Stuff You Should Know - Selects: SYSK Live: Back When Ford Pintos Were Flaming Deathtraps

Episode Date: June 17, 2023

For this special live benefit episode recorded in Atlanta, Josh and Chuck go back to the 70s and look at the decidedly ungroovy course of events that led to Ford recalling its Pinto after people started burning up in them.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So, there is a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Yeah, like does the US government really have alien technology? Or what about the future of AI? What happens when computers actually learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events. Listen to stuff they don't want you to know on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you find your favorite shows. I'm Lars that pip in from the Real Housewives of Miami. I'm Marcus Jordan, CEO of Trophy Room. We decided to launch this podcast, separation anxiety. We can't live without each other. We can't. And I think we go through separation anxiety when we're not together. We kind of want to share our stories.

We're going to talk about everything and be brutally honest as far as relationships, whether it's your boyfriend, kids, even at work. There's no subject that we won't tackle in this podcast. Telling you everything. Listen to separation anxiety with Larson Marcus on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi friends it's me Josh and for this week's select I've chosen our episode live show really from 2018

back when Ford Pinto's were flaming death traps. Now this episode actually came out with an intro from me and Chuck, so it seems foolish to do an intro to an intro, even though that's what I'm doing now, but that's why I'm going to stop and just say, hope you enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's not here. But we are with all these beautiful people live at the Buckhead Theatre in our own at Lanta GA. G.A. Wow. Hey. There they are.

Not too shabby, everybody. Yeah. So let's start. Man, I feel great. You feel great. I feel great. I feel great. I feel great. I feel great. I feel great. I feel great. I feel great. Yeah! So let's start.

Man, I feel great. You feel great. Since this is a live podcast and it's actually set a little further back in time, we thought we would all get into the way back machine. So for those of you who have seen us live before, you know the way back machine is made up. It's not a real thing. But it does take a twinkle in your eye and a heart full of magic to get into the way back machine.

So I hope all of you have that going on right now. That was my best service, Silverman impression. It's pretty good. Thanks. So we're all on the way back machine, okay? And we're going back to Detroit, Michigan. Back to, I don't know, like the mid-60s or something like that. We'll say, yeah, back when people still wanted to go to Detroit. I'm purpose. Sorry, ma'am. Yeah, I told you.

And we're going to fly in, blue, blue, blue, blue. That's the sound of mix. Sorry, ma'am. Yeah, I told you. And we're going to fly in blue-lulu-lulu. That sounded like... And we're very small and invisible, by the way. So we're going to fly in over the shoulder blue-lulu-lulu of an up-and-coming auto-executive with a beautiful head of hair named Lee Aikoka. And Lee, Lee at the time,

he was what you might call a young turk, up and coming, like ready to take on the world great guy, and he had a lot of cred around the company that he worked at called Ford Motor Company. I tried, it's pre-Christler. Right, and he had a lot of cred because he had designed the Mustang, right? It was known as Lee's car even. Yeah, I mean, if you are the guy and the lead of the Ford Mustang project, then you've kind of bought your ticket in the car industry.

Right, if you make the car. If you make the car that Vanilla ice will eventually love, you've done something quite right with your life, right? Did he have a Mustang? Rolling in my 5.0 with the rag top down. That's a Mustang, buddy. Is it? Sure. I think it's even in the video. I've never been more ashamed.

To not know the lyrics of a song? Yeah, because it's F and Benilla eyes. So I don't feel like I should have known it. I just feel like a stooge. Oh no, it's fine. No, you got a wean shirt on. You probably should know this. But I know that lyric. I did know a five point.

Five point. All right. That's my understanding, right, everybody. I thought it was a vote so I can be a little. No, no, but that does come up starting now. Because Leigh-Ekkoka was one of the few people in Detroit at the time who Realized that the American auto industry's lunch was being eaten in the subcompact market Mainly because no American car company was making subcompacts at the time, right?

We liked your cars very large Like like Yant Land Yacht's yeah, okay, so It's time. Like, like, land yachts. Yeah. Okay. So, Lee said the Germans are eating our lunch with their little Volkswagen Beetle Hitler's car. Look it up.

