First, the agency considered increasing the speed of the impact from 20 mph, to 30 mph. ... A series of accidents continued to shed more unfavorable light on the Pinto and gas leakage in rear-end impacts. ... When the Pinto was produced, tests where conducted at speeds above 20 mph. ...
They more than doubled their customer support staff, closed new car production plants for three weeks to reduce the use of new tires and subsequently allocated those resources to help deliver tires to replacement centers, they developed a very large crisis-management team to speed the recall process, they purchased tire molds for Firestone competitors so that they could produce the replacement tires quicker, and they asked tire manufacturers to increase production of the replacement tires. ...
The other was that Ford could have avoided this by simply placing an inexpensive light-weight plastic baffle that was placed between the front of the gas tank and the differential, so the four bolts that where in the differential would not break thought the gas tank. ... After being struck by a moving vehicle that was traveling at the speed of 50-55 miles per hour. ...
The Quadricycle had four wire wheels that looked like heavy bicycle wheels, was steered with a tiller like a boat, and had only two forward speeds with no reverse. ... For $825, a Model T customer could take home a car that was light, at about 1,200 pounds; relatively powerful, with a four-cylinder, twenty horsepower engine, and fairly easy to drive, with a two-speed, foot-controlled "planetary" transmission. ...
Intro Back in the late 1960's and 1970's, Ford was considered one of the four major U.S. automobile manufacturers. This paper will focus on Ford, and the safety issues regarding the gas tank with the Ford Pinto between 1971 and 1977. In 1977, there was a criminal indictment brought against Ford stating that the Pinto had been considered a fire hazard, because of where the gas tank was located in the rear of the vehicle. Allegations were brought up that after detailed rear-end crash tests; the actual design of the gas tank, and the placement of the gas tank was a safety hazard, and...
