• Ford Pinto

The Ford Pinto was an American compact car that was manufactured by the Ford Motor Company from 1970 to 1980.

The reason for the development of the Pinto was that Ford wanted to offer an alternative to the increasingly successful import small cars. Was particularly successful in those years the Volkswagen Beetle, but also the sales of Japanese manufacturers increased from year to year. Almost simultaneously with the Pinto came other American manufacturers with the Chevrolet Vega and AMC Gremlin on the market, aimed at the customer base for the compact car. The Pinto was slightly changed also offered as Mercury Bobcat. Thus, the Pinto could be offered as cheaply as possible, he had to be produced at low cost. The Pinto was the first American Ford in decades, a four cylinder engine. This engine was also used in Europe and is known as Pinto engine or OHC engine known.

During its construction, it was the correct model is a scandal when it was discovered that the rear of the vehicle was designed so that rear-end collisions in the gas tank could be easily damaged. By pouring gasoline the risk of fires in accidents increased significantly. There were several fires, which ended fatally for some vehicle occupants. In the course of investigations internal written reports were known by which you look at this Ford Vulnerability was aware, but did not want to bear the cost of a design change. Instead, the attitude was unofficially represented that it would be more cost effective to take deaths possible lawsuits in buying and to pay appropriate compensation. The knowledge related that after Ford’s business ethos lives were rated lower than sales revenue, led to lawsuits and processes which, however, remained inconclusive. In 2002, there was a similar problem for the Ford Crown Victoria in the construction of the tank.

The design of the car was designed so that the rear tank was virtually unprotected and consequently repeatedly came up in rear-end collisions in flames and exploded. Some other points of the design, which Ford was aware, were criticized. The money to fix these errors, Ford did not want to spend though. This example is provided for illustrative of the problems business ethics. Was not until after at least 60 people died and over 120 injured were, the Pinto was eventually taken off the market.

The Pinto engine is a common mainly in the English language term for a four-cylinder petrol engine was used in many cars, the Ford Motor Company and is named after the Ford Pinto, for which it was originally developed, named. In Europe, it was built in 1970 for the first time in the Mk.3 Ford Cortina and replaced the Ford Essex V4 engine. At Ford the Pinto engine was the official name of OHC (overhead camshaft).

In the films Fight Club and Top Secret!, In the episode “The magic bullet” of the TV series Married with Children, and the episode “limbo” of the series Sex and the City can be found allusions to the scandal over leaking fuel after rear-end collisions. Also in the novel “GAS or the trilogy of Stadtwerke” by Matt Ruff an exploding by a rear-end collision Pinto is discussed. In the movie The law of power is about a class action lawsuit against a car manufacturer, the Costs for the compensation of accident victims einsch嵺te lower than the correction of leading to the accident faulty design of the electrical system.

In South American markets the name Ford Pinto drew the ridicule of it, as is there Pinto depending on the context for smarter Bandit coward drunk and vulgar language for penis.