C'mon, we all need a Pinto, right?

I absolutely hated Pinto cars. They were nothing special at all. Every Pinto I ever drove or rode in had the same issues. I still remember at least three of them.

First, the door window frames were not sturdy enough, and always bent out. The result was constant wind noise at highway speed. Assuming you wanted to drive a Pinto at highway speed.

Second, the carpet would always sag in the outside corners of the passenger and driver footwell. I guess the carpet was too thin of material, so it wasn't sturdy enough to stay in place.

Third, when it rained, water would run down in that same outside corner of the passenger footwell.

A former roommate was excited about buying a Pinto because of how cheap they were. I tried to caution him about the known issues, but he ignored me and said that these were issues because other people abused their Pinto cars. Within a year his Pinto had the very same problems.
 
Can't have a Pinto thread without an exploding Pinto.



I had a 10th grade English teacher that had a Pinto catch on fire and burn up from being rear ended.

She had only been teaching for a couple years and was still single. She had went home to visit family for a weekend and had a lot of personal belongings in the car for the trip back to her apartment when she was mildly rear ended in traffic. When she pulled over her Pinto was already on fire, but just a little. She wanted to get into her Pinto and grab her personal belongings, but others cautioned her against it out of fear that the Pinto could burst into flames.

It took almost 10 minutes before the fire really got big and started burning the entire Pinto, so she could have easily gotten her belongings out of it. But how do you know these things?
 
I was born in 1971 and two cars remember family having in the 1970’s were an AMC battle ship grey hornet and a mustard yellow with black interior Ford Pinto... seeing all the safety improvements of today makes me reflect on the summer of 1979.... The Muppet Movie came out and all my friends wanted to go see it... so my loving responsible mom said I will take everyone.., The Pinto’s back seat can fold down so you all can fit... ten minutes later there were at least 8 of us piled in the Ford Pinto driving up the boulevard to GCC Northeast movie theatre jn Philadelphia Pa. Looking back on that awesomely fun day, often say a prayer of thanks that kind one hit us from behind and whatever tires were in the vehicle stood up to the weight of all of us packed inside. Ignorance without a major accident thankfully kept that day in fond rememberance.
 
Back
Top