If the so-called “Toys for Boys” six-Porsche assortment from a U.Okay. climate-controlled storage is simply too boring for you, might we provide one thing from the opposite finish of the automotive spectrum. Toys for Males, if you’ll, as a result of it may take some elbow grease to get this six-Pinto assortment from Hacienda Heights, California, up and working.
All six vehicles are 2-door wagons — taking pictures brakes if you wish to be cool, and all of them put on the identical shade of Nineteen Seventies pale yellow. For the reason that advert was posted to Fb Market, it naturally comes with minimal description, leaving the explanation for the hoarding a thriller.
There’s not even that many photographs contemplating it is a half-dozen vehicles being supplied. The vendor states that the Pintos “all different years” and that they “just got half of them running.” So actually you would be shopping for three operable Pinto Wagons and three challenge vehicles.
Not like the Porsches we advised you about, the entire Pintos on the market have handbook transmissions, and the vendor goes on to state that they every have clear interiors as nicely. Mileage ranges from 23,000 to 70,000. From the one inside photograph posted, the black vinyl seems to have survived the Southern California solar fairly nicely for the previous 50 years.
Based on Barn Finds, which believes they’re 1973-74 fashions, these vehicles would’ve include a 2.0- or 2.3-liter inline-four making round 86 horsepower. In 1974, a Pinto Wagon would have bought for round $2,775 new. In 2024 the vendor needs $16,000 or greatest supply on every automobile.
The Ford Pinto is maybe greatest recognized for being the topic of a recall and nationwide scare about its gasoline tank being susceptible to leaks, and thus the fiery deaths of its occupants, throughout rear impacts. A leaked “Pinto Memo” shocked the nation when it confirmed Ford knowingly calculated the prices of issuing a recall versus how a lot human lives could be value in the event that they let crash statistics play out.
The households of two separate Pinto drivers took Ford to courtroom in high-profile circumstances after their family members perished in rear-ending collisions. The jury in a single case awarded the plaintiffs what was on the time the biggest punitive damages sum in a product legal responsibility case. The opposite discovered Ford was not liable.
The NHTSA ultimately compelled Ford to subject a recall. However, the general public consciousness and furor over the circumstances irreparably broken the Pinto’s status. It was generally utilized in fashionable tradition as an object of derision.
Which brings us to at the very least one use we will consider for the six Pintos on the market. Since they’re situated close to Los Angeles, maybe a Hollywood manufacturing firm might purchase the lot. Stunt coordinators typically want a number of equivalent copies of the identical automobile to destroy or modify. These vehicles could be good for the following Nineteen Seventies interval piece.