I had two Volkswagen Beetles. Those were two Hitler's cars. You supported Hitler in a way. My mom is over there. She bought that car. I don't know. She's going like that. And then the Toyota Corolla was also killing people, right?

Killin' Detroit, I should say. Yeah. And so Lee said, we need to get a car to market. But I'm not the president. There's a man who is president. What is his name, Chuck? I can't ever remember honestly. Oh no, I do remember.

His name is Bunky Newtson. If you're the president of a car company, and your name's Bunky Newtson, you gotta know, you have a target on your back, right? Nobody's gonna let that stand for very long, especially not Leah and Coco. Yeah, the only thing Bunke Newton in that year would have been president of is the Super Secret Treehouse Playboy magazine club.

Right. Led by Bunke Newton. Right. Or the local union of the guys who sell those like Bunkeys that play the symbols on the street, you know? They're wind up ones. All right, so regardless of that, Bunky Newton was in charge, and Leah Koka had his sights

set on that job. And so they settled things in the traditional way in the car industry at the time, which was arm wrestling. He's like this, he's serious. Yeah. So Leah Koka had this thing where, we think this is probably how he rose to power. He could rip the sleeve clean off of his shirt right at the shoulder right before an arm

wrestling match, right? It's very intimidating. And he always kept his arms oiled every morning. He would oil them up and very gingerly put the shirt on over him so the oil wouldn't show too. So it really had like a pronounced effect when he tore his shirt sleigh off and went like that. So when he did this, the bunky-noodson and bunky saw that oil bicep, he knew his time running for company had grown short.

That's right. Bunky-noodson knew what time it was. All that was totally made up your real life, right? The stun silence threw me off a little bit. This is back to the tree house for Bunky. So Leah, Coco, found himself in charge of Ford, and he said, we got to get a subcompact going fast, dudes. So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to get a project going. I'm even going to give it a code name, which is really weird and sort of soft. It's kind of been work, kind of a newton move. But he named it Project Phoenix, which is really weird and sort of soft. Kind of in work. Kind of in Nudes and Moves. But he named it Project Phoenix, which is very cute and a little ironic once you know what this is about. And he said, I want a car, I want it on the market. And what, 24 months?

Yeah. And normally it took like 43 months, daily car, from concept to production. I had Coke, he said, no, 24. Yeah, 24, nope, 24. Yeah, 24, so super fast. And it can't weigh more than 2,000 pounds. And it can't cost a customer more than $2,000. And he totally should have called it Project 2000.

So it would have been a super cool name in the early 1970s. Right. And that car would go on to be known as the Ford Pinto. For those of you who aren't going like, oh, right now. Couple of claps, couple of booze, couple of groans, and a lot of like, what, what, we're going to fill the want people in on this, okay?

Yeah, so the deal with the Ford Pinto was, if you don't know, and you did grow up in the 70s, it had a problem. We don't know a lot about cars, and you did grow up in the 70s, it had a problem. We don't know a lot about cars, but we know that the Ford Pinto had a problem. If you would hit the Ford Pinto from the rear, going very, very slow, sometimes it would burst into a firey ball.

And that is not a good thing for a car to do. Especially when you're still in the car. That's right. Has anyone seen the movie Top Secret? Remember that one? There's a scene where Val Cameray think is on a motorcycle, he's being chased by Germans. And he somehow outmaneuvers them and they

swerve off the road and slam on their brakes and almost come to a complete stop right before hitting a pinto in the rear. But don't quite make it, it makes that crystal-ding sound and then boom, they just blow up into flames, right? And this was in the 80s, this was like at least 10 years after the Pinto had this reputation. That's not that far from the truth, actually. We've found from doing this research. So there's actually a lot of choice quotes that we found.

A lot of people love taking pot shots at the Pinto. Some have written some pretty great stuff. You want to take the first one? Yeah, the first one was from a popular mechanics magazine, and they said, arguably the most dangerous fuel tank of all time was a rear mounted vessel installed on the 71 through 76 Fort Pinto. It's possibly the best example of what

happens when poor engineering meets corporate negligence. Good quote. I got one. There's this guy named Dr. Leslie Ball. He was the chief safety officer for NASA's man-to-space program. So this guy knew safety, right? He said that the release to production of the Pinto was the most reprehensible decision

in the history of American engineering. So, there's a couple of things I want you guys to know. A couple of things to note in this quote, one, he said, was the most reprehensible decision, not one of the. He also qualifies it with American engineering, not automotive engineering. He's including like easy-b Bake ovens and other stuff. They have killed millions of people.

