifters.It will fit all 2.3 heads.

lostandfound

hello i have been reading on ranger roller cams on this site but it is a little fuzzy i have a 79 2.3 that is torn apart right now so i was browsing the junkyard and found a ranger do  all rangers have roller cams?? and can i put on in on my 2.3 head with the roller lifters and ect. or do i need to do any modifycations??


Lostandfound
1979 2.3l sedan wooohooo