WEBVTT - Selects: SYSK Live: Back When Ford Pintos Were Flaming Deathtraps 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.440 Hi friends, It's me Josh, and for this week's select, 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:09.080 I've chosen our episode live show really from twenty eighteen, 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:12.840 back when Ford Pintos were flaming death traps. Now, this 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:16.400 episode actually came out with an intro from me and Chuck, 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:19.079 so it seems foolish to do an intro to an intro, 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:20.439 even though that's what I'm doing. 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:20.760 Now. 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:23.439 That's why I'm going to stop and just say, hope 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:27.200 you enjoy. 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:35.400 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:40.400 Hey, welcome to the podcast. 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:44.800 I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles w Chuck Bryant. Jerry's not here, 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:48.680 but we are with all these beautiful people live at 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:52.479 the Buckhead Theater in our own Atlanta, GA. 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:06.119 Good. Hey, yeah they are. 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:16.000 Not too shabby, everybody. Yeah, So let's start. 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:18.560 Man. I feel great. 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:21.240 So I feel great. 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:26.880 Since this is a live podcast and it's actually set 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.080 a little further back in time, we thought we would 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:34.840 all get into the Wayback Machine. So for those of 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:37.160 you who have seen us live before, you know the 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:41.000 Wayback Machine is made up. It's not a real thing, 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:45.640 but it does take a twinkle in your eye and 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.480 a heart full of magic. To get into the wayback machine. 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:50.440 So I hope all of you have that going on 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.880 right now. That was my best serious Silverman impression. 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:55.480 It's pretty good. 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:56.040 Thanks. 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.080 So we're all on the way back machine, okay, and 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:04.160 we're going back to Detroit, Michigan, back to like the 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:05.680 mid sixties or something like that. 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.000 We'll say, yeah, back when people still wanted to go 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:09.120 to Detroit. 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:11.480 On purpose. 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:13.679 Sorry man, Yeah, I told you. 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:19.280 And we're gonna fly in. That's the sounds, and. 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.919 We're very small and invisible, by the way, So we're 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.600 gonna fly in over the shoulder of an up and 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:29.760 coming auto executive with a beautiful head of hair named 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:31.639 Lee Aya Coca. 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:34.720 And Lee Lee. 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:36.520 At the time, he was what you might call a 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:39.720 young turk, up and coming, like ready to take on 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.200 the world. Great guy, and he had a lot of 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:45.519 cred around the company that he worked at called Ford 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:46.880 Motor Company. 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.720 I tried its pre Chrysler right, and he. 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:52.359 Had a lot of cred because he had. 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.760 Designed the Mustang right. It was known as Lee's car. 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:59.000 Even yeah, I mean, if you if you are the 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.200 guy and the of the Ford Mustang project, then you've 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.760 kind of bought your ticket in the car industry. If 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:06.239 you have be a great car, do you make. 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:10.760 The car that Vanilla Ice will eventually love, You've done something. 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:12.079 Quite right with your life, right. 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:14.040 Did he have a Mustang. 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:17.120 Rolling in my five point oh with the rag top down? 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:21.639 That's a Mustang, buddy, is it sure? I think it's 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:22.440 even in the video. 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:26.959 I've never been more ashamed. 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.040 To not know the lyrics of a song. 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:35.160 Yeah, because it's f and Vanilla Ice. So I don't 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.040 feel like I should have known it. I just feel 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:37.800 like a stooge. 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:40.800 Oh no, it's fine. No, you got a Wean shirt on. 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:45.040 You probably should know this. But I know I know 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.320 that lyric though. Yeah, I didn't know a five point. 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.880 Five point him? All right, it's my understanding, right everybody. 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:51.720 Yeah, I thought it was a Volkswagen Beatle. 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.480 No, no, but that does come up starting now because 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:57.880 Leik Coca was one of the few people in Detroit 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:02.960 at the time who realized that the American auto industry's 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:07.120 lunch was being eaten in the subcompact market, mainly because 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:09.960 no American car company was making subcompacts at the time. 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.840 Right now, we liked her cars very large at time. 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:14.080 Like land yachts. 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:18.640 Yeah, okay, so Li said, the Germans are eating our 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:22.160 lunch with their little Volkswagen Beetle Hitler's car. 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.799 Look it up, I had two Volkswagen Beetles. 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:27.480 Those were two Hitler's cars. 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.839 You supported Hiller in a way. 