<VV> Pinto fires, no Corvair

[Tony Underwood]

At 01:25 AM 9/6/2009, Sethracer at aol.com wrote:
>
>
>In a message dated 9/5/2009 7:19:28 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
>lechevrier at earthlink.net writes:
>
>May you  never see a fatal vehicle fire,
>
>Bill Strickland
>
>
>I hope I never do. The problem that the Pinto faced was not a  terrible
>propensity for fire, even though it might have been better 
>designed  where the
>rear axle is placed. The problem was the senior design engineer for  Ford,
>who admitted in court, that the company had done a risk benefit/cost
>comparison, where they compared the cost of redesign and retrofit 
>vs. the cost  of
>the payments that would have to be made to the families of the number of
>people who would be burned to death in the Pinto accidents. X 
>million $ vs.  X
>million. It was cheaper to let the people burn. The worst Public Relations.
>  Those are headlines that people remember about the Pinto. "Pinto and fire
>deaths" are what many people associate.  The film "Top Secret" uses the
>Pinto=fire as a great gag. I could just imagine Ford engineers cringing at
>that scene in the film. It had to hurt.
>





It's worth mentioning that as far as Pinto fires go, their ratio is 
quite low.   The Pinto was a target because it was so popular... and 
people with an axe to grind for publicity were quick to target it or 
anything else that was popular for sake of taking a shot at an icon.

That Ford business decision didn't help...


It also has SELDOM been mentioned that the same policy was applied 
not only to the Pinto but other Ford products as well which took a 
LONG time to surface... like the first-run Mustangs (64-66) which 
had/have their own fire prone issues to this day.    There was a 
recent lawsuit in the courts over a 1st run restored Mustang that was 
hit from behind, caught fire, and burned its driver to death.

Let's not forget the Crown Vic and its clones the Marquis and Towncar 
which have a similar fuel tank design that is easily ruptured and 
capable of spraying gasoline into the passenger compartment if that 
"crumple zone" construction is crumpled by a rear end'er although in 
2002 Ford did retrofit 350,000 Crown Vic platforms with upgrades to 
the tanks following the deaths of 12 police officers alone (among 
others) in Crown Vic fires up until that time.   Since then, the 
tally has risen considerably...


There were more than two million Pintos built.    Fewer than 150 were 
"officially" claimed to have involved fires from rear end'ers and 
according to some statement reports that figure was more like appx 
100.   There were, according to an initial DOT count (on the web, 
search it if you like) 52 fatalities.   Later it was determined that 
only -=*  27 *=- of these deaths (that's on the NHTSA web site as 
well) had resulted from any actual fire, and that the fatalities 
actually caused by severe rear end collision impacts which had 
secondary fires resulting from that collision were included in "fire 
as cause of death" figures used by people more interested in lawsuit 
profits than any actual "corrections" aimed at Ford.

Today, the NHTSA lists the official death toll by fire in the Ford 
Pinto automobile as...   27.


DOT responses to the "Nader's Raiders" groups spent bucks on 
"research organizations" which ended up performing crash tests on 
Pintos.   They used retired civil service Dodge C-body sedans (4100 
lb 4-door full size barges) as the impact vehicles.   The test Pinto 
vehicles were hit from behind to simulate a "typical low speed impact".


"Low speed" in this series of tests often involved speeds in excess 
of 40 mph.   The Pintos were fueled to the brim with gasoline and 
stationary and rammed from behind by the impacting vehicles which in 
some instances were fitted with "sparklers" to simulate broken arcing 
wiring to insure that the impacted vehicles would catch fire.

...sound familiar, anyone...?    (GMC pickup fiasco)


In most cases, the impacts resulted in no fires.   In fact, many 
tests had to be redone at higher and higher speeds in order to 
rupture the Pinto's tank and even then no fires resulted until 
sparklers were fitted to the bumpers of the Dodge impact vehicles.

In order to rupture the Pinto tank, the car had to be hit from behind 
at over 40 mph.   The impact would propel the stationary Pinto (with 
e-brake applied and in gear/park) over 100 feet forward and buckle 
the unibody of the car severely enough to jam the doors shut and tear 
the seats with mannequins in situ from their floor mountings and slam 
them into the buckling rear sheet metal which in all likelihood would 
have killed any human occupants outright according to 2nd party 
analysts who witnessed these "tests".

Even these test crashes usually resulted in no fires unless the 
sparklers were burning at the time of impact.   The impacts that 
actually resulted in a fire were the ones shown around to politicians 
and TV networks...  and usually edited.


Result:

"Pintos are fire traps."





Pinto production numbers... over 2,000,000.
Deaths officially attributed to fires in Pintos by the National 
Highway Traffic Safety Administration ...      27


More than 9 times as many people have died from fires in the Panther 
platform Crown Vics/Marquis   (247 although these numbers include 
fire related deaths in the "impacting vehicle" which struck the Ford)

More than 3 times as many people have died in 1st generation Mustang 
fires alone if DOT linked sources are to be believed (no figures in 
deaths by fire of the vehicles impacting Mustangs).   One source said 
that there were 105 fire deaths in 1st gen Mustangs but I've not been 
able to confirm it as accurate.   Another unconfirmed report was 
that, to date, over 200 people have burned to death in 
Mustangs.   One report was that the Fox body Mustang alone (79-93) 
has involved 48 fire deaths, since it still has the same vulnerable 
fuel tank as earlier designs.





Makes one wonder why we don't hear about those other vehicles being 
bar-b-cue pits on wheels.   All WE hear about is the exploding Pinto...


Does any of this ring a bell?    Corvairs rolling over... catching 
fire... coffins on wheels... Rose Pierini... Nader...



Don't anybody say too much about Pintos around me.   ;)    They were 
the victim of a slam campaign and a very poor Ford marketing 
decision.  The car itself is fine, and I'd drive one anywhere, and 
have.   In fact, if I found a decent one today I could afford it 
would be in my driveway... looking around for a 
porthole-sedan-delivery wagon, think they're really sharp looking 
little cars.


I'm quick to defend the unjustly accused...





tony..