 Ok, so why am I crawling around under a 12 year old Honda? Two reasons, one my missus won't let me crawl around under her car and I'm trying to locate my petrol tank for the purposes of this week's scandal video. There it is, my car has a hybrid so around here is the battery pack and that takes up some space. As such my car does have a rather small petrol tank. Anyways, design around this part of the car are pretty vital in the case of a rear end collision because you don't want an explosion, like one infamous model of the 1970s. Whilst I'm here just look at how unrusty this exhaust is, amazing considering its lived most of its life ungaraged in the salt world known as the UK. My mum's Astra is a similar age and is on its third back box. Ok, well enough of me talking about irrelevant stuff about my car, today's video will be about the Ford Pinto and its association with notoriety of having an exploding fuel tank. This scandal would work its way into popular culture, even becoming the butt of many a joke. But the story probably isn't as clear as you may think. Part 1, the little carefree car. So our story begins during a period in the US car market of what you would call a shake up. Small sized import cars had been making inroads throughout the 1960s. They offered cheap economical motoring. With the likes of Toyota and its Corolla, Datsun with its 510 and the big one the VW Beetle. Other manufacturers would flood in later on in the beginning of the 1970s with Honda and its in my eyes gorgeous first generation Civic. Domestic manufacturers started augmenting their land yacht fleets with smaller cheaper to run models. Amongst the US car makers that attempted to fight the influx of foreign cars was Ford. Their plan was to draw upon its worldwide operations and release a European model in the US market. This birthed the Ford Cortina, a captive import of the same named UK vehicle. By the late 1960s Ford set out to build from scratch a new subcompact vehicle for the US market. This was an industry-wide trend with AMC and Chevrolet also penning new subcompact designs around the same time. Planning began on Ford's new offering in 1967 of which his design was approved by Ford's Board of Directors in January 1969. Named to the Pinto, the car would be targeted at a sub-$2,000 price point, wishing today's money is about a mid-slash-top-range Dacia-Sandero stepway. The car, as requested by Ford's vice president at the time, Lee Iococca would have a weight below a tonne and on top of that would have to come to market pretty quickly. As a side note, Iococca would become president of Ford in 1970. As such, the development cycle was rather short at the time for 25 months. The car's quick development was achieved by setting the design and sticking to it early on, thus allowing bodywork machining tools to be going into production whilst the interior was still in its planning stages. The car's structural integrity was from its unibody design. The car would come over its life in a number of different body styles, including a two-door saloon, a two-door hatchback and a two-door station wagon. Although when initially entering the market on the 11th of September 1970, it was only offered as the two-door saloon. It was marketed as the little carefree car, but I have gotten a little ahead of myself. We need to look at the car's fuel system. Part 2. Somewhere to put a tank. So the late 1960s would be a strange time to develop a new car in the USA. A new set of regulations would come out on the 1st of March 1967 and this was called the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. They would cover a variety of design requirements, including front-end crash-worthiness. A couple of years later in 1969 proposed testing would next focus on rear-end collisions. All good so far, eh? Well yes and no. Yes for the public, but no for the manufacturers. Especially when you're in the middle of a car's development cycle. This was the case for the Pinto. As a rear-end collision test would require changes to the car's design. The proposed test involved a 20 mile an hour moving barrier collision. This thawed thought they could achieve. The car's petrol tank was placed in the generally industry standard behind the bumper and in front of the rear axle. That rear bumper wasn't really designed to stop any significant impact. And to add insult to injury, the rear of the car was also meant to crumple in a collision. This essentially put the tank between the solid front end of another car and the solid axle of the Pinto in the case of a rear-end collision. There was also 4 bolts on the differential case on the rear axle which were very likely to puncture the tank. So imagine this coke can is the tank. Then imagine the floor is the axle. This piece of paper is the Pinto's rear bumper and my size 11 boot is the car impacting from the rear. So hopefully my very scientifically