From the cheesy 80s spy movie spoof ‘Top Secret’. I recall that when I first saw it in college this one had me laughing out loud. The little “ting” sound is perfect.
The German truck should have been had four interlocked circles on the grille though. 😉
Ah, the poor Pinto…..funny clip, though!
The fact was, Pintos were no less safe than nearly ANY OTHER American or feoreign car of the time. The reason the infamous court case came about?
The Pinto that exploded and killed its occupants was rear ended by a Ford Van. At 75 MPH. While said Pinto was sitting at a stop sign…STOPPED. Occupantrs, whose estate hired REALLY good trial lawyers. the outcome? Cars got NO safer designs for their tanks till 20 years on.
There was *NO* small car that would have fared any better, but..the MSM ran with it!
Look under the back of *ANY* pre-1990 CJ-5 Jeep..it’s the SAME set-up as the Pinto. Or first-gen Mustang/Falcon/Maverick/Vega. Same tank placement, same lack of protection.
I seem to recall my wife talking about this case when she was in law school. Apparently the Plaintiff’s counsel was able to discover a Ford internal memo discussing the safety issues of just such a design, and Ford did a cost/benefit analysis and decided it was cheaper to keep the design and pay any resulting damages in future tort actions than redesign the vehicle. While under cold business logic that has some merit, the callous disregard for the percentage that would be Car-b-qued shocked the court and jury so much that the case literally exploded into our national consciousness.
–chuck
I believe that was the case: that in no way takes away from the *facts* of the case, i.e., there would have been few cars, at the time, that would not explode. However, as you’re well aware, A Pinto and/or a cuppa hot coffee, well-argued emotioanlly, in front of a jury, can win you a zillion dollars.
At least in the case of Stella With The Burnt Hootchie, a subsequent jury reduced her award to something like $300K, which was STIIL rewarding idiocy.
For that matter, the airlines have gotten away with far worse: Perhaps back in the 80s, Mylar smoke hoods were available to airline passengers, as a way to survive (assuming one survived the impact) the smoke in a burning cabin. They, too did a cost-benefit analysis and came up that the cost and added weight, was worth just paying damages in any subsequent court cases.
Sucky world in which we live sometimes, eh?
Regardless of the ‘facts,’ that is *one* funny video!!
LOL!!
There were AM bumper stickers that one could put on the back window of Pintos, and wags said it was the factory recall effort; they said, “CAUTION!! Explodes Upon Impact!”
🙂