He's including everything ever built. Basically, yeah. Easy Bake ovens are death traps, too. So the Pinto, it was kind of an issue for Ford, is we're going to see. But there's this one tidbit we ran a cost that we just love. There was a radio spot for the Pinto in the 70s, and Ford had to get their agency to get rid of it, because it had the line, the Pinto leaves you with that warm feeling.

For real. This is a fun one of research. For real. This is a fun one of research. Alright, so again, I want to reiterate, we don't know anything about the design of cars. We know how to drive cars, and that's about where it ends. But we do know this, the original design of the Pinto had a gas tank that started six inches from the rear bumper. I know that's not a good idea. If I was in Detroit, I would have said, well, that's weird. Why would

you want to do that? Sure. Because, you know, accidents happen. No one thought about it. No. That's made even worse by the fact that a car critic would later call that bumper a little more than ornamentation, right? Like cars supposed to have a bumper, just put that thing that looks like a bumper on it, basically. There was a later improved version of the bumper on the Pinto that could withstand a five mile an hour impact. That was the improved version. And again, this is all happening. Six inches away from the gas tank. That's just one side of the fuel tank. There's a whole other side.

And it had like its own issues, basically. Yeah, there's something on a car called a differential. We don't. That's how mechanics say it. We don't know what that is, but I did some research, and here's what I'm going to call it. It's the magic box that makes the car go room. I think it's pretty accurate. What's so funny is we pride ourselves on chasing down every tidbit of information.

When it comes to cars, we're just like, that's out. No idea. Who would want to hear a live podcast about a car? So this magic box on the Ford Pinto had four protruding bolts facing the gas tank. That, uh, see, you're getting it now. That, uh, in court later on, and this would end up in court that you'd see where this is going. Uh, lawyers would call them can-openeres,

and we're just gonna call them for this show, Flaming Deathbolts. I wish we had a sound effect, we're like a jingle, like, flaming deathbolts. And we should totally trademark flaming deathbolts. I think so too, or at least that's a band name, I think we should at least call it, I was that. Oh, right. You hear that? Are they flaming deathbolts. I think so too. Or at least that's a band name. I think we should at least call it out. It was that. Oh right. You hear that? Are they

flaming deathbolts behind us? They came out. We're going on the wrong night. So like I said, there's a lot of good quotes out there, but probably the best of them. The best came from this journalist named Mark Dauy who figures big time into the story. And he probably got across the problem with the Pinto better than anybody. And if I may, please. Okay. Mark Dauy said, if you ran into a Pinto, you were following it over 30 miles an hour, the rear end of the car would buckle like an accordion right up to the back seat. And the two bleeding to the gas tank cap would be ripped away from the tank itself,

and gas would immediately begin sloshing onto the road around the car, right? The buckle gas tank would be jammed up against the differential housing, which contained four sharp protruding bolts likely to gash holes in the tank and spill still more gas. Now all you need is a spark from a cigarette, and this is me interjecting here, this is

the 70s, so every single person in every single car was smoking every single second of every moment they were driving. There were four lit cigarettes in every car at all times, with windows up. Barring that, you could also get it from the ignition or scraping metal and both cars would be engulfed in flames. If you gave that pin to a really good whack, say at 40 miles per hour, chances are excellent that it's doors with jam and you would have to stand by and watch

its trap passengers burn to death. You're, uh, that's not me saying this. You're additional, uh, what do you call that? Pantamiming, acting, uh, it's in the pantomime tradition. That's fantastic. Thank you. The reading rainbow with Josh. Give Lavar Burton a run for his money. All right, so there was one 30 mile per hour crash test with a Pinto that found that all 13 gallons, all 13 gallons spilled out in less than 60 seconds.

