Whitey…Ooops…so what’s your point ? You making fun of me because I can’t read or I had too much to drink before I did, or both ?
I had a glass of wine tonight so I may not know what I’m doing. I thought a Ranger was a Mazda or maybe a Mazda was a Ranger.
Since 1994, Mazda is a Ranger with different sheet metal & trim. Open the hood and you see Ford stickers all over the place. We have a 2002 B4000 and it’s a pretty nice truck; a few major repairs but most of them were covered by the warranty.
Didn’t see the post about the Edsel Ranger before I wrote this - sorry.
If memory serves me correctly, one of the major car mags even chose the '71 Vega as their Car of The Year
It was MotorTrend. And MotorTrend has picked some real dogs over the years…or should I say PAID to pick.
and I'm not familiar with the Ford memos on the Pintos that caused so much grief, but when you ask the risk assessors for an analysis, they are going to try and determine the total risk and cost
The problem with the memo is that “THEY ADMITTED THEY KNEW PEOPLE COULD DIE BECAUSE OF A FAULTY PART.” And they knew they would be at fault…and have to pay out damages for the people who died and were injured.
Show me in the history of ANY product that has done that kind of risk/cost analysis.
You do NOT build a product knowing that a simple design flaw is going to kill/injure people through no fault of their own. As dag pointed out…it was the way of doing business back then.
"It was Motor Trend. And Motor Trend has picked some real dogs over the years...or should I say PAID to pick."
Not only being paid off!
MT’s staff was also not technically proficient enough to realize that the 1964 GTO given to them for testing had its 389 c.i. engine swapped for the 421 c.i. engine that wasn’t even available on GTOs purchased by the public.
GM had set-up MT by building a special car just for their testing, and when MT posted acceleration times that were simply not possible, those numbers were questioned by people who knew that either MT was lying or that something “unusual” had been done to the car that they had tested. MT’s reaction to the inevitable questions was that they just stone-walled everyone and said something along the lines of…Well, that is what we measured.
They refused to admit that they had been hoodwinked by GM, and that refusal was most likely because they didn’t want to lose any of that GM advertising money.
Ho hum,Dag-John Barleycorn is very persuasive-Kevin
I think my point was that it seems like Ford made the Pinto after having already fixed the same problem on previous years’ Mustang models. I just thought it was noteworthy from a historical perspective, if it is as it appears.
Like I said, not to defend Ford, (I’ve only owned one) but that was the 60’s and 70’s before people got consumed by safety. I think the main point was that Ioccoa insisted on a car that cost no more than $2000 and weighed no more than 2000# for marketing purposes. I would wonder back then if a dealer safety option of $125 that included the plastic bolt protection, bumper reinforcing, and filler hose baffle, how many consumers would have been willing to buy it. So in essense, it was the general public to blame for insisting on cheap products to compete with VW. Like I said my VW tank was right in the front, unprotected except for the spare tire.
@ken green Was it the Chevy C-10 that NBC Dateline News couldn’t get to explode from impact so they “helped” it with pyrotechnics?
I’l have to research , but…
Mine is a 1979 C10 short stepside, a narrow frame truck so as to accomodate A-arm front suspension. Two tanks , right and left, mounted outside the frame.
Chevy issued me the ‘‘recall’’…a discount voucher toward the purchase of a newer…’‘safer’’ vehicle. That’s all they could come up with as the fix for the perceived problem, to get the vehicles off the roads.
@Triedaq I spent hundreds of hours flying in Grumman OV-1 Mohawks. Smoking during flight was allowed. During one flight it dawned on me that there was a 296 gallon fuel tank behind my seat filled with JP-4 which consisted of jet fuel mixed with gasoline! That was the last time I smoked in those aircraft.
@MikeInNH Could you be referring to Motor Trend’s 1980 car of the year which was the Chevrolet Citation?
What I recall about the Pinto was that it had no trunk or hatch floor. The gas tang was strapped in place and a trunk mat was laid over it. They didn’t bother to tell the customers that bought them. My father-in-law found out when he drilled some holes in the “trunk floor” to mount a three pack of fusees and smelled gasoline.
@VDCdriver I remember Pontiacs “ringer” for MT’s 1964 GTO test. I’m thinking it was Car and Driver that had an article a few years later explaining the “other than stock” modifications. MT’s GTO did have a 421 cu in tri power which was rated at 376 hp back in the days when manufacturers under rated their highest performance engines for insurance purposes. The 1964 389 cu in tri power was rated at 348 hp. If I remember correctly the vehicle also had suspension modifications and special NHRA approved super stock soft compound tires that looked like the factory stock tires. That is the only way to explain the mid 5 second 0 to 60 mph times. The first vehicle that I purchased in 1967 at the ripe old age of 15 was a 1963 Pontiac Bonneville convertible. It was equipped with a 421 cu in tri power and 4 speed hydromatic transmission. the 421 could really move that 2 1/2 ton beast. In a 3700 lb Tempest it could be somewhat scary.
@oldtimer–the Ford Falcon also had the top of the gas tank as the trunk floor. As I recall, Ford was the only U.S. manufacturer that did this stunt.
I’ll add that it is always wise when drilling a hole to find out what’s behind the surface you’re drilling. No disrespect meant to oldtimer’s FIL.
+1 to mountainbike’s comment.
Even if someone doesn’t wind up drilling into the top of the gas tank, just the possibility of puncturing a hydraulic line or damaging some wiring should be enough to make people thoroughly check what lies beneath the surface into which they are drilling.