For those who don’t know about the Pinto:
In 1978, Ford recalled 1.5 million Pintos because the fuel tank was prone to rupturing in rear-end collisions at speeds of 20 mph or higher. This was the largest recall in automotive history at the time.
this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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Top Secret (1984) made fun of Ford Pinto
As a European who knew nothing about Ford Pinto, I thought they made fun of how cars always explode in movies.
Honestly curious as to why someone downvoted this?
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To be more specific, the fuel tank was placed between the rear bumper and rear differential. In a rear end collision, the tank would get sandwiched by the bumper and differential, which had bolts protruding out the back and would pierce the tank, spilling fuel onto the road.
Additionally, rear end collisions would bend the frame in a way that jammed the doors so you couldnt get out.
They figured that people would die and their cost benefit analysis assumed a certain number of deaths and lawsuits. The resulting recall and larger than expected number of deaths and lawsuits made it a huge loss for them.
Wherever I'm going, I'll be there to apply the formula. I'll keep the secret intact.
It's simple arithmetic.
It's a story problem.
If a new car built by my company leaves Chicago traveling west at 60 miles per hour, and the rear differential locks up, and the car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside, does my company initiate a recall?
You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiple it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C).
A times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a recall.
If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt.
If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall.
Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
That design is even worse than I realized. It’s fucked that didn’t put them out of business honestly
That's only half the story and not really the part that makes it so significant. The recall was only done after a report sent to NHTSA was released to the public detailing the cost benefit analysis that safer fuel systems was considered more expensive to society than just allowing some people to die due to less safe cars and therefore the car industry shouldn't have to meet the safety standards the NHTSA was proposing. This was a landmark moment in legal ethics and while it was pretty standard stuff in the corporate and regulatory world of the time (and today) and the dollar values assigned to human lives were based on NHTSAs own figures, not Fords it enraged enough people and a recall was done.
"Tort Museum"
Only in America
And the Pinto is actually cool looking.
Never forget that Chrysler did the exact same thing with the Grand Cherokee that resulted in deaths and never faced accountability.
"Top Secret " Love this movie!
Agree to disagree. I really hate this era of cars. Take a hot hatch, but make it as ugly as you can. Then make it as heavy as possible and slap an 80bhp iron block in there, that way you have the worst of both worlds in both power and fuel economy. But just for good measure, also give it a 3 speed transmission with no overdrive as one last final fuck you, just to make that the car is as slow—and gas mileage is as terrible as allowed by the laws of physics.
The 70s was by far the worst era for cars, especially American cars.
Whaaaaaaat??? 70s cars are beautiful!
Even if I were to agree with you, the beauty of a 70s car is only skin-deep, given everything else that is wrong with them that I already mentioned in my previous comment.
Yeah, your laughably untrue comment that is pulling facts from some cheap economy cars in an attempt to generalize an entire era. lol
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Early 70's was ok. 75-80? Atrocious
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fucking thank you. So many people have disagreed with me over the years. its even more baby mustang than the mustang 2. Like its the third child thats not trying to act tough like the second child, or all muscle no brains like the first child.
If I could get one even in shit condition I'd want to rebuild it as an electric. I'd totally take a mustang 2 if I could get one too though.
Hell yeah. It would be so cool to find one and rebuild it.
I didn't have Ford Pinto vs Cybertruck on my Battle of Vehicles bingo card.
Okay but I kinda need to know what is on that card set
VW Vanbus stronk.
Reading this I heard a pakled
No problem. steal $400 million from the taxpayers, clear the inventory - problem solved.
All caps doesn't make your post more interesting. Just annoying.
The title of the article is in all caps. I copied and pasted it into the post field.
HOW WOULD WE KNOW THAT FORD USE TO MAKE BEANS?
The cool thing is when you set records. Being the most anything is awesome.
It’s sarcasm, leave me alone.
If I had a nickel for every time a car company owned by a nazi sympathizer who wants to found his own exploitive company town made an infamously fiery car that you can hear rusting, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
Not saying Ford wasn't an exploitative nazi sympathizer, he was. But can't leave the Dodge brothers out of some of the blame while you're handing it out. They're the whole reason companies have to put shareholders first, after they sued Ford for trying to invest dividends back into the company and employee wages.
Ten times faster to rust out on ya too lol
this again? They didn't even read their own reference for the fire stats...
With its decade-long production run, the NHTSA reported that the Ford Pinto and its famously flawed gas tank behind the rear bumper caused 27 fiery deaths with its knowingly negligent design. https://www.autosafety.org/wp-content/uploads/import/ODIPinto.pdf
Cherrypicking galore:
- They literally took 27 which is the fire deaths from rear-ending only (vs 41 fire fatalities from a 2.5 year period instead of the 9 years they mention
- They conveniently did not use the 1,626 pinto fatalities from those 2.5 years.
- They used the total number of pintos produced, not the number of pintos on the roads at the end of the analysis, which would be less than 2.2M.
At least they did get your clicks.
This 'news article' from OP is just some dudes one-man show blog, and looking through a few articles they seem to dislike all EVs not just Teslas. Absolutely garbage source, I'm not surprised you found errors.
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My childhood car was a Pinto. I was very grateful it never blew up when I read about the issues many years later.
The majority of them had a recall to fix the lack of armor on the gas tank.
Wasn't that just some PVC pannels zip-tied behind the tank?
it fixed the problem
Most of them had some rust issues and it was easy to replace the tank with a much better one anyways
I knew a girl in highschool who had one. Her dad had customized the shit out of it.... put a V8 in the hatchback trunk ... that think was a fucking rocket
It had nice lines. Must’ve been nice whipping that around while I was looking for a place to dock my Cutlass Supreme. Lol
Glad you didn’t blow up.
Who would have guessed the armored tesla trucks have armor to protect whatever is outside of the tesla
What about the Crown Victoria?
Most likely to be late because everyone assumes you're a cop? I don't think the cyber dumpster is there yet.
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