I had a 1975 hatchback with the 2.3 liter. Manual brakes, steering and transmission. Loved it. Then got a 1977 hatchback with the 2.3 liter but this time it had power brakes and steering. Air conditioning too! Tough little engines. Easy to tune up. Had no major issues with either. Good cars!
The Pinto undeservedly gets a bad reputation in my opinion. Compared to the other vehicles in its market segment at that time (i.e. Chevrolet Vega or Chevette/Shitvette) the Pinto was a gold mine! It was priced less than most of the domestic competition, yet with better build quality. And although higher priced than much of the Japanese competition, it was a far more substantial car. The fuel tank issue was blown way out of proportion by an overzealous press. If you take away all the hype and look at the numbers, the Pinto was actually a safer car than many of its competitors.
Can't remember the guy's name but he caused one heck of a ruckus in the late 70's early 80's in the automotive industry. Personally I think the senator or whatever was bought off by the foreign import car manufacturers to trash the US econobox market.
Actually in its day, it was considered a good handling car. We had one in white. It did not wobble, or anything like that at speed. It had no problem driving highway speeds and in those days highway speeds were pretty high prior to the 55 mph speed limit. If you are a good driver, no tach is needed. Yes, expectations were different in those days but it was better than its reputation.
I've been on this Earth for 51 years and I've seen plenty of pintos driving and in junk yards and I can tell you right now I have never ever seen and I've been all around the country a fucking Pinto that has ever been involved in a crash has been on fire never. I also had a buddy of mine that absolutely loved these cars and I bet he had about 10 of them when we were growing up and starting to drive in high school and none of his burst into flames.
In 1981 my mom had a 74 or 75 Pinto, I don't remember which one. I was 18 at the time and that car was the cause of me joining the military. Well actually it was MY fault. My dad let me borrow her car to go look for a job. Just as I was leaving my buddy called and told me to stop by his house he had something to show me. When I get over there it was a full case of beer! Yup. Instead of looking for a job I ended up driving my mom's car around drinking beer. Somehow we ended up down by the railroad tracks and I punched a hole in the oil pan running over some big rocks. We were able to plug the hole with some rubber we found on the ground but it was still leaking and the oil light kept coming on going home and I had to pull over every few miles and add more oil. Luckily my dad had several quarts in the back. Sorry this story is getting long...... Anyway when I pulled into the driveway my dad was right there staring and listening like aliens were landing or something because all the lifters were clattering and there were weeds hanging out from the bottom of the car. Oh and I was about 1/2 lit too. Geez I never seen him so pissed in my life. He couldn't even talk he was so mad and slobbers would fly out of his mouth when he was yelling. I tried to argue back and that just made it worse. I thought he was going to kill me. The next day he said "I don't care what you have to do or where you have to work to get the money but you are gonna get that oil pan off that car and go get the hole brazed". So that's what I did. It took a few days but I finally got the oil pan fixed and got it back on with a new gasket, new oil and new filter. That Pinto fired right up and ran great. What a relief that was that they made such a tough little engine. Oh and after that incident I decided I had wore out my welcome and I went and joined the Air Force. Thank you Ford for the Pinto!
For God sake you’re driving a clapped out car. I owned this same year and model of Pinto. By no means was it a rocket ship, but it was surprisingly a lot better than you make it out to be. The car could exceed 100mph, had good rack and pinion steering, disc brakes up front and decent handling with steel belted radial tires. As for the instruments, few cars of that time period had a tach, oil pressure, water temp or alternator gauge, most cars had just speedo, fuel gauge and lights. I actual enjoyed the wagon version and my 10 years of driving it before moving on.
The wagons didn't suffer from the explosive gas tank. I had one that was identical to this one with the exception of the interior mirror adjuster, I bought it at the height of the explosive controversy at a very good price and drove it for years. I loved it for what it was, cheap and very dependable transportation. I would love to own this one to restore or resto mod.
