U.S. automakers started to join the subcompact race in 1971. Chevrolet came out with the Vega while Ford’s new entry was the Pinto. Influenced by Ford’s counterparts in Europe, the Pinto would be the more successful of the two cars in terms of sales (more than three million versus two million). There was a ton of them on the road in 1973 when the seller’s automobile was built. But they were cheap and disposable, so you don’t see many Pintos running around today. This one looks to have been in a backyard for quite some time, probably doesn’t run, and is offered at cheap wheels money.
The Pinto was offered as a coupe, hatchback, and station wagon, with the seller’s being what looks like a rather standard coupe. Ford built nearly a half million of them in 1973 alone, so the car was a reminder of the kind of popularity the Mustang had nearly a decade earlier and the Maverick at the turn of the decade. The Pinto would later get caught up in some controversy about the placement of its gas tank and rear-end collisions.
Practically no info is imparted about this little auto, and that could be because the seller may not know. We’re told it has 105,000 miles and a clean tile. Likely a 140 cubic inch inline-4 is under the hood paired with a 4-speed manual transmission. If will likely need help to get running and the flat tires and location in the grass may be a sign it has given to rust we don’t see.
No interior photos are provided, so its mileage and neglect may not bode well. But the seller has no illusions of grandeur and is only asking $1,250 for the Pinto, putting it into cheap wheels territory. Located in a yard in Great Falls, Montana, a gathering of photos is provided here on craigslist. Is this Ford worth saving or should it be a parts car? A shout out goes to Rocco B. for another tip for forgotten cars!
You know, given they were throw-away cars, it’s hard to find any Pinto. Especially one which hasn’t been eaten up by rust. If this one has lived its life in mostly dry Montana, it might not have succumbed to that fate. And maybe for a purchase price of a thousand bucks or less, one could take it home and tinker with it and get it running. And then have some fun remembering the days when your trusty and tough little Pinto played a part in your teenage or twenty-something shenanigans.
Yes. I owned two. A red one then a blue station wagon. One night the girl I picked up strung her bra from one end of the rear glass to the other. Those were the days. Sorry I let this one go.
I had two hatchbacks. One a baby blue with the 4 banger and an auto. The other was a bronze color but with the V6 and stick. Surprised many with that peppy little thing!
Personally if this rust bucket death-mobile was littering my yard, I would pay a wrecker to haul it away or better yet donate it to charity or a non profit. Why anyone would want to restored this worse car ever made in American history and a car in a low rear impact burned to death hundreds and was finally taken off our highways forevermore. Lest to say, its worth nothing only for its scrap metal. jv smashpalace
This is why BF throws a Pinto or two into the mix every once in a while – to get “free thinkers” like yourself worked up and spouting off. And it worked again.
Why? Sheesh, because there’s a butt for every seat. Could be the worst car in America, IDK, but I remember them when I was a kid. My brother and I bought one that needed a clutch and we flipped it. I eventually got a Torino and drove that to death. Anyways I digress. They were cheap, easy to work on, and I never knew anyone that burned to death in one. I think your’e more likely to burn in a Tesla than this pony.
No need to go on the offensive over this drivel, Dave, for anyone to have that kind of attitude, can’t be for real. Practically every car made had some naysayer, usually with no merit ‘cept for what their daddy said. When people talk like that, it only shows their ignorance.
My dad had several. He was rear ended in it and all it did was dent the bumper.
Same here. I’ve owned plenty of Pinto’s, got rear ended in my ’74 coupe. I drove away. They towed the Dodge that rammed me. But the myth has given the haters plenty of fodder, for decades.
This has the 122 cu. In 2000 cc engine.very good for its time. I see a clutch cable also ,and the usual rust under battery stand ,hold down strap missing.decent price I think
In 1973, I hit a Falcon from behind and was plowed into from behind by a 225, then spun in front of a new VW bus at the firewall. My ‘71 Pinto was well destroyed but my only injury was getting hit in the head by a flying bottle of antifreeze, which knocked me out. Oh, and I burned to death.
Obviously, you don’t remember the Vega.
