[The Choosey begger]

[The Choosey begger]

Ford released the Pinto knowing its flaws and reached the conclusion it'd still be cheaper to settle lawsuits than fix the issue!

[Murf993]

Originally Posted by anglo

Ford released the Pinto knowing its flaws and reached the conclusion it'd still be cheaper to settle lawsuits than fix the issue!

'

[jamesinaz]

Makes me wonder how I'm still alive.

Drove (father owned but I used it a lot) Pintos. First one died when my sister rolled it and he bought another one. In fairness, unless it caught fire or rolled it was an OK car.

Owned a 64 Corvair. Drove it for 2 years. Never had a problem.

Almost bought a Yugo as my wife's first new car. Decided after a test drive worth the money to buy a Toyota Corolla. BTW, I didn't even let the wife test drive the Yugo. It was that bad.

[strohw]

Did a track day this past Saturday and there was a guy driving a 71 Pinto. I setup my tent right next to the chicane when I go to the track so I get a good idea on how well cars handle tight s curve 40mph corners. He was holding his own. I was with my wife so I didn't do a walk through and check out the cars like I do when I'm with my friend. So I'm not sure what he's done to it.

There was also a 71 240z out there. He was parked near the start lane for the track so I'd drive by him getting on and off. He had a cage, buckets, track rubber and it looked like a straight track car. But that thing was all over the place in the chicane. The suspension moved around so much it looked scary as shit to drive.

[3798j]

Also for consideration, I'd like to add the '61-'63 first gen Pontiac Tempest...its swing axle transaxle rear suspension and "rope" driveshaft made for some interesting cornering attitudes....easy to provoke, challenging to catch.

[Mason Hatcher]

Originally Posted by anglo

Ford released the Pinto knowing its flaws and reached the conclusion it'd still be cheaper to settle lawsuits than fix the issue!

That isn't exactly how that went down.

[///M Power-Belgium]

"The Trabant"

[RM7]

Yugo basically looked like a Golf, which people seem to love, so I can see what attracted some people...

[stein_325i]

Originally Posted by anglo

Ford released the Pinto knowing its flaws and reached the conclusion it'd still be cheaper to settle lawsuits than fix the issue!

And all these years later they didn't learn these mistakes with the Focus/Fiesta transmission issues.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by anglo

Ford released the Pinto knowing its flaws and reached the conclusion it'd still be cheaper to settle lawsuits than fix the issue!

The Pinto was actually found to be as safe as the average car of that era and was actually safer than the Toyota Corrola and other subcompacts of the era. I had four Pintos early in my driving career. Crashed two of them, one really hard. Neither blew up.

To wit:

Retrospective safety analysis
UCLA law professor Gary T. Schwartz, in a Rutgers Law Review article (see Section 7.3 NHTSA Investigation above), studied the fatality rates of the Pinto and several other small cars of the time period. He noted that fires, and rear-end fires in particular, are very small portion of overall auto fatalities. At the time only 1% of automobile crashes would result in fire and only 4% of fatal accidents involved fire, and only 15% of fatal fire crashes are the result of rear-end collisions.[139] When considering the overall safety of the Pinto, Schwartz notes that subcompact cars as a class have a generally higher fatality risk. Pintos represented 1.9% of all cars on the road in the 1975–76 period. During that time the car represented 1.9% of all "fatal accidents accompanied by some fire." Implying the car was average for all cars and slightly above average for its class.[140] When all types of fatalities are considered, the Pinto was approximately even with the AMC Gremlin, Chevrolet Vega, and Datsun 510. It was significantly better than the Datsun 1200/210, Toyota Corolla and VW Beetle.[139] The safety record of the car in terms of fire was average or slightly below average for compacts, and all cars respectively. This was considered respectable for a subcompact car. Only when considering the narrow subset of rear-impact, fire fatalities for the car were somewhat worse than the average for subcompact cars. While acknowledging this is an important legal point, Schwartz rejects the portrayal of the car as a firetrap.[141]

"Don't let facts get in the way of a good story"...

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Mason Hatcher

That isn't exactly how that went down.

Cue Ralph Nader and the Center for Auto Safety.

[VisualEcho]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

"The Trabant"

Just wow, and is that John Oats??

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by VisualEcho

Just wow, and is that John Oats??

Mate .I have no idea who it is . But it looks like top quality !

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

"The Trabant"

Nice 'quality control'

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by M5theonlyone

Nice 'quality control'

Yeah my friend . The Trabant was bulletproof !