So we all drive here in Atlanta and you all pump gas. You know how fast when you're pumping gas, it's coming out and you're like, oh my God, that's so fast. It won't hold. It won't hold. It's so fast. You can't pump, tank a gas in 60 seconds. So the Pinto is spilling gas faster than you can pump gas.

Think about that next time you go to the gas station. Think, thank God I'm not driving it. Early 1970s Pinto. So the weird thing is this, despite the Pinto's reputation, whether it's from top secret or you learned about it from your older brother, who knows where you heard it from, but a lot. Most people I would even say know of the Pinto as a flaming death trap. It turns out, in retrospect, the Pinto was really not much worse than any other car in its class at a time

Which is not to say that the Pinto wasn't a flaming death trap, but instead all cars were flaming death trap at a time The idea of being safe if you got into a crash was Totally lost on Detroit at the time. It wasn't a thing. So we wondered, OK, well, how did the Pinto actually get this reputation? And to answer that question, we have to go to the great periodical room in the sky.

And we have to go back to the night. We all have to die. No, that's the great part about it. You can go there a lot. Oh. Usually when you say the great thing in the sky, that means you're totally dead. It's just in the sky. Okay.

All right, great. We're going to the great periodical in the sky. Right, and we're all living. All right, it's great. We're going to go back to the 1977 section and we're going to find the 1977 year for Mother Jones magazine. Has anyone ever heard of Mother Jones magazine still around today? One might characterize it as slightly left of a center maybe and it was very much the same

back in the day. Yeah. And in this September, October, 1977 issue of Mother Jones magazine, there was an article by Mark Dauy. That's right. It's called Pinto Madness. You can still read this article today. It was one of the main sources we used. It's a great deep dive if you want

to read some more stuff about the Pinto. But Mark Dauy was the quote you read earlier, and he was a journalist there at the time. And this is one reason you know this is also the 70s. When they released this article in a print magazine, they had a press conference about it, which is adorable when you think about it, especially through today's lens.

So they even traveled, they went to Washington, D.C., from San Francisco, held a big press conference there on Capitol Hill about a magazine article and they invited Ralph Nader to attend. Which yeah, you should have later. If you don't know who Ralph Nader is, he is a great American. He was a consumer crusader who cared really about one thing in life and that is making

sure that corporations didn't screw you over and they kept you safe. And it's not like you got rich doing it. Ralph Nader was a great, great dude. Right. He lived like a hermit to show that he wasn't being influenced by one side or the other. He had a mattress on the floor of a studio apartment. Did he get a hot plate that he lived with? Ironically, that's very dangerous.

Now, I think about it. It was like probably one of the safer hot plates, but yeah. I bet it was the best hot plate on the market. You're sure? For sure. Even thinks about it, but he bought it with his own money. He did. So any of the Ralph Nader was there.

They got everyone together and they had this big press conference in Washington, DC. And Dawey starts to poke around a little bit and do a little more research for this article and say, you know, I need to go to these, I need to go to the DOT and need to go, what was the other one called? The NHTSA. What was that stand for? National Man, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.

Correct. It's a mouthful. Very good. It's a lot of common words when you put them together like that. It's tough. So he went and started doing some investigating and he found out that Ford had been carrying out, well, they've been carrying out crash tests in secret. And when you're carrying out crash tests in secret, that's probably not a good thing. Right. It means that you didn't get the results you were hoping for. So you suppressed the results.

You had all the scientists murdered. Liai Kokat totally did. He's like, you see that? Sure. He probably was like going to sleep forever. But that was just to get the ball rolling. He had goons killed the rest of it. Oh, sure. And then you filed the crash test with the DOT. That was the normal thing. So, Dowie sitting there going through all these file cabinets, and you know there's all these

bureaucrats going like, oh God, why does it keep saying Eureka? Or how does it find you now? There's a guy in there with a spy camera? And he figured out very, very quickly that Ford was well aware of the notion that its pentos were flaming death traps, right? And from those 40 crash tests, he found that 11 of them, and this is really important, 11 of those crash tests had been carried out before the Pinto, the first one had ever rolled off of the production line.