According to online sources the Pinto was the second best-selling car of the 1970s behind the Oldsmobile Cutlass. I bought a brand new station wagon in the fall of 1978. It was a 1979 model. Base model 2.3 4 cylinder stick shift and no air conditioning. I drove that car until March 28th 1984. It had 283,000 mi on it when a tornado decided to eat it in North Carolina. I drove this car cross country to California and back twice, from Las Vegas to North Carolina twice and from Reno to North Carolina once. Once drove it round trip to Alaska from NC. I went to college in Wisconsin and drove the car 11 times back and forth. While growing up on the coast of North Carolina I drove the car many many times to Charlotte and to the mountains to go hiking and camping. The engine, transmission and differential held up the whole time with never any internal work done. The clutch was replaced several times, the alternator was replaced several times and the radiator replaced once. This car was a little beast. I had upgraded the shock absorbers and put on slightly larger and wider tires in this car handled absolutely fantastic. In fact I drove it in quite a number of rally contest and did very well. According to the ntsb 27 people died but when you take that in the content of how many cars were sold the percentage was lower than the Vega lower than the chevette and the Datsun 210 and various other small cars. Rear-wheel drive small cars were all built the same way and had the same rear end crash issues. I would love to have one now to restore.
I had a '76 Squire wagon purchased used w/44K mi and gave me an additional 220K. It was an excellent all around vehicle; low maintenance and gave 35MPG on highway. One problem was the polyethylene carburetor float (common to other cars) which would become heavy and cause carb flooding so had to be replaced occasionally. Simple, quick fix by removing the carb top without removing it from the engine. The camshaft belt needed periodic replacing which I learned the hard way and one axle grease seal failed; another simple fix. The front seats were roomy and comfortable; the rear seats were torture. I used mine mostly with the seats folded down using the great cargo space. Your poor start and some driving sounds may indicate your float needs replacing.
The Wagon Never had an explosion problem. I had a 1976 wagon on the 80' and keeped for 11 years with no issues , was a 4 speed shift, and behaved like 6 cyl. Is a very good solid car.
In the 1970's I was in my 20's. I had a low opinion of American cars built in that decade. I think the name Pinto wasn't a very appealing name. Seems silly. In 1975 I bought a 1971 Triumph GT+. Now i liked that name. My friends drove imports like Volvo Datsun and Austin mini. from 1969 to 1975 I drove a 1961 Chevy II. I liked that car and it looks good today. In 1971 or 1970 I drove a brand new Maverick. I thought it was terrible in every way. Just not appealing. Today I do like the Pinto . Good looking car to make an affordable vintage car to drive. If your going to drive it you have to dress the part and wear some polyester disco clothes with big collars, bell bottom and platform shoes with big square sunglasses like Elvis Presley.
Hehehe, I never dressed the part. The Maverick, was, as you said, an uninspiring car, unless you had the V8! Addressing the naming, the Pinto was an offspring of the Mustang name, a smaller equine ( I know, pinto was more a visual application). The Mustang II was actually based on the Pinto frame. The main USA competition for the Pinto was the Chevy Vega, which I test drove before buying my 73 Pinto (1969 V8 Pontiac Custom S trade in) and was not impressed with the Chevy. Turns out the Chevy became know in the snow belt for severe rusting issues. My Pinto took 150 K miles to come anywhere close to the severity of Vega rusting.
If you sell 3,000,000 cars in 9 model years that is in NO way a flop. How do they do math in yoir house? The Pinto was the BEST selling subcompact in the 1970s of every car in its size and price class.
I'm not impressed with your review of a nearly five decade old car. What it was when new is obviously not what it is now, but new suspension and steering parts, a quick exhaust repair, decent tires, and a check of the tranny, and you'd probably find that even this old car runs great. You chose the easy path of poking fun and taking cheap shots at what once was a pretty good little car. Sloppy work.
Generally what hipsters do these days. I lost interest when he said the car was a flop...even though from 1971-1980 they sold 3 Million Units?!?! In a whole field of US, European and Japanese competition it was still the best selling car in its class for $2000?!?!
I've found that most everyone that dumps on these cars NEVER OWNED ONE! They weren't fast, but then they weren't made to be sport cars, but they were FUN to drive.
@@timothykeith1367 EXACTLY! Not many of the 70's versions survived because they were stripped in the 80's for their steering components. Many a street rod was built with Pinto front ends
Oversimplification of the rear-end issue. The issue was an axel from the Capri that had a bracket that was still present on the Pinto but not used. That is what punctured the gas tank. Bumpers had nothing to do with it. Also, the Pinto was not a flop. It sold more than all of the imports combined. In that sense, it was a resounding success. Small cars were a flop if anything. The key to understanding is that cars were downsized not because of consumer demand, but the need to reduce emissions forced after the late 1960s. We only think the Pinto was bad because of impressions and hindsight, not what actually happened.