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:37.440 My mom is over there. She bought that car. I 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:38.240 don't know. 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:41.960 She's going like that. 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.560 And then the Toyota Corolla was also killing people, right, 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.960 killing Detroit. I should say, yeah, And so Lee said, 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:54.320 we need to get a car to market. But I'm 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.000 not the president. There's a man who is president. And 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:57.960 what is his name, Chuck? 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.960 I can't ever remember, honestly, Oh no, I do remember. 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:04.560 His name is Bunkie Knudsen. 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:08.039 If you're the president of a car company and your 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:10.400 name's Bunkie Knudsen, you gotta. 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:11.679 Know you have a target on your back. 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:15.400 Right, Nobody's gonna let that stand for very long, especially 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:16.640 not Leyah Coca. 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:16.960 Yeah. 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.880 The only thing Bunkie Muson in that year would have 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:23.320 been president of is the super Secret, super Secret Treehouse 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:24.920 Playboy Magazine club. 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:27.479 Led by Bunkie Knutson. 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.320 Right, are the local union of the guys who sell 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:32.719 those like monkeys that play the symbols on the street. 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.680 You know, they wind up once, all right. 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:39.839 So regardless of that, Bunkieknutson was in charge and Leah 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:42.800 Coca had his sight set on that job, and so 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:46.039 they settle things in the traditional way in the car 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.120 industry at the time, which was arm wrestling. 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:51.760 It's a little crazy serious. 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.480 So Leiah Coca had this thing where we think this 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.080 is probably how he rose to power. He could rip 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:02.360 the sleeve clean off of his shirt right at the shoulder, 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:04.239 right before an arm wrestling match. 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:04.440 Right. 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:08.840 It's very intimidating, and he always kept his arms oiled. 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:11.960 Every morning he would oil him up and very gingerly 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:14.040 put the shirt on over him so the oil wouldn't 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.440 show too So it really had like a pronounced effect 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:18.480 when he tore his shirts leeve off and went like that. 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.840 So when he did this, the Bunkie Nudsen and Bunkie 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.240 saw that oil bicep. He knew his time running four 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:27.880 Company had grown short. 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.120 That's right, Bunky Newton knew what time it was. 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:34.520 All that was totally made up. You all realized, right. 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:37.920 The stun silence threw me off a little bit. 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:40.480 It was back to the treehouse for Bunkie. 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:43.760 So Leah Koka found himself in charge of Ford, and 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.919 he said, we got to get a subcompact going fast, dudes. 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:49.440 So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna get a 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.000 project going. I'm even gonna give it a code name, 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:55.160 which is really weird and sort. 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.200 Of Simon Mark, kind of a Nudsen move. 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:01.320 But he named it Project Phoenix. Very cute and a 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:03.680 little ironic once you know what this is about. And 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:05.000 he said, I want a car, I want to on 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:09.159 the market and what twenty four months? 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.720 Yeah, and normally it took like forty three months dated 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:16.640 car from concept to production. Iakoka said, nope, twenty four. 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.120 Yeah, twenty four so super fast and it can't weigh 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.720 more than two thousand pounds and it can't cost a 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.920 customer more than two thousand dollars. And he totally should 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.160 have called it Project two thousand, so that would have 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:28.320 been a super cool name. 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:29.960 In the early nineteen seventies. 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.960 That car would go on to be known as the 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:41.040 Ford Pinto. For those of you who aren't going, like, oh, colaps. 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.480 Couple of booze, a couple of groans, and a lot 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.720 of like what we're going to fill the people in 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:49.200 on this Okay, Yeah, So the deal with the Ford 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:52.520 Pinto was if you don't know, and you did grow 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:59.320 up in the seventies, it had a problem. We don't 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.000 know a lot about, but we know that the Ford 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.559 Pinto had a problem. If you would hit the Ford 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:12.400 Pinto from the rear going very very slow, sometimes it 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:17.720 would burst into a fiery ball. And that is not 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:19.520 a good thing for a car to. 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.880 Do, especially when you're still in the car. 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:23.680 That's right. 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:26.560 Has anyone seen the movie Top Secret? 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:29.560 Remember that one? There's Alkilmer. 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.360 There's a scene where Valcimra, I think, is on a motorcycle. 