No, but even the Pinto required substantial rear impact to explode.
My take is a fuel line leak near a hot exhaust, resulting in a small gasoline fire that spread until the tank let loose. Or, maybe the guy forgot to pay his loan shark.
> My take is a fuel line leak near a hot exhaust,
I have an older van in which I've had two fuel fume episodes,
both corrected.
The first was deteriorating injector lines, which could have
resulted in an engine fire, given an ignition source.
The second was the body pads wearing holes in the top of
the fuel tank. That could have caused a Wal-Mart scenario.