# Round 2's 1977 Pinto (OOB) - Loser incoming!



## Faust (Dec 1, 2012)

If you know me, then you know my thing is weird cars, the everyday and what I call “loser cars”. One of the most recognized, reviled and joked about loser cars of the Automotive Dark Ages was the Ford Pinto. With a reputation for blowing up like a stick of Looney Tunes dynamite and a design that was a weird mix of practical and impractically underpowered and underbuilt, the Pinto has long epitomized how low things could go.

It’s no surprise then that I was beside myself with excitement when Round 2 anounced they were going to give us our SECOND Pinto reissue. First, there was the Pony Express wagon, followed now by the AMT 1977 hatchback! For Pinto-philes (even sounds gross) and loser-lovers like me, getting a chance to own the second-ugliest installment of Ford’s incendiary blighter was something that had only been hoped for.

I managed to snag one a week and change ago, and I’m really surprised to see that no one else out there seems to have jumped on this one. Of course, that might be because, unlike me, they knew what to expect! Check out my out of box review for this new stain on your modelling display at the link below, and bring your fire extinguishers!

https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/1-25-amt-round-2-1977-pinto-runabout-oob/


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)




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## crazy mike (Aug 26, 1999)

That little bitty four banger... with aftermarket parts, Small 4bbl, intake manifold, decent cam, header... would suck the headlights and grill out of late 70's muscle cars. 


Dump the stock clutch too:grin2:


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## Richard Baker (Aug 8, 2006)

Wonderful write up- thanks for bring back some odd memories


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)

My friend in High School ofter drove his Mother's 'Wood' paneled Pinto wagon. It often proved to be a very useful vehicle to cruise around in - many different times. Thanks for the mammaries!


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## NTRPRZ (Feb 23, 1999)

We had a '73 Pinto woody wagon I got from trading in a Mercury Capri. The Pinto was our first family car and we drove from Florida to Delaware to Utah when I was reassigned in the USAF. I decided, however, we needed something a bit more powerful. We were driving up the Rockies and doing only 30 mph with the pedal floored. Underpowered, yes, but it served its purpose. Too bad they never made a kit of that one.

Jeff


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## aussiemuscle308 (Dec 2, 2014)

NTRPRZ said:


> We had a '73 Pinto woody wagon... Too bad they never made a kit of that one.
> 
> Jeff


This guy put a 72 pinto front onto the Pony Express body. (Faust's thread on Model Cars!)
MPC/Round 2 - Pony Express is back from the grave! - Car Kit News & Reviews - Model Cars Magazine Forum


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## finaprint (Jan 29, 2006)

I had an '80 Pinto wagon (last year of them)that had a slightly warmed over 2.3 in it out of my MII car that got destroyed by hail. The 2.3 put out about the same as a modern zetec in '02 Focus (I have 2 of those), or about 130 hp. It had a good header on it, 2.0 intake manifold with a custom adapter I made and the bigger Holley modded 5200 along with some headwork I did to the head opening up the valve pockets. I also converted it from MTX to ATX with a rebuilt trans, I could not at the time find an outlet for the cheap crap German trans to get parts. In the process I was amazed to find out how many parts both the Mustang and Pinto shared through those years. 

The car was equipped with several OEM kneejerk reactionary parts in relation to the fire legends, it was apparent Ford was terrified of being sued over it.


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## StarshipClass (Aug 13, 2003)

My '77 Pinto, which I owned when _Cujo _came out was the same color and style (though one year older) as the one in the movie, the only difference being the half-vinyl roof mine had. Unfortunately for me, the electronic ignition module wouldn't last long and--like the one in the movie--it refused to start up at first outside the theater in Troy, Alabama where some friends and I had just watched the movie. Some clever wag walking by started barking at us as the starter kept whining, the engine not turning over. 

So, yeah. I agree from personal experience: a loser car.


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## Trekkriffic (Mar 20, 2007)

Never owned a Pinto but I did drive a Plymouth Duster back to CA from Nebraska for my dad one time when I was eighteen. I think it would fall into the loser category pretty easily. I did like the little cartoon tornado decal on the trunk lid.


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## StarshipClass (Aug 13, 2003)

Trekkriffic said:


> Never owned a Pinto but I did drive a Plymouth Duster back to CA from Nebraska for my dad one time when I was eighteen. I think it would fall into the loser category pretty easily. I did like the little cartoon tornado decal on the trunk lid.


My family owned one of those in the early '70s.


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## NTRPRZ (Feb 23, 1999)

aussiemuscle308 said:


> This guy put a 72 pinto front onto the Pony Express body. (Faust's thread on Model Cars!)
> MPC/Round 2 - Pony Express is back from the grave! - Car Kit News & Reviews - Model Cars Magazine Forum


Actually, I've wondered if that was feasible. I guess it is!

J


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## Y3a (Jan 18, 2001)

Had a girl friend who had a red 76 Pinto she got for graduation. had a blast tooling around in it. She was actually really good with that manual trans. Her's was the hatch back version.


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## NTRPRZ (Feb 23, 1999)

Here are a couple of shots of our young family with our Pinto wagon, taken in April 1976 when we were stationed at Tyndall AFB, Florida. In the first photo, my wife is inside the car because at the time we didn't want her family to know she was pregnant. That Pinto served us well.


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## Richard Baker (Aug 8, 2006)

finaprint said:


> The car was equipped with several OEM kneejerk reactionary parts in relation to the fire legends, it was apparent Ford was terrified of being sued over it.


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## finaprint (Jan 29, 2006)

Ford decided to not make nearly the Pinto parts they normally made to cover the unspoken 
'10 year rule' most companies would roughly make parts for (to get the cars off the road faster) but I simply used a great number of MII parts instead, many fit. 

The '80 model wagon gas tank filler neck had a super long spigot pipe on it to not pull out at the rear getting hit to spill fuel under car to ignite and the later differential went to a rounded cover instead of the early hard cornered one that would punch holes in the fuel tank at it getting pushed forward in a rear collision. There was a super thick polyethylene guard and extra steel plate there to minimize punchthrough too. The doors tended to pinch shut to trap people in car as well and the inner wheelwells would open up away from the floorpan to expose fire under the car to let it come inside easily. The fuel pump up front had a guard that took like 30 minutes to remove, the thing looked like it went on a tank.

I found the cars to be utterly reliable other than they were way down on useable power.

The car suffered from Lee Iaccoca's 'rule of 2000', or 2000 pounds max weight and $2K total price for it and why once the engineers began to hound him about numerous inhouse crash test failures he never batted an eye and shoved the car right on through production. Notice he got scads of praise for the Mustang but not a word about his work on the Pinto, it was his baby as well. The Pinto was known as the first corporate liability to where a company actually had to come up with an average value in $$$$ for a human life, some 600-700 people died in them due to fires after collisions.

VERY similar to the DCT transmission fiasco (no deaths involved there yet) Ford is now going through and it will cost them hundreds of millions, one quote said a possible 3 billion dollars in losses there and 1 1/2 million bad cars all needing new transmissions where none exist. I would NOT want to own a big chuck of Ford stock right now.

https://www.freep.com/in-depth/mone...-focus-fiesta-transmission-defect/1671198001/


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## StarshipClass (Aug 13, 2003)

The formula is pretty well explained here:


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## Zombie_61 (Apr 21, 2004)

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.


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## HagMan (6 mo ago)

My grandma had an orange color Pinto wagon with the plastic wood looking trim on the sides. She always took her dog "Sheeba", an Alaskan Husky in it many places. You knew when you rode in grandmas high performance wagon because when you got out, you would have "Sheena" hair all over your clothes-


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