In the late 1960’s there was such a demand for small cars that Lee Iacocca demanded, “The Pinto was not to weigh an ounce over 2,000 pounds and not cost a cent over $2,000.”

Quite a demand on engineers of the era, who welcomed the challenge and developed just such a car for an America that was getting to be more ecology-conscious. (In 1969, well before Earth Day, a Junior High in Mt. Prospect, IL buried a muffler in a coffin complete with dirges and a jazz band because global cooling, caused by pollution, was the catchword of the day. SOURCE: Interview with Thomas Petrik, who was a student at that school.) The problem was, with the engineering techniques and materials available, there was a flaw. In any collision over 25 miles per hour the gas tank would rupture. A collision from behind at 30 mph would crumple the car like an accordion from the back, ripping the gas tank from the filler pipe and ripping it on the differential, causing gas to immediately slosh out around the car. At 40 mph such a crash would jam the doors shut and prevent escape before death from fumes and flames.

“Iacocca was saying that the Japanese were going to capture the entire American subcompact market unless Ford put out its own alternative to the VW Beetle.” And so he demanded the car be produced in “what was probably the shortest production planning period in modern automotive history. The normal time span from conception to production of a new car model is about 43 months. The Pinto schedule was set at just under 25.” And when the engineers discovered this problem, did they inform Iacocca? "Hell no," replied an engineer who worked on the Pinto, a high company official for many years, who, unlike several others at Ford, maintains a necessarily clandestine concern for safety. "That person would have been fired. Safety wasn't a popular subject around Ford in those days. Whenever a problem was raised that meant a delay on the Pinto, Lee would chomp on his cigar, look out the window and say 'Read the product objectives and get back to work."

To surrender the small car market, even before the gas lines of the 1970’s would have meant that America could no longer compete. So even when there was a decision to see if the gas tanks could be fixed, it was a cost-benefit analysis (because Ford is mainly run by people interested in style instead of safety) was done. They estimated the number of deaths from the ruptured tanks, the number of injuries, and the cost per car to upgrade the tanks and repair them. Their estimates?

180 burn deaths, 180 serious burn injuries, 2,100 burned vehicles. Unit Cost: $200,000 per death, $67,000 per injury, $700 per vehicle.

Total Benefit: 180 X ($200,000) + 180 X ($67,000) + $2,100 X ($700) = $49.5 million.

Sales: 11 million cars, 1.5 million light trucks.

Unit Cost: $11 per car, $11 per truck.

Total Cost: 11,000,000 X ($11) + 1,500,000 X ($11) = $137 million.

So to sale the profits of the company the sales people so concerned with style, were willing to allow 360 die or be seriously injured by their mistake instead of correcting it. The estimates were wrong of course, since the first trial case in California over this was decided in 1978 and the award was three times what Ford estimated the company’s cost would be.

(Source: Engineering.com. Ford Pinto.http://www.engineering.com/Library/ArticlesPage/
tabid/85/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/166/Ford-Pinto.aspx. Accessed 11/17/09.)

Therefore, during the creation of the Pinto design, size, and cost were all more important than safety. Something that had reversed itself completely by the mid 1970’s and a trend started for American car manufacturers that continues until today, making larger cars because they are safer in collisions instead of smaller cars that are more fuel efficient.

Was Ford at fault for their inaction and their decisions in the case? Entirely. From the engineers who were not professional enough to inform their bosses that there was a problem, to over estimating the cost to repair each car so that the cost-benefit formula would make repairing the mistake look like a financial disaster, to the management staff that was made up of sales and marketing people who felt they knew what America wanted and would accept nothing else, the corporation made drastic errors and mistakes in their decision not to simply replace the fuel tanks with something safer. Especially since they had a safer tank already in use on other cars and trucks the same size that could have easily been swapped out and used.