Agree with everything except that small cars were a flop. Small cars were increasingly popular in the US as far back as the early 1960s and the first wave of US compacts. This Pinto was part of a wave of subcompacts introduced by the Big Four automakers in 1970-71 and you saw them everywhere. And that need to reduce emissions came at a time when the government reflected popular sentiment more than it does today, so it was a response to consumer demand/concerns. Even the now-derided downsizing of the late seventies and eighties was not the flop people now believe it to have been, with the first wave of late-seventies downsizing very popular and only a few of the traditionally giant Cadillacs and Buicks selling disappointingly in the mid-eighties wave of GM size reduction, and even in that much-derided wave of max-downsizing, the formerly full-size Oldsmobiles actually increased their sales, so downsizing was a mixed story with overall success, not a flop, and small cars certainly weren't, especially if you look at the fact that what spurred those first US subcompacts was the huge popularity of much smaller imported models, a trend that became even more prevalent in the eighties. Americans' return to preferring large vehicles in the nineties and after had more to do with sociopolitical changes in thinking than anything else. The public got less rational because of the influence of new media sources following Reagan's 1987 deregulation of media, to the extent that, by the 2000s, even foreign automakers had to make huge vehicles to please newly crazy US tastes.
Small cars werent a flop. They just werent as profitable as fullsize cars which is why they shared components with other platforms. Thats how Chrysler got into trouble in 1973. They concentrated on large car profit margins during the fuel crisis that they overproduced them and then were taking a loss on each one sold because it was stagnant inventory.
@@colibri1 Big Three. AMC only had 3% of the market then. Technically Volkswagen was a bigger company. And then VW got bigger in 1974 when the German govt gave them Audi.
There was also that pesky oil supply and demand issue of the early 70's. My Pinto took me from the 16 mpg of my V8 Pontiac Custom S to 30 mpg typical, high of 48 mpg on a long trip into the UP and Canada. It was economics!
i owned and lived in a 74 Pinto wagon 2000cc for almost 2 years. I bought it used with 40,000 plus mile and the only thing I ever had to replace was a serpentine belt and tires. I would love to have it back again because I could take it on camping trails and tight places.
two weeks ago I went to LA from South Texas to pick up a 1980 Pinto wagon from an auction. Not as clean as that one but still remarkably clean. Only a few cracks in the vinyl seats worn carpet. Once I towed it home I got it running like a champ for under $100. I drive it daily on my commute and you are right it drives like an old LTD. I can get it to 80 but it is a little sad. It prefers 60. I have had 5 now and they all had the same sound when you open the door. They all had the same caliper rattle except my 1971 which had drum brakes. The doors rattle on bumps because the plastic tube on the striker is gone Like all the others I have had. My last Pinto before this was a 1979 wagon in 1996. It was like coming home when I climbed behind the wheel. I get a lot of thumbs up while driving it. total investment for a good clean car that catches attention $4000.
I had a 73 hatch back and a 79 wagon they were great reliable cars and I got 100k on the wagon, gave it to my sister who drove it for 3 or 4 years and then she sold it to an uncle who drove it into the ground. finally around 200k the engine died because the oil was not maintained you had to change the oil every 3000 miles it was flesh tone in color and the paint was almost like new 20 years later I sold the 73 to a medical student who needed a cheap car to go back and forth to the hospital when doing his internship it was an automatic which was not the best setup the 4 speed stick in the 79 was a better setup for the size of the motor never had any concerns about the gasoline tank situation the 74 was in a recall and the 79 came standard with the plastic shield fix both cars were solid on the road, big and roomy inside, and very good on gas
Your views about the gas tank are not true, you should really do more research, your footage from 60 minutes gas been doctored, the car is almost 50 years old, shame on your ignorance
Yeah, that is the story I heard with that 60 minutes film: They crashed multiple cars, couldn't get the Pinto to catch fire. They finally said this is too expensive, so they installed detonators under the Pinto to cause the fire. Typical of the dishonesty of the media as it pertained to the Pinto hype. Made a good story, though.