[Alfisti]

The 80's and early 90's SUV amaze me, they really do. I mean, I am no engineer but just LOOKING at them they seem tipsy. How on earth did they get approved? Baffles me.

[Poochie]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

The 80's and early 90's SUV amaze me, they really do. I mean, I am no engineer but just LOOKING at them they seem tipsy. How on earth did they get approved? Baffles me.

I remember reading in '90s that the Mitsubishi Montero SUV had a one star IIHS safety rating for rollovers. You where better off buying a life insurance policy at the dealer, than an extended warranty.

They passed regulations but barely.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

The 80's and early 90's SUV amaze me, they really do. I mean, I am no engineer but just LOOKING at them they seem tipsy. How on earth did they get approved? Baffles me.

I owned a 1987 Ford Ranger STX. It came with a 2" factory lift kit. It was fantastic off road and handled very well on the street. I had a friend with a 1986 Ford Bronco II (based of the Ranger chassis). Again a great handling street vehicle with high off road capability, he never crashed it. My wife and I owned a '95 Jeep Wrangler YJ from 1995 to 2009. Never came close to flipping it; in fact I spun it once in the dry, 90 deg. on the right exit apron from Wisconsin Avenue to Pooks Hill Road in Bethesda, MD chasing a 280Z that cut me off on the Beltway*. My bother and sisters had Chevrolet Suburbans and Blazers, none of which got off the wheels and killed anyone. So my first hand experience with many SUVs of the era you cite is pretty much different than your idea that such vehicles of the time were unsafe, they weren't.

* I didn't drive any slower in my early 20's to mid 30's than I do now.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I owned a 1987 Ford Ranger STX. It came with a 2" factory lift kit. It was fantastic off road and handled very well on the street. I had a friend with a 1986 Ford Bronco II (based of the Ranger chassis). Again a great handling street vehicle with high off road capability, he never crashed it. My wife and I owned a '95 Jeep Wrangler YJ from 1995 to 2009. Never came close to flipping it; in fact I spun it once in the dry, 90 deg. on the right exit apron from Wisconsin Avenue to Pooks Hill Road in Bethesda, MD chasing a 280Z that cut me off on the Beltway*. My bother and sisters had Chevrolet Suburbans and Blazers, none of which got off the wheels and killed anyone. So my first hand experience with many SUVs of the era you cite is pretty much different than your idea that such vehicles of the time were unsafe, they weren't.

* I didn't drive any slower in my early 20's to mid 30's than I do now.

The common denominator is the idiot driver that causes the roll overs. It just baffles me how many times I see a traffic report even to this day about some fool that rolled their car around the DC Metro area. So we're not even talking about an SUV.

You can put all the engineering you want into a car to prevent even the most unlikely scenario and some fool is going to find a way to make it happen. One of my track coaches talked about all the electronic nannies on the S1000RR. He said even with how good the nannies are, it can't fix stupid.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

The common denominator is the idiot driver that causes the roll overs. It just baffles me how many times I see a traffic report even to this day about some fool that rolled their car around the DC Metro area. So we're not even talking about an SUV.

You can put all the engineering you want into a car to prevent even the most unlikely scenario and some fool is going to find a way to make it happen. One of my track coaches talked about all the electronic nannies on the S1000RR. He said even with how good the nannies are, it can't fix stupid.

I don't remember the exact year, but it was at least a decade ago, I was up in the DMV for some reason I don't remember (I moved from Kensington out to the mountains in Virginia in 2003). Anyway, I was on the Beltway between Georgia Avenue and heading to Connecticut Avenue. It was a snowy day, but not bad. On the hill coming down just before the Surrender Dorthey Bridge, someone somehow got their SUV spun 180 deg. flipped over AND up above the Jersey wall on the outside lane (headed towards Connecticut). So the SUV somehow climbed up the Jersey wall, got on the flat grass plateau above the wall and was on its roof facing traffic. It was a near new modern SUV, say 2008 - 2010 with all the stability control nannies.