He found in these crash tests that every single one of those 40 crash tests, if it was a Pinto that had not been altered, meaning it was the same one that you would buy at the dealership, they lost gas at an impact of 20 miles an hour over. Not very good, right? No, not good at all. So, three of these cars passed the test and all three of them had been had been tweaked for safety. Like these aren't the ones that you would end up buying. They changed three of them and they all three passed, yet they still didn't use it. And here are the three things they did. They, one was a plastic baffle, little square plastic, that cost $1, and it weighed one pound.

And it went between the flaming death bolts and the gas tank. Solve the problem. Pretty sensible. Did not use it, because remember, $2,000, $2,000, which I don't know what that is today. It's $2,000 in $12,000. $12,000. The I don't know what that is today. It's a $2,000 in $12,000. $12,000. The pounds in change.

OK. Gravity is a read relatively the same. The other thing they did, and this ostensibly was a little heavier. They put a metal plate to reinforce that ornamental bumper. In other words, they gave it a bumper. And that worked.

And then the final thing they did was they, I think they line the inside of the outside of the gas tank. The inside of the gas tank. Yeah, the inside of the gas tank with a rubber bladder. And that worked. But no one likes saying the word bladder, head forward, must be honest. It's huge gross.

It works, but it's gritty. So we're getting rid of that one. The point is, they had three solutions before the Ford was being rolled off the line. And they chose to ignore all three of them. But it's cruelty, so we're getting rid of that one. The point is they had three solutions before the Ford was being rolled off the line, and they chose to ignore all three of them. Right, big point here, right? And in addition to this $2,000 pound, $2,000 limitation

that I coca-imposed, that radically shortened timeline also created a climate where really, really dangerous engineering decisions were being made, right? Normally when you make a car, you sketch it out, somebody makes a model of it, some dude like works it in clay, you run it into like a couple of walls or something like that. You all high five. If you figure out how many like like cigarette lighters are gonna go into it, there's a lot of thought put into it.

And then once all this stuff, this pre-production stuff, is done and you know what the car is going to look like, then you begin this process called tooling. And tooling is where you make the machines that are going to make the car that you're manufacturing, right? With the Pinto, they didn't do that. They started designing the car, and at about the same time, they started making the machines that were going to make that car before they even knew ultimately what the final design was going to be. So by the time, they figured out

that they had a really dangerous fuel tank on their hands, it was too late. The tooling was underway. $200 million of machines have been made. And Ford said, whee! Yeah. So when they discovered this, we have a couple of quotes here

from actual engineers that worked there at the time. And they said, did anyone go to Leia Cokka and say, hey, we have a problem on our hands with this gas tank. And this one engineer from the Mother Jones article said, hell, no. But it was like 1977, so we didn't say it like that. We went like, hell, no. Right.

In my mind, he went, hell, no. No. That person would have been fired. Safety wasn't a popular subject around Ford in those days. And with Lee, it was taboo. Or taboo, like if you're a normal person. If you talk normally. Tattoo?

Taboo? Tattoo. Taboo. All right, deletrious. It's been a while for that one. That's a deep cut. Yeah. Who's about 20 people in here that got that one? That's all right. All right, so I had a cook out of saying around 4 at the time, which was safety doesn't sell.

And here's another quote from another engineer, safety is in the issue, trunk spaces, you have no idea how stiff the competition is over trunk space. Do you realize that if we put a safer gas tank in the Pinto, you can only get one set of golf clubs in the trunk? And that's a real quote. And here's something that you can do when you get home. You can go and look up Ford Pinto ad and search Google images or Bing images.

Is that a thing? Sure Bing Yahoo. Yeah. Does it have to be Google? Yeah, go to net scape. Or if you're a paranoid type, duck duck go. That would even flow over my head. It's like they don't like track or use cookies or anything like that.

Oh, yeah. So you're a creep. I guess. I guess are you stockpile weapons or something? Gotcha. So anyway, you can look up Ford Pinto ads and they're all kinds of great ads from the old days. And there's one where there's this couple that I guess is unpacking for like a camping trip from their Pinto, but it doesn't look like anywhere you would want to go camping. guess is unpacking for like a camping trip from their Pinto,

but it doesn't look like anywhere you would want to go camping. It's just kind of like a field. There's like a ditch. Yeah, it's kind of weird looking. And it says this in the text, just flip down the runabout's rear seat. The runabout was one of the Pinto models. Open up the Big Back Door, which we call a hatchback these days. And the big back room makes packing easy. Back in your golf clubs, those groceries,

and those big pieces of luggage pack it all in. You make it sound really dirty. You make it sound really dirty. There's big room in your little pinto. I'm the sicko, because'm using duck duck. It's a sexiest ad of the 70s as read by me. I like old ads in old magazines because like you can smell them after work. You know what I'm saying? Like if you go into Google Images, the ads there but not the smell. But you know what an old magazine smells like? It's a great, fantastic smell.