You have a noisey little Pinto there. I've owned several and driven 2.0, 2.3 and a 2.8 V-6. The later models were really quiet and smooth. Both of my 72 Runabouts were automatics, one A/C model and one without. Though not as quiet as a newer 74 and up, but much more quiet than what I'm hearing from yours. I even had an 86 Honda CRX at the same time as the Pinto. The Pinto was Lincoln Continental quiet whereas the CRX was noisey to the point of having to turn the radio way up to hear the radio. My Pintos handled very well and they were all stock. It was a slot car compared to my 72 Mercury Montego. Love me a Pinto.
I had a 1974 Pinto station wagon also little automatic on the floor I loved that car would the price of gas today I would love to have that car again they were just a cool little car
I hav 2 Pinto wagons, a ‘74 and an ‘80. Both were very good cars that lasted about 175,000 miles each. Easily my favorite cars of the about 30 I have owned. The wagons were 10 inches longer than the sedans (mostly in the rear end) and were much safer.
Pinto Station wagon was my first car. A co -worker believe it or not sold it to me for $50.00. I learned how to drive a stick shift . I drove the car to school and around town for a few years and then gave it to my older brother to use for work when I purchased another car. He drove it for a few years. It was a fun car, me and friends had a lot of good times in it. I installed a kill switch on the coil cause hey I did not want anyone stealing it lol . We use to say " Pinto there is no Substitute"
Gran trabajo👌. Tienes un maravilloso canal🤗. Ya me suscribí, y seguire tus videos muy de cerca😉. Gracias por compartir🙏🏻. El secreto de la vida no esta solo en recibir, sino sobre todo en DAR O SEMBRAR"🍀🎵💲💚🚙
Dude, you completely misused the word Ponderous. I do hope that 3 years after shooting this video you are no longer doing that. People notice these things.
60 mph "wobble" is as original as the grinder gear box. Something is worn out, misaligned or out of balance. The fire issue was more a public relations problem than reality and was 'fixed' with a recall. Did an analysis of it for engineering class, one interesting factor was 'squarish' fuel tank cross-section, where as traditional pancake tanks on American cars were commonly smashed, being located where they were, when hit that way they *tried to INCREASE in volume* there by collapsing inward somewhere else and not near as prone to rupture. While the Pinto square cross-section tank could only *decrease* in volume when smashed, therefore easily splitting open from the shock pressure. Other primary factors were a cabin body floor seam that would split just forward of rupturing tank allowing the fuel to spray directly into the cabin, plus some protruding bolts to rip it open.
I built 302 v8 with the works edelbrock,hooker,crane cam to name a few and put it in my pinto in high school , it was a really cool sleeper on Saturday night cruise it was pretty quick too ! lol my friends thought it was cool so I did more projects for them v8 in Chevy love pickup and v8 in a sunbeam 440 in a 42 Plymouth coup latter v8 in a Nissan hard body and just kept going lol
the problem wasn't so much the bumper, but the bolts sticking out of the axle facing the tank. any good hit from behind would crush the rear into the tank and then into the axle bolts rupturing the tank. the recall fix was to place plastic caps on the bolts...lol. your steering wobble isn't standard. . tires, tie-rods, alignment, or rack and pinion. it also sounds like you have trans whine...also not standard. that should be fixed. top speed should be 85 to 90 in that car. with a couple of tweaks in compression you can get about 120. 4.10 rear gear and a four barrel it becomes a lot more fun.
When fuel tanks are tested they hold up well, a hard crash would compress the entire rear of the car. An issue was the doors would jam shut and if the person was too injured to crawl or be pulled out the window they could burn.
This brings back memories. I drove a blue ‘72 pinto hatchback manual in high school. haha yes...I’m old. I learned a lot about fixing cars thanks to the ‘ol pinto.
I had a 75 pinto wagon as a first car. It was crude and rattled and sounded like it would shake apart over bumps and was very low on power. I had to change the rear main seal on it twice otherwise it was reliable for many years until I got rid of it.