20 years or so before that, same area of the beltway when it was being widened and there was a construction area between the inner and outer loops, I was on the inner loop heading to Silver Springs with my friend Bogey in the aforementioned Ranger STX. At the turn coming up to Connecticut, a young woman in a Civic somehow got out of control to avoid rear-ending slowing traffic. With God driving I guess she went left after glancing off the rear of the vehicle in front of her and through the construction opening gap in the Jersey barriers. Hitting the gravel of the construction area, she couldn't slow down much, and front-ended right into a large pile of dirt. Her Civic flipped up onto the front end and came back down on all fours. BEHIND the dirt pile opposite of her was a large backhoe bucket, obviously placed there by the construction company to guard it from being hit. Bogey and I saw the entire event and turned around at Georgia and went back to offer aid (we thought she was dead). When we got there, no police or EMTs had arrived yet. She was out cold. I knocked on the drivers window, and it startled her. She began to flop around jerking the steering wheel and footing the brake pedal. I guess she was unconsciously going through the motions of car control just before the accident; it really freaked me out. LOL.

To this day I can't understand how bad people can just lose control of a vehicle.

I've never owned a motorcycle with any driving aids. I don't like the linked brake system the industry came up with decades ago. I'm sure now it's all ABS. Maybe I'm a purist.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I don't remember the exact year, but it was at least a decade ago, I was up in the DMV for some reason I don't remember (I moved from Kensington out to the mountains in Virginia in 2003). Anyway, I was on the Beltway between Georgia Avenue and heading to Connecticut Avenue. It was a snowy day, but not bad. On the hill coming down just before the Surrender Dorthey Bridge, someone somehow got their SUV spun 180 deg. flipped over AND up above the Jersey wall on the outside lane (headed towards Connecticut). So the SUV somehow climbed up the Jersey wall, got on the flat grass plateau above the wall and was on its roof facing traffic. It was a near new modern SUV, say 2008 - 2010 with all the stability control nannies.

20 years or so before that, same area of the beltway when it was being widened and there was a construction area between the inner and outer loops, I was on the inner loop heading to Silver Springs with my friend Bogey in the aforementioned Ranger STX. At the turn coming up to Connecticut, a young woman in a Civic somehow got out of control to avoid rear-ending slowing traffic. With God driving I guess she went left after glancing off the rear of the vehicle in front of her and through the construction opening gap in the Jersey barriers. Hitting the gravel of the construction area, she couldn't slow down much, and front-ended right into a large pile of dirt. Her Civic flipped up onto the front end and came back down on all fours. BEHIND the dirt pile opposite of her was a large backhoe bucket, obviously placed there by the construction company to guard it from being hit. Bogey and I saw the entire event and turned around at Georgia and went back to offer aid (we thought she was dead). When we got there, no police or EMTs had arrived yet. She was out cold. I knocked on the drivers window, and it startled her. She began to flop around jerking the steering wheel and footing the brake pedal. I guess she was unconsciously going through the motions of car control just before the accident; it really freaked me out. LOL.

To this day I can't understand how bad people can just lose control of a vehicle.

I've never owned a motorcycle with any driving aids. I don't like the linked brake system the industry came up with decades ago. I'm sure now it's all ABS. Maybe I'm a purist.

Know that particular area pretty well. It's not often but some times my squad would get called down there to render aid....Rescue 2.

I witnessed another DMV genius driving down I270 in a Range Rover going south bound to the spur in the far left lane. I was traveling north bound on I270 just coming out of the spur. All of a sudden with no explanation as the conditions were perfect, the driver started fish tailing the SUV. The movements got more violent as the idiot over corrected. Next you know bam car rolls over and ends up on the roof. I freaked as it almost appeared the idiot was going to jump the jersey wall come head on into me.

As far as the nannies on bikes are concerned, we're talking the S1000RR. I've never grabbed enough front brake to cause the ABS to kick in. But the front and rear brakes are not linked together. The electronics are very sophisticated especially with the latest iteration as it controls the suspension damping too. It is all based on what riding mode you're in. Rain mode cuts power output of the engine to "only" 150 HP and is more aggressive with the traction control which not only takes in parameters such as differential wheel spin, but will also look at the lean angle of the bike. The electronics are very good as I was in Sport mode driving out of the last turn coming out of the roller coaster at VIR. Still leaned over a bit, I drove out hard and felt a wiggle from the back in. The bike stayed composed so I didn't let off the throttle. My friend was behind me as I was driving out and said I laid down a few feet of rubber because I was spinning up the rear tire. Also the quick shifter on these modern bikes are just amazing. On the S1000RR, I don't have to let off the throttle to do clutchless upshifts. Downshifts are the same back off the throttle and slam down the gears without using the clutch. As I've said many times, BMW auto group should be taking notes as to what the Motorrad division is doing.