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:37.000 He's being chased by Germans and he somehow out maneuvers 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.520 them and they swerve off the road and slam on 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:44.120 their brakes and almost come to a complete stop right 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:48.040 before hitting a Pinto in the rear, but don't quite 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.440 make it. It makes that crystal thing sound and then 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.080 boom they just blow up into flames. 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.240 Right, And this was in the eighties, This was like 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.720 at least ten years after the Pinto had this reputation. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:00.679 That's not that. 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:04.760 Far from the truth, actually, we found from doing this research. 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.280 So there's actually a lot of choice quotes that we 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.080 found a lot of people love taking potshots at the Pinto. 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.559 Some have written some pretty great stuff. You want to 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:15.560 take the first one. 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:18.920 Yeah, the first one was from Popular Mechanics magazine, and 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:22.520 they said, arguably the most dangerous fuel tank of all 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:27.280 time was a rear mounted vessel installed on the seventy 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.360 one through seventy six Ford Pinto. It's possibly the best 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:35.200 example of what happens when poor engineering meets corporate negligence. 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:40.400 Good quote, I got one. 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:43.400 There's this guy named doctor Leslie Ball. He was the 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:47.200 chief safety officer for NASA's manned Space program. 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:48.319 So this guy knew safety, right. 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.520 He said that the release to production of the Pinto 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:57.920 was the most reprehensible decision in the history of American engineering. 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.760 So there's a couple of things I want your right. 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:04.400 A couple of things to note in this quote. One 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.199 he said was the most reprehensible decision, not one of 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:12.360 the and he also qualifies it with American engineering, not 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:18.120 automotive engineering. He's including like easy bake ovens and other 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:20.800 stuff they have killed like millions of people. 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:21.360 You know. 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:27.480 He's including everything ever built basically, Yeah, easy bake ovens 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:28.520 or death traps too. 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:30.120 So the Pinto. 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:32.760 It was kind of an issue for Ford is we're 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:35.079 going to see but there's this one tibit we ran 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:37.720 a cost that we just love. There was a radio 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:41.199 spot for the Pinto in the seventies and Ford had 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.160 to get their their agency to get rid of it 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.480 because it had the line the Pinto leaves you with 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:57.320 that warm feeling for real, this is this is a 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.839 fun one of research, all right. 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.720 So again I want to reiterate, we don't know anything 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:07.640 about the design of cars. You know how to drive cars, 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:08.880 and that's about where it ends. 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:10.480 But we do know this. 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.600 The original design of the Pinto had a gas tank 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:18.520 that started six inches from the rear bumper. I know 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.439 that's not a good idea. If I was in Detroit, 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.720 I would have said, well, that's weird, and why would 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:28.440 you want to do that? Sure, because you know, accidents happened, right, 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:29.880 No one thought about it. 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:34.680 No. That's made even worse by the fact that a 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:39.920 car critic would later call that bumper little more than ornamentation, right, like, 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:42.120 car's supposed to have a bumper, just put that thing 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:44.959 that looks like a bumper on it. Basically, there was 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.800 a later improved version of the bumper on the Pinto 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.199 that could with stand a five mile an hour impact. 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:52.640 That was the improved version. 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.920 And again, this is all happening six inches away from 0:11:58.360 --> 0:11:59.240 the gas tank. 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.079 That's that's just one side of the field tank. 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.920 There's a whole other side, and it had like its 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:05.640 own issues. 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:09.080 Basically, Yeah, there's there's something on a car called a differential. 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:11.880 Uh, we mechanics say it. 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.240 We don't know what that is, but I did some 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:20.160 research and here's what I'm gonna call it. It's the 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:23.559 magic box that makes the car go room. 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:24.880 I think it's pretty accurate. 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.319 What's what's so funny is like we pride ourselves on 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.959 chasing down every tidbit of information when it comes to cars, 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:33.480 We're just like, that's out. 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:35.800 No idea. 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:39.000 Who'd want to hear a live podcast about a car? So, uh, 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:43.080 this magic box on the Ford Pinto had four protruding 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:49.600 bolts facing the gas tank that uh see you're getting 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.280 it now that uh in court later on, and this 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:55.360 would end up in court that you see where this 0:12:55.440 --> 0:13:00.440 is going. Lawyers would call them can openers, and we're 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.480 just gonna call them for this show, flaming death bolts. 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:06.720 I wish we had a sound effect or like a 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.520 jingle like Flaming Death Bolts. 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:12.160 And we should totally trademark Flaming Death Bolts. 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.280 I think so too, or at least that's a band name. 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.160 I think we should at least call it out as that. 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:18.680 Oh right, do you hear that? 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:21.280 Are they're Flaming Death Faults behind us? 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:22.680 That came out? 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.160 Uh, we're here on the wrong night. 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:29.240 So, like I said, there there's a lot of good 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:31.600 quotes out there, but probably the best of them, the 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.520 best came from this journalist named Mark Dowie who figures 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:38.079 big time into the story and he probably got across 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.679 the problem with the Pinto better than anybody. And if 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:45.719 I may please okay, Mark Dowie said, if you ran 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.080 into a Pinto you were following it over thirty miles 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:50.440 an hour, the rear end of the car would buckle 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.000 like an accordion right up to the back seat, and 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:55.320 the tube bleeding to the gas tank cap would be 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.480 ripped away from the tank itself and gas would immediately 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:02.280 begin squashing onto the road around the car. Right the 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.800 buckle gas tank would be jammed up against the differential housing, 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:09.680 which contained four sharp protruding bolts, likely to gash holes 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:13.520 in the tank and spill still more gas. Now all 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:15.520 you need is a spark from a cigarette. 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.359 And this is me interjecting here. This is the seventies. 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:21.760 So every single person in every single car was smoking 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:24.920 every single second of every moment they were driving. 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:28.360 There are four lit cigarettes in every car at all 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:30.160 times with the windows. 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:30.960 Up barring that. 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.480 You could also get it from the ignition or scraping metal, 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:37.120 and both cars would be engulfed in flames. 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:39.000 If you gave that pin to a. 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.440 Really good whack, say it forty miles per hour, chances 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.080 are excellent that its doors would jam and you would 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:48.640 have to stand by and watch its trapped passengers burn 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:49.280 to death. 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:55.320 You're that's not me saying this. 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:02.760 Your additional what do you call it? Pantomiming acting? 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:05.240 It's in the pantomime tradition. 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:06.840 Fantastic, Thank you. 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:14.600 Reading Rainbow with Josh give LeVar Burton a run for 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:19.640 his money. All right, So there was one thirty mile 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.240 per hour crash test with a pinto that found that 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:27.400 all thirteen gallons, all thirteen gallons, spilled out in less 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:31.880 than sixty seconds. So we all drive here in Atlanta 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.160 and you all pump gas. You know how fast when 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:36.360 you're pumping gas, it's coming out and you're like, oh 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:40.840 my god, that's so fast. Hole coming out so fast. 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.720 You can't pump take a gas in sixty seconds. So 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.880 the Pinto is spilling gas faster than you can pump gas. 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:50.560 Think about that next time you go to the gas station. 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:56.400 Yeah, thank god, I'm not driving an early nineteen seventies Pinto. 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:02.680 So the weird thing is this, despite the Pinto's reputation, 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:06.520 whether it's from top secret, you learned about it from 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:09.080 your older brother, who knows where you heard it from, 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:12.080 but a lot most people, I would even say, know 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:14.880 of the Pinto is a flaming death trap. It turns out, 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:19.040 in retrospect, the Pinto was really not much worse than 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:21.920 any other car in its class at the time, which 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.440 is not to say that the Pinto wasn't a flaming 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:28.800 death trap, but instead all cars were flaming death traps. 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:32.120 The idea of being safe if you got into a 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:36.400 crash was totally lost on Detroit at the time. 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:37.400 It wasn't a thing. 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:40.680 So we wondered, okay, well, how did the Pinto actually 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:41.720 get this reputation? 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:44.240 And to answer that question, we have. 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:46.960 To go to the Great Periodical Room in the sky 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.120 and we have to go back to the ninth. 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:51.800 We all have to die. 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:55.080 No, No, that's the great part about it. You can 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:55.880 go there alive. 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:56.640 Oh. 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:58.720 Usually when you say the great thing in the sky, 0:16:58.760 --> 0:16:59.920 that means you're totally dead. 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:00.800 Just in the sky. 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.879 Okay, all right, Great, we're going to the Great Periodical 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:05.280 in the sky. 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:06.439 Why and we're all living? 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:08.320 All right, it's great. 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.320 We're gonna go back to the nineteen seventy seventh section 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.000 and we're going to find the nineteen seventy seven year 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.600 for Mother Jones Magazine. Has everyone ever heard of Mother 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:23.960 Jones Magazines still around today? So on one might characterize 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.359 it as slightly left of center maybe, And it was 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:29.080 very much the same back in the day. 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:29.919 Yeah. 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:34.840 And in this September October nineteen seventy seven issue of 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:37.680 Mother Jones Magazine, there was an article by Mark Dowie. 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.359 That's right, it's called Pinto Madness. You can still read 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:42.880 this article today. It was one of the main sources 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.240 we used. It's a great deep dive if you want 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.359 to read some more stuff about the Pinto But Mark 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:50.440 Dowie was the quote you read earlier, and he was 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:51.640 a journalist there at the time. 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:55.280 And this is this is one reason you know. This 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:56.359 is also the seventies. 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.560 When they released this article in a print magazine, they 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:03.560 had a press conference about it, which is adorable when 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:07.800 you think about it, especially through today's lens. So they 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.040 even traveled. They went to Washington, d C. From San Francisco, 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.800 held a big press conference there on Capitol Hill about 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:22.720 a magazine article, and they invited Ralph Nader to attend, which, yeah, yeah, 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:24.359 if you don't know who Ralph Nader is, he is 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:29.320 a great American. He was a consumer crusader who cared 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:31.679 really about one thing in life, and that is making 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:37.080 sure that corporations didn't screw you over and they kept 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.000 you safe. And it's not like he got rich doing it. 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:42.520 Ralph Nader was a great, great dude, right. 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.280 He lived like a hermit to show that he wasn't 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:47.760 being influenced by one side or the other. He had 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.040 like a mattress on the floor of like a studio apartment. 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:53.360 I think he had a hot plate that he lived with. 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:59.000 Ironically, it's very dangerous how they think about it. 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.640 It was like probably the safer hot plates, but yeah. 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:03.120 I bet it was the best hot plate on the market. 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:04.840 Yeah, for sure, you would think so. But he bought 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:06.120 it with his own money. 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:08.480 He did so anyother Ralph Nader was there. They got 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:12.400 everyone together and they had this big press conference in Washington, DC, 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:17.760 and Dowie starts to poke around a little bit and 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:21.040 do a little more research for this article and say, 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:22.800 you know, I need to go to these need to 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:24.640 go to dot and need to go what was the. 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:28.719 Other one called NHTSA ones that stand for National Man 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:34.840 the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. Correct, it's a mouthful, 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:36.800 very good, so a lot of common words, but when 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:38.879 you put him together like that, it's tough. 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.240 So he went and started doing some investigating and he 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:48.600 found out that Ford had been carrying out well, they've 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:52.040 been carrying out crash tests in secret. And when you're 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:55.360 carrying out crash tests in secret, that's probably not a good. 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:55.720 Thing, right. 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:58.119 It means that you didn't get the results you were 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:03.919 hoping for, so you you suppressed the results you had. 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:05.680 All the scientists murdered. 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.200 Lea totally. Did He's like you see that? 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:09.680 Sure? 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:15.439 He probably like was like, go to sleep forever. But 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:17.280 that was just to get the ball rolling. He had 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.520 goons killed the rest of them. Oh sure, and you 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:22.920 then you filed the crash test with the dot. 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:25.000 That was the normal thing. 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:28.119 So Dowy's sitting there going through all these file cabinets, 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.640 and you know, there's all these bureaucrats going like, oh God, 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:36.560 why does he keep saying Eureka. 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:35.800 Here's the guy in there with the spy camera. 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:38.879 And he figured out very very quickly that Ford was 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:44.400 well aware of the notion that its Pintos were flaming 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:49.280 death traps. Right, And from those forty crash tests, he 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:53.520 found that eleven of them, this is really important, eleven 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:57.400 of those crash tests had been carried out before the Pinto, 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.280 the first one, had ever rolled off of the production line. 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:01.960 Right. 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.280