Good call, Terry. IMHO, the Chevy Vega was WAY worse than the Pinto. I believe the original Pinto was wider than it was tall which made it a very good handling car. The 2,000 cc engine was a great little motor. We had a lot of fun in my best friend’s mother’s yellow pinto, tearing up the streets, pretending to be in a Don Garlits’ drag racer.
I would think there’s quite a few cars that were worse than the Pinto. Pintos were tough little cars. You could beat the hell out of them. Plus being 6 foot six I could actually fit in a Pinto with plenty room to spare. I hope someone buys it pops a couple bucks into it and has fun driving it around town
Do your homework. Less than 30 people died from fires started from rear-end collisions in the Pinto. There were thousands fires started and many more deaths than in a Pinto, in T bone collisions in 1973 thru 1979 Chevrolet and GMC pickups. Caused by the unprotected fuel tanks on the outside of the frame
If this is a ’73 then it has the 2.0L (122 CID) engine, not the later Lima 2.3L (140CID) engine, which debuted in 1974. I’ve seen claims that the earlier cars with the smaller engine have better acceleration due to lighter weight (notably the lack of 5mph bumpers) and fewer emission controls.
That engine was also assembled in Europe, and used in European Fords too.
The 2.0 when connected with the 4-speed manual was a pretty lively combination for its day. It was an OHC engine used in many European Fords so had that power and that didn’t come alive until over 3k RPM. The 2.3 that came next year was tuned for an automatic with more bottom end torque but they run out of breat at 5k RPM and sound like a blender full of rocks at that speed as well. 2.0’s are great and extremely tough little engines, Racer Walsh used to have a catalog full of speed parts for them
The 2000 sounds like it was a great engine everywhere outside North America. If it didn’t have power down-low and wasn’t well matched to an automatic then it’s no wonder it didn’t go over well with USDM buyers.
Funny ad , Pinto , two door ? ? ? Really ? ? ? Perhaps the pictures would define that . No information about the car and if it runs .Interior pictures.
I had a 1971 Pinto , I worked hard to kill it and it wouldn’t die. Cost me $280 , drove it 15,000 miles. Mine was the 2.0 engine, bullet – proof
Sold it for $800 two years later.
I doubt the seller knows this, but Ford referred to the Runabout as a three-door, so calling this a two-door is technically correct.
Pinto was a great car. Again, 3 Bears syndrome, the Gremlin, too corny, the Vega, now THERE was a poor car, but the Pinto was just right. While the timing belt was new to most Americans, the motors were incredibly stout, until the belt broke, a 15 minute replacement job. Still used today as the Ecoboost says something. The Pinto was exactly what America needed at the time.
The “sinkometer” is great with this one, and probably just a parts car, but if this was down the block from me, it would be mine.
Ok I am going to have to admit, I owned a 71 for the last 1.5 years of high school which began in early 78. Gas had risen over a buck a gallon and I could no longer afford to put gas in my 69 Impala Custom 327 automatic. It was a great car and I put it through hell. It had an automatic and if you left it in drive and nailed it, it would bark 2nd gear rubber! When I graduated and went into the printing industry at RRDonnelley in Glasgow, Ky in 1980, I traded it in for a silver 77 Trans Am.
I had a 72 two door 2.0 paid $200 for it beat the crap out of it the only thing that broke was the rear end due to my teenage rev the engine and dump the clutch way too many times. I just swapped out the rear with a $50 junkyard special and kept beating it, had that thing for 3 years then sold it for $800 . Like Howard said if this were down the block it would be in my driveway already.
Growing up in a GM family it was easy for me to ignore a Ford. Had several friends who wouldn’t drive anything but a Ford. As I’ve grown older I recognize how well built many Ford trucks and cars were. My observation is that Ford tried to deliver an honest product while GM tried to cut corners.
I had far better luck with the Fords I owned compared to the GM rolling disasters I wish I’d never laid eyes on.