You mean like, musty? What magazines are you reading? Just any old magazine I found on old penthouse. Pick up, right? Just like... All right, Jerry. Cut that part. No, I'm not doing my shite yet. And everybody calmed down, my niece left to go to bed.

Oh, okay. Are there any other kids here? Yeah, I'm here. All right. You have a very deep voice, young boy. Right here. Yeah. I'm seven. Beer and me. Yeah. I'm seven. Beer me.

Screw. So, everybody, I think we can all agree this is going pretty well. You're not going to like this. That means that we need to put an ad break in here. Calm down. We'll be right back, right after these messages. Learning stuff with Joshua Charles. Stuff your sugar. There's a ton of stuff they don't want you to know.

Does the U.S. government really have alien technology? And what about the future of artificial intelligence, AI? What happens when computers learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover--ups from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science. History is riddled with unexplained events. We spent a decade applying critical thinking to some of the most bizarre phenomenon civilization

and beyond. Each week, we dive deep into unsolved mysteries, conspiracy theories, and actual conspiracies. You've heard about these things, but what's the full story? Listen to stuff they don't want you to know on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows. What's up fam? I'm Brian Ford, Artisan Baker

and host of the new podcast, Flaky Biscuits. On this podcast, I'm gonna get to know my guests by cooking up their favorite nostalgic meal. It could be anything from Twinkies to mom's Thanksgiving dressing. Sometimes I might get it wrong, sometimes I'll get it right. I'm so happy it's good because man, if it wasn't, I'd be like,

you know, everybody not my mom. Yeah. Either way, we will have a blast. You'll have access to every recipe so you can cook and bake alongside me. As I talk to artists, musicians, and chefs about how this meal guided them to success. And these nostalgic meals, fam,

they inspire one of a kind conversations. When I bake this recipe, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Does this podcast come with a therapist? They can. Listen to Flaky Biscuit every Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. With all the chaos and turmoil in the news, it feels like we never get to hear about the good happening in our world. We're on a mission to change that. Welcome to the Good Stuff. I'm Jacob Schick,

a third-generation combat marine. And I'm his co-host and wife Ashley Schick. We believe everyone has a story to tell, not only about the peaks, but the valleys they've been through to get them to where they are today, as we get to tell stories of inspiration and perseverance. We're joined by some amazing guests who share the lessons they've learned that shape two they are and what they're doing to pay it forward and give back. Our guests range from some of my fellow warriors to NFL cheerleaders, to extreme sports legends to New York City firefighters who survived 9-11. Listen to the good stuff on the I HeartartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. Hey everybody, we're back. Magic of the world. Yeah, thank you, sir. I am wearing me undies. Oh, you know what, we should say this. That's a freebie, man. We'll cut this part out too, but I have to share this. We got this as a legit tangent.

Like, you know, like all of them. I know the heavily scripted and rehearsed tangent, so you've heard it from them. We got an email yesterday. You saw it. I did. Where a woman... This is so weird. A woman wanted to send a new pair of meandies to us for us to autograph so she could frame underwear for her husband's Christmas gift.

Now that is a deep cut. Sure. That's a true fan. At least she wasn't like, and you wear them first. Yeah. Each of you pass it off to the other one, and then mail them back to me. But both of those were like, oh yeah, send them in.

Right, totally do that. I sent the email. She would smell like an old magazine. You know? Right when she got that in the mail. Oh, chuck. I said, I didn't, what? Guys, what? Why would you do that?

No one else saw that. I always probably ended this part out too, Drew. This guy right here. So I sent that email to our head of sales, though, and he was so delighted. He was like, oh, I can't wait to send this to me, