About a year ago, I saw a PINTO in a grocery store parking lot in NH.
We could not believe that there was one of those things still running.
Or that someone would want o even own one.
A 1974 Pinto was my first car!
Brand new, $2500.......................
Actually, the Pinto station wagon (with the fake wood-grain look decals) was a pretty good-looking vehicle, and it did NOT have the potential for fire after a rear-end collision.
I once wanted to get hold of one of these models and convert it into a small pickup truck - cut off the back part of the roof and side glass of the back portion, and re-install the tailgate as the back side of the cab, lining the interior of the box with marine-grade plywood and finishing it in a high-quality varnish, and use it as a parade car.
Had a change of dreams along the way....
And what was so ugly about a Pinto? Its looks were the best thing going for it. The drivetrain, the reliability, the safety issues, and a dozen other problems made the Pinto a bad car.
But it was not that bad looking.
I had two Ford Pintos. They were great little cars and you could work on them yourself.
I have owned 3 Pintos. I found them reliable, inexpensive, and capable of driving through all kinds of terrain and weather conditions (”It thinks it’s a jeep!”). The Pinto station wagons held an amazing amount of cargo. The main negative was that they WERE light weight, so any damage from an accident was severe, and they wore out after about 100,000 miles (actually par for the course at the time; todays subcompacts last much longer). It is remarkable that one was still running after all these years. What is it, 30 years since they were made?