Flaming Pintos

The Ford Pinto was Lee Iacocco's concept.  He challenged the Ford engineers with the number 2000.  The car had to be powered by an engine of 2000 ccs or less, should weigh less than 2000 pounds and should sell for less than $2000.  The Ford engineers met the challenged but the 2000 lb weigh limit proved problematic.  To meet this limit, minimized the amount of steel in the uni body.  In a rear impact, the  light weight sub frame would collapse to a point that the fuel tank would hit the rear end and rupture.  Oddly, in the pivotal case that Ford lost, the occupants of the car left the gas cap off during  a fill up prior to the accident.  This proved to be immaterial as the evidence mounted against Ford.  The fix for Pintos in the field was thick plastic shield that fit to the gas tank that prevented it from being punctured.  New models featured a stronger uni body.

I became acquainted with the Pinto in the late 80's.  At the time, I lived in central Florida and wanted to realized my lifelong dream to be a stock car driver.  Many of the local tracks had a mini-stock class that was essentially all Pintos.  The Pintos were plentiful.  I built a car and raced at Orlando Speedworld, Lakeland and New Smyrna.

I only had two experiences with fire.  The first one occurred in my garage.  I was adjusting the carb float and did not realized that gasoline had ran off the manifold and accumulated on the floor.  I shut off the ignition which created enough spark to light off all the fuel. At the time, it seemed like the entire garage was one fire (though it was not).  I grabbed a small fire extinguisher and was able to get the fire quickly.  Of course, the first thing I did was to see if any of my neighbors saw me.  They didn't -so my image as a competent mechanic and stock car driver was not singed.

The second fire occurred one night at Orlando Speedworld.  A fellow racer and I locked bumpers.  He shredded his tire on my right rear bumper while trying to get unlocked.  The yellow came out and a wrecker was used to unlock our bumpers.  When the green came out, I took off with reckless abandon.  I was quickly blacked flagged - I had no clue why.  I pulled over and one of the stewards came running over and yelled at me "You are on fire".  (In that part of Florida - it is pronounced "faar").  The fire crew quickly put the fire out and I continued racing.  What I found out later, was that most of the shredded tire ended up in my rear quarter panel.  These hot shreds ignited after I resumed racing.  I can't blame the Ford engineers for this one.

Stock car racing is a contact sport which means you need a good stock of spare parts.  Right front fenders are considered disposable.  I even quit painting them.  At the time, junk  Pintos and Mustang IIs were plentiful.  I had a fan in my neighborhood that owned a small wrecker service and salvage yard.  He would leave a  junk Pinto or Mustang II in my  driveway much like neighbors would leave an apple pie on your porch.

These cars made really good stock cars.  When the car is completely stripped, it was very light.  A well designed roll cage added stiffness and improved safety.  The front suspension was very good.  The down side to these cars is that a moderate impact could do a lot of damage to the uni body.  It was pretty common to have to replace the front clip once a year.