Yet, to be fair, the GMs provided endless opportunities to develop my automotive diagnosis and repair skills. ;)
I lost count of how many of these I purchased from peoples yards or abandoned car auctions and sent to the scrap yard in the late 80s and early 90s I remember pulling the carburetor off of one and building the plate to make it fit a Datsun 510. This one has obviously been sitting for several years don’t know the condition of the interior but I’m half tempted to buy it and blast it with a harbor freight sand blaster then re spray it with a closely matching paint and put it on bring a trailer for $4,000
I bet you could get away with a good da sanding sealer and a single stage acrylic enamel, make a world of difference in the looks category
I have fond memories of these for two (2) reasons. My driving school bought new Pintos to replace the Dodge Darts they used to use, and they bought them without power steering on purpose, so the students could learn how to parallel park and do a three-point turn in a manual steering car. The Pinto was a light car, but parallel parking with manual rack & pinion steering was work if you didn’t keep the car moving while turning the steering wheel, which was the point of the exercise!
I also car-pooled to college in one, as my car pool partner owned one. We would alternate driving, me in Mom’s Maverick, and my car pool buddy in the Pinto. We spent many Saturdays that Sophomore year at the college computer center, to get computer time on the mainframe so we could complete our Fortran programming assignments.
That parking maneuver aptly described how you drive a vehicle with manual steering-planning. Power steering and brakes made driver more effortless and us lazier. IMO most wrecks are from not anticipating what is happening around us.
Which is why I like driving a manual transmission car! It forces you to pay attention and be more involved with the driving experience. Besides, these days it’s an anti-theft device! So few young’uns know how to drive a “stick” that your car is almost immune from theft, unless a pro puts the car on a flatbed or a “hook”!
The sensational articles by Ralph Nader and Mother Jones accusing Ford hunger for profits over safety listed 500-900 deaths related to fires caused by rear-end collisions. The actual number, according to a follow-up report by the
NHTSA was 27; lower than the number for cars of similar size. Like the McDonalds coffee scalding lawsuit, the public’s avarice for sensational news often disregards the facts which get swept away in the media.
The big deal with the Pinto wasn’t the number of deaths; it was the “smoking gun memo” in Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co., in which Ford weighed the cost of lawsuit payouts versus the cost of a recall/redesigning the gas tank to reduce the risk of compromise in a collision. Some folks may remember a scene in the film Fight Club that’s a fictional riff on this real-life case.
This is exactly the sort of calculus that very large punitive damage awards are intended to prevent. They’re intended to prevent a company from making decisions that are injurious to the public welfare because lawsuit payouts are cheaper than doing the right thing.
By contrast, the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit (Liebeck v. McDonald’s) was repeatedly and maliciously mischaracterized as a “frivolous lawsuit” by advocates for tort reform.
I have a crazy reason for wanting a Pinto. I owned a 1971 Plymouth Cricket, and 1974 Vega GT. I read somewhere that the Cricket, Vega, and Pinto, were the 3 worst small cars. Since I have had 2 I’d like the set. Lol.
Mike, that’s an excellent reason to own one!
There’s hardly any reason that qualifies as reasonable to own any 50 year old car, other than emotional.
Happiness is a great emotion…
Strange how I have owned pintos for years w no problems..
I have no idea why they are bad mouthed so bad .ohc was new then and people did not know how to change a timing belt .they did no damage if a belt broke unlike today’s pos engines.
As with the Chevette, the Vega, the Yugo, and Hyundais prior to about 2000, I think a lot of owners skimped on maintenance and the cars unsurprisingly became unreliable. Either you get people who want an extra car and treat it like it’s disposable, or you get people who are trying to get a new car for absolute bottom dollar and don’t have any money left over for maintenance after making the car payment and the insurance payment.
Bill D, I agree with you about disposable cars. I bought a new 2003 Hyundai Elantra in late 2003 as a car for my 4 children. I paid $12,000. My thinking was it wasn’t much more than some 2 year old used cars. I did all the required maintenance, and never had a mechanical problem. The car was in 5 accidents, 3 were deer (we lived in Iowa), the last deer accident totaled the car and was in 2009. The insurance gave me $6,000. I was quite pleased with the car and the insurance.