[10kpharo]

Gotta love this. I had a 1978 Pinto wagon - bright orange. Came in handy during my college years at Syracuse Univ. JP had a runabout - as I recall, at least 3 people in his neighborhood owned the car after he did. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... MEWAX%3AIT

 

[LIEscape]

Wow unbelievable condition. Definately takes me back. My girlfriend back in the day had a manual shift white two door wagon with the fake wood grain and my cousin had one he used to drive back and forth from NY to OKlahoma. Both ran for ever and got great gas mileage.

 

[jonas1022]

Nice find! Now if he would only get real about what the thing is really worth. It's not $4K either! :hyst:

 

[rehctelf]

I remember the Pinto. The picture in my mind however had a LOT more RUST!

 

[Lord Velveeta]

Ok, who is going to say it first?

Don't tap the rear bumper! It'll explode! :lol:

(Actually thats a myth, the pinto was no more dangerous than any other car of it's time, have a good read on the myth of the exploding pinto at http://www.car-forums.com/s10/t2240.html)

That car brings back memories, my grandmother had a similar blue Pinto!

Pat

 

[jonas1022]

I never owned one. And the exploding Pinto was myth. If you look at the other videos of exploding Pintos on the You Tube link, the common theme isn't that they exploded, it's that they had to be ignited remotely by the people conducting the test!

Most of those that burned caught fire, they did not explode! ;-|

Most cars back in the day would "explode" if the operator left the fuel cap off then was rearended by another fool. :shrug: Happens even today with the tethered gas caps.

How many people do you see driving around with the gas cap hanging out the gas door opening? :shrug: I see too many doing that. Not one per day, maybe one per week :rant: . Then again, I live in a fairly tightly packed area with lots of cars. :doh:

Off my soapbox!

:topic:

 

[futameca]

My siblings and I drove Pintos all through high school. Orange wagon, one blue, and a white "sport" model. Still have a soft spot for those little things. :thumb:

 

[GreatEscape2004]

Mrs GE had one when we first started dating. When we got married 5 years later, we drove it, pulling a 4x6 boxed U-Haul trailer from Detroit to Clovis, NM. By the time we got there it's poor little 2000 cc engine had given out and we traded it for a 1976 Mercury Monarch (brother of the Ford Granada). Never saw that Pinto again. Wifey always blamed me for killing her first car.

 

[RobtRoma]

Ahhhh the Pinto. I learned to drive stick in a Pinto. It was one of the later models just like this one but blue:

It was a really fun and very easy car to drive. The main reason my father purchased the car was he thought it was fast. Turns out, the speedometer was just way off...

 

[futameca]

That is one sporty Pinto Rob. We had one just like it with the colors reversed. White with the red stripe. :thumb:

 

[Lord Velveeta]

I always thought a "Sporty Pinto" was a Pinto with a pair of sneakers in the trunk :lol:

Pat

 

[DaveJ]

Gotta love this. I had a 1978 Pinto wagon - bright orange. Came in handy during my college years at Syracuse Univ. JP had a runabout - as I recall, at least 3 people in his neighborhood owned the car after he did. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... MEWAX%3AIT

That is too funny. I had a 74 Pinto that was the exact same color as in your post! I had the stock full wheel covers rather than wheels shown. My most memorable moments of this car was that occasionally the 4-speed shifter would just detach itself while shifting. The shifter wouldn't pull out, but was essentially disconnected and would just lay flat against the floor. I could move the shifter in any motion, and once and while I would get lucky and nudge into one of the gears. Had it back to the dealer 2-3 times under warranty for this fun. Other than the shifter and the engine going through the oil after 60K+ miles, it was a pretty decent car. I had a valve job done on it and fixed the oil consumption problem, but that resulted in new problems. Car sold at 80K + miles.

 

[boffalora]

I owned two 1973 Pintos....a bright orange automatic Runabout with white vinyl top and a yellow-gold 5spd wagon.

Here's the straight story on the explosion problem.

1. The basic coupe and Runabout were the only models that had the design flaw. The wagon did not have this flaw at all and was excluded from the recall. The flaw involved two protruding structural bolts in front of the tank facing backward, and a rigid filler neck between the gas cap and the tank. Were the car struck from the rear, it could push the tank forward into the bolts, which would puncture it, while the rigid filler neck would snap off, causing gas to spill everywhere.

2. The factory recall on the coupe and Runabout involved removing the tank and the filler neck, installing a big polypropylene protective block between the bolts and the tank, and replacing the filler neck with one more flexible that could handle an impact without snapping. A new gas cap finished the job. This was an expensive recall, on the order of $500 per car in the mid 1970s.