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
720 points (92.3% liked)
News
27567 readers
4614 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
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?
load more comments
(2 replies)
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.
Early 70's was ok. 75-80? Atrocious
I'll be honest, I like the aesthetics, but yeah modern materials and gas mileage would be nice. Seatbelts too.
Seeing a modern vehicle after a crash and how the person is doing its incredible how much crash safety has improved. I've seen vehicles that barely look like vehicles and the person walked away shaken but largely uninjured
load more comments
(2 replies)
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.
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
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.
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?
How much of that is down to the electronic door locks keeping people from escaping?
New existential fear unlocked!
Thanks, dude.
Who would have guessed the armored tesla trucks have armor to protect whatever is outside of the tesla
view more: next ›