When I was a kid my uncle had the pinto wagon that was made to look ltije a custom van. .even had little round windows on sides. Actually pretty cool car , at least to me as a kid
The reason you never see pintos around is because they all got raced into the ground as one of the most popular mini stock cars of all time then / or ended up in the wrecking yard where the front ends got cut out and welded into 20s-30s and 40s hotrods. the pinto / MII ifs is a legend in the hot rod world and the basis of most popular ifs kits on the market today. We killed many in our teens as my friends dad did these ifs conversions. We would go out to the wreckers with a blue tip wrench and take out the crossmembers for his old man. after that the rest got crushed. . I saved a 78 wagon with the bubble windows. it's a bit special. 2.3 injected intercooled big ol t3/t4 hybrid turbo 4 cylinder, 5 speed, 8.8 with 3.73s and trac lok. 17 inch cobra rims. Big brakes and a cage. flat black. Way faster than an pinto has a right to be. If you had one where the bushings and ball joints weren't 40 years old you'd find the handling pretty good. especially on modern rubber. mines rock solid well in excess of 100mph. And that 4 speed. It's known in ford circles as the hummer . They where always loud.
My 76 2.0l wagon cruisin at 75 mph on I-94 road is just fine. I've taken it to car show or in town. i have had so many people come up asking questions, even hard-core car guy's and never heard any say any thing bad about it.
I owned a 1973 2L Pinto Station Wagon for 13 years. In the 150,000 miles I owned it, it was the poor man's sports car, reving easily to 8K RPM. As built, with 95 bhp, it was a little anemic reaching 85 mph on an expressway. At 50K miles, headers livened the engine up considerably with 115 mph easily attainable. Ultimately, MI winter salt had its way and I donated it, still running like a small race horse and needing more room for a growing family of 5, 3 boys!!!!!
@Jerry Sullivan You make a bad assumption. This 2 Litre German designed engine would easily do 8K RPM without load stock. The mods I made were readily available headers, larger carb jets, and no fear of engine failure. Freeflow muffler was also tried but discarded due to noise issues. The 115 mph was achieved several times on a trip on I-83 S in the late 70's. There were hills involved, but also a Triumph TR7 which, driven by a known experienced rally car driver, could not attain this velocity when my pedal hit the floor. Mustang GT's and Z28's of the era could not hang with this car even with my full family of five onboard. 1st to 2nd shifts would actually lift the front tires off the ground. I test drove the new (then) SVO Mustang (2L turbo) and didn't buy it only because this Pinto was quicker and faster to any speed. The only downside of this car was Michigan salt rust and a growing family of 3 boys at 150K miles. I was offered $1000 trade in value at a Chevy dealer on a new car. When deal was made, they lowered their offer to $150, which I refused. Wife drove new Astro V6 home that day while I left a 100 plus foot patch of fairly new tread leaving the dealership (varified on return trip to dealer for new car issues). I donated the car to a charitible organization that probably parted it out and scrapped it.
Its not supposed to have that transmission noise. It either has a bad bearing or it has no fluid. The exhaust popping could be a rich carburetor or the emissions pump has a bad valve and is letting air in the exhaust on deceleration. BUT, not wanting to go much over 60 is probably NORMAL. Lots of cars from that era weren't necessarily bound by power, but 75 felt like reentry from orbit. It just wasn't balanced well I guess. You wouldn't want to drive it fast. Conversely some cars were crazy fast if you had the patience. The import dodge colt didn't seem to have a problem with 110 if you stood on the gas for maybe 3 minutes. It was bound by power for not going faster, not bound by vibration.
I had both a 1973 and a 1974 Pinto wagon with the 4 speed manual. I really liked this car. It was the most fun car I had ever driven with that 4 on the floor. I had to get rid of both of these cars in the early 1980's. I live in Minnesota and the salt used on the roads in the winter did these cars in. They rusted out underneath, and the rear leaf springs came up through the floor. At that point, they were not repairable and had to be junked. This was the last of the rear wheel drive Ford's. The Escort that replaced it was a front wheel drive car. I haven't seen a Pinto on the road for years.
The wagon was not involved in the fuel tank fires. We loved the five Photo's we had. The 2.0 cologne ohc engine was our favorite engine . it was very responsive to modifications.