accurate demonstration shows the issues the tank had. But wait, there is a little bit more. You see internal four crash tests discovered a few more issues apart from the obvious albeit industry standard tank placement. The fuel tank ruptured in all tests above 25 miles an hour. Emptying the tank of fuel in some cases as little as a minute. They also found that the fuel filipipe would detach from the thin metal fuel tank, helping create that quick spillage time. Engineers at Ford set about trying to rectify the issue. There was a few options to pursue. How about moving the tank to above the axle? Not a bad idea. That was the setup in the Capri after all. But sadly this relatively easy redesign wouldn't work on the hatchback and station wagon. And due to the tooling already being made, a serious change in the car's body shell would not go down well for Ford Management's career trajectory. Iacocca had set out a strict turnaround time for the Pinto as well as its cost and weight limits. There was a couple of other options open to the engineers. There was an internal fuel tank bladder. It wasn't to be again as it would add cost. Then there was the idea to install extra reinforcement to protect the filipipe. But again weight and cost restraints shot that one down. Finally there was also a small $1 piece of plastic that could be placed between the tank and the differential. And this could stop the bolts puncturing the tank. Great, but to no surprise to anyone, it wasn't implemented again due to weight and cost concerns. The cost to improve the car in a rear crash was estimated to be around $11. But why spend out if you don't have to? Especially when the car's production line was already being set up. 3. Pinto leaves you without warm feeling So we are back to 1970 and the Pinto is released for the 1971 lineup of Ford vehicles. Their import-busting car has a rather attractive entry price of $1850, undercutting one of Ford's domestic rivals, the Chevrolet Vega. The car's first year sold over 350,000 units. After the lineup expanded to include the hatch a year later, sales jumped to 480,000 units in 1972. The lineup welcomed Ford's first four-door station wagon in a decade. 1974 would be the car's best year selling, with over 500,000 units rolling off of Ford Forecourt. One of the cars many advertising tag lines was, the Pinto leaves you without warm feeling, while I'm sure the marketing department wouldn't realise how fitting a line that would be. Sadly, with so many Pintos on the road, some would crash, and some of these would be from rear-end collisions, and some of these some would be causing a fire, and thus some people would die. Quickly, these incidents would garner legal cases, as it was noticed that the Pintos seemed to be a little bit flamey when hit from the rear. The NHTSA would also take notice and start considering launching an investigation. But out of all the crashes, one in May 1972 would result in the car's dodgy design being laid bare for the public to see in a landmark lawsuit. Lily Gray is driving her Ford Pinto. She has a 13-year-old passenger, Richard Grimshaw. As the car begins to merge on a Californian highway, the relatively new car's transmission conks out. Soon enough, the car grinds to a halt. The sudden stop resulted in the Gray's Pinto being rear-ended at a speed of 30mph. The petrol tank became ruptured, and began leaking fuel onto the floor, and vapours into the cabin. The car burst into flames. Gray would die in hospital a few hours later of her burns, but Grimshaw would survive, but it would require many years of surgeries. This would eventually lead to two court cases in 1977, but we'll have to pause that and come back to that in a little bit. So by 1974, the Centre for Auto Safety was very much aware of the issue with the Pinto, as well as other subcompact cars going up in flames when hit from behind. The consumer, advocacy, non-profit group petitioned the NHTSA to investigate and order a recall for the Pinto. But they thought that no recall was required, likely due to industry pressure. Around the same time, Ford was aware of the Pinto's ever-growing explosive reputation, and they internally developed a cost-to-benefit analysis in 1973. Although it was not meant for eyes outside of the industry, it would eventually be outed for the public to see. It would balance off the cost of modifying Pinto's to not explode upon rear impact against the cost to society of a victim being burnt alive. Long story short, this memo analysis showed that it would be cheaper to not modify Ford's fleet, but it's not as black and white as it seems. The analysis found that fuel system modifications to reduce fire risks in rollover events to be $11 per car across 12.5 million cars and light trucks across all manufacturers. This would be a total of $137 million. The design changes could save up to 180 burn deaths and 180 serious