I couldn't let this one go, even though it's old. I drove a 1972 Pinto through college, it was three years old when I got it. The transmission was German, built by Getrag, the engine was European, I think also German. They were both bulletproof. The carburetor was a Holly-Weber two barrel design. Cross flow head, single overhear cam, four speed transmission, disk brakes in the front, rack and pinion steering, hatchback design (at least one model), it was actually pretty sophisticated for an American car at the time. The car was basically a re-bodied Capri, a Ford of Germany car. It was too heavy, Detroit used to call that "road hugging weight". I was driving it one day and decided it was a bit sluggish so I went home to give it a tune up. A lot of you won't know what that is. I pulled off the distributor cap to discover my points were closed all the time. This means that the spark plug would fire as soon as the rotor got close enough to jump the gap. Again, most of you won't know what this means, except the spark plugs were firing at the wrong time. The car still ran. What more could you want?
@@wizzard5442 A couple of years ago I had to teach one of my son's friends how to start my old truck with a carburetor--it's a lost skill. These days, a tune up is done with a computer.
@@yossarian6799 I think the 1600 only lasted the first year, 1971. I have also owned a car with the 1600 Kent, a 1978 Fiesta, and it too is a great engine. Actually, the Fiesta followed the Pinto for me. Neither car made it 100k miles, at least not with me. The Fiesta went because the repairs started costing more than the car was worth, and the Pinto because while it had a great drivetrain, it was not a great car. I was tired of it.
I owned a Pinto in 1974. It was fun with the four speed. It wasn't as fast as myb1966 Impala SS 427 four speed, but it was cheaper to keep running with good gas mileage for the era and nothing ever broke on it.
My older brother, god rest his soul, bought a brand new 1972 Pinto Squire wagon. It was nice, very well appointed top of the line Pinto. It had the 2000 cc engine with an automatic. A light tan exterior with the fake wood trim. But he killed it in 2 years with his leadfoot driving. I think it would've lasted him for many years if he hadn't mistreated it so much. I liked it, a lot.
Do you understand you are driving a 46 year old car? It sounds like crap and the suspension is likely worn. I had a couple of these back when they were almost new. Mine didn't sound like that and I remember the rack and pinion steering was pretty good compared to other cars of that era.
Being 76 years old I remember when Pintos came out. They were a neat car, if underpowered, and I've own'ed one for 15 years now. Retirement gift to myself. It's a '78 4-speed with a 2.3. I love it and drive it all over. It's a little beat-up and rough but runs well. It'll cruise on the interstate at 80 and bury the speedo and is still pulling. The stock engine put out 88 hp, mine has 115-120 hp with a still stock engine. A multi-angle valve job, carb work, still the stock Holly-Weber, and a early Ranger tubular exhaust manifold does wonders. The cam and un-ported head are still stock. Very responsive engine and reliable. The lower end is still what it came with in '78. Maybe I'll be buried in it 'cause I've got no one to leave it to and my wife won't drive it.
My mom had the luxury version - 1975 Mercury Bobcat Villager with plastic wood on the sides, 2.8 liter Cologne V6 and three speed Selectshift automatic. 97 hp and about 15 MPG. It was smooth, quiet, comfortable and reliable.
this isn't reviewing anything! this car review is very "poor" imagine i haven't understood if this car has 3 or 5 doors (just from the fina pic of it)! you should take a walk around the car, open the hatch and show the room inside, show the dashboard, the instrument cluster, heating and cooling system....and more other, but, let me say this is just a drive and nothing more than this! you have to improve your job, buddy!! but however it's a good try to be surely improved
My 74 hatchback could do 95 mph with automatic trans and 2.3L engine. I wouldn’t mind driving one now. At the time I didn’t care much for it due to the anemic performance..
As far as the infamous exploding gas tanks are concerned, a study was done after the fact that showed that many cars, not just the Pinto and not just American cars, had faulty gas tank designs. So the whole exploding gas tank nightmare was industry-wide as well as worldwide. The Pinto was actually cheaper and had an equal build quality than most imports. I owned two Ford, Pintos; one was the two-door coupe the other was a rather 'groovy' Pinto wagon. Before selling them, I got well over 200-K out of the coupe, and just a bit more from the wagon.
The Pinto wagon was not prone to the gas tank rupture issues of the non wagons. This was due to an additional 10" of inboard clearance of the wagon gas tank.
Haha “waterbed handling” I like it. For anyone who likes to do their own research please look up the NHTSA findings from this era for enlightenment. Also check other vehicles as well. No company is safe from scrutiny. And it will reveal some surprising info. Looking at you GM trucks from 1973 to 1987. And Volkswagen Beetles. And so much more.
The fact is that only the sedans and runabouts had the fire issue. The wagons were not part of the rear crash/fire issue at all. Great video though, I agree, at the time Ford built the ride experience Americans expected.
They're fun when you drop in a 289 or 302 Boss motor, jack up the back end, put some wide tires on it with some traction bars, weld some sheet metal over the side windows to make the body all metal and then have the local Picasso paint a nice mural, and yes, paint, not print out on some vinyl wrap! You have to treat it like a mini-van of the 70's that you could race cheap! Although there was a Mustang Wagon prototype! Go look that up on RU-vid!
I am told that the wagon did not experience the same issues as the infamous "barbeque that seats 4" owing to the large overhang that the hatchback did not have.
I had a 74 wagon when new. It would hit mid 90's as well. Mine handled and drove well. I liked it a lot, and had a lot of fun with it in the short time I had it. Unfortunately, it rusted through the front fender by the marker light just 6 months after new. It went on the for sale block quickly.
Always liked the look of the Pinto, and Maverick those era cars never get enough love. Glad to see a video giving a Pinto some love and mentioning that all Pinto's weren't fire hazards. And the famous crash test video of the Pinto exploding was rigged in worst case scenario. The car rear ending was weighted to go under the Pinto with lose spark pug wires to create additional spark. Plus the Pinto's fuel neck was losen to come off easier.
@@seed_drill7135 True. In cars of the later 70's they would actually circle the 55 on the speedometer. I had a later Pinto that had that. I currently have a '71 which does not. Good point.
I was just 20 years old when the first Pintos came out and they were quite popular in the first 3 or 4 years they were produced. They were everywhere and were very reliable compared to the Vega. What wasn't ? All-in-all a good car. You state that there are not many of them on the road today and you are right. What used to be a common sight is a rarity today, but how many Datsun 1200s or 1970 Toyota Coronas do you see now ?
I had a 1974 Mercury Bobcat Villager wagon for a while when I took my truck off the road for repairs. It had the 2.3 litre and the 4 speed stick. It was cheap and in great shape, bronze paint and woodgrain. In my opinion, it had the most comfortable bucket seats ever put in a car. I kept that car far longer than I originally planned. The 2.3 litre engine in 1974 had the most power...I believe it was rated at 105 hp and it was pretty peppy. No problem with keeping pace with traffic and the 4 speed stick was well geared. Good on gas but it had a small tank. Took it on a lot of fishing and camping trips. I paid $600 for it and sold it 5 years later for $900. Simple and reliable...I actually liked it.
My Grandmother had a 74 Pinto hatchback in the same color as this. It had a vinyl roof and aluminum mag wheels and wide tires. It drove just like their 1969 LTD. It felt heavy and solid.
We had one of these with an automatic transmission. Easily the absolute worst car our family ever owned. Spent more time in the shop than it did on the road.
I drove a new Hyundai van that has that. In a way it makes sense, better to mistake reverse with a low gear than a high gear. Still doesn't feel natural in cars even though I can drive a Road Ranger 'crashbox' in trucks that again has reverse in the top left.
Still being harsh on it I had a 1078 Pinto wagon I loved it and full out I could cruse the interstate around 80 mph I had 14-inch rims on mine so it handled corners better also one of the reasons there's not a lot of them left is because late of people used the front end for race cars cuz it handled so well. I think he was expecting to much for an older car tho they were basic Econo cars.
You have a exhaust system leak leading to (or possibly being caused by) a problem with the Thermactor system. That is why is is so loud and doing the popping noise. Bring it to me and I can fix it in my garage with a few simple tools. Can't do that with a modern car.
This is an a pretty good review on the Pinto. The one being driven at the time of this review would be around 47 years old. It's doing pretty good for a car that old. Personally I liked the Pinto cars in their days. They improved some after 1975 I think. I never owned one but it seemed when I rented a car back then I always got a Pinto. I enjoyed the car and noticed a difference from early 70's Pinto to the mid 70's Pinto's. Engine performance was much better in the later models. There were tons of Pinto's on the road in the 70's