injuries per year, bringing a benefit to society of $49.5 million. This resulted in an $87.5 million saving to not do anything. But remember this was across all manufacturers and society as a whole, but it still gave Ford the incentive to not bother to change anything. Part 4 Pinto Madness So remember when I said that I'll come back to that 1972 crash of Lily Gray's Pinto? Well, a lawsuit was brewing, both from the Gray's family and the Grimshaw family, that was the 13 year old passenger. Well by 1976 Richard Grimshaw had gone through four years of horrific pain due to his total body burns. Two cases would be brought against Ford, with the main being Grimshaw vs Ford. During preparation for the court case, that cost of benefit analysis memo came back to light. It had actually been sent to the Department of Transport a few years earlier when Ford was fighting increased rear crash protection, as a form of proof that fiery death wasn't a big issue. So with all this information coming to the public realm, Mother Jones magazine received the infamous cost of benefit memo. Mark Dowey set about penning his investigative article named Pinto Madness. The article would go on to shock the public as it presented Ford as cold and calculating with the lives of its customers. I mean it wasn't wrong, but the way the memo was presented in the article was a little bit inflammatory, by misconstruing the numbers to mean Ford only vehicles and the NHTSA provided numbers for cost to society as a Ford generated number. It also didn't go too deep into the fact that fuel tank location, although Ford was used rather a lot across the board in US subcompact car manufacturing. However, although Ford, the Mother Jones article exposed Ford for knowingly selling a faulty product. By the time the magazine had been published, Ford was actually making adjustments to its Pinto's design, albeit seven years a bit too late. A day after the Mother Jones article was released, the author held a press conference. Around the same time, the Centre for Autosafety resubmitted their petition to the NHTSA. With the public's interest focused on the NHTSA, a new investigation was embarked upon on 11th August 1977. This time around, the investigation would be a lot more critical for Ford, and by June the next year, a voluntary recall was negotiated. And Ford called back their vehicles just a few days before the NHTSA was planning to order a compulsory recall. This resulted in 1.5 million Pinto's and Mercury Bobcats being recalled for remedial work. But, all whilst this was undergoing, Ford was still answering multiple lawsuits, most notably that Grim showcase. Well, it would be initially decided in February 1978 for a record setting $125 million in punitive damages and $2.8 million in compensatory damages. The judge reduced the jury's punitive damages award to $3.5 million, but this was still a lot of money for 1978. The result was affirmed as appeals court in 1981. So the whole scandal was a bit of a mix back. Ford was rushing the Pinto to market, but it wasn't really a radical design. As such, it inherited all the downfalls of a full size car, but with the small crush zones of a subcompact. Officially, 27 deaths are linked to the Pinto fires. Many more were severely wounded. The number of fatalities is likely conservative due to the way road traffic accident deaths were reported. However, it is unlikely to be as high as the Mother Jones article speculated at between 500 and 900 burn deaths. The scandal also resulted in Ford's rivals to rethink their subcompact designs, showing that the problems weren't solely a Ford issue, but an industry-wide one. However, where Ford suffered was in its public image, especially with that controversial memo. Car designs did evolve thankfully. As well, they had to, especially when your feet could be held to the fire in a very expensive lawsuit. The last Pinto would roll off the production in 1980 to be replaced by a more modern front-wheel drive transverse engine design. The Pinto went down in history not only as a dangerous car, but also just a rubbish one, much like in my mind to the UK's Rover 100 or Metro. So that's my video on the Ford Pinto. To go along with the videos, I have designed this sticker that will be up on my bank camp stores. This is a plain difficult production. All videos on the channel are Creative Commons attribution share like licensed. Plain difficult videos are produced by me, John, in the currently bit miserable, windy and wet corner of southern London, UK. I have Patrons and YouTube members, so thank you very much for your financial support. And I also have a second YouTube channel called Made by John and an Instagram and X or Twitter or whatever the hell it's called. So check them out for extra random odds and solves of things that I do. All that's left to say is MrMusicPlayers out please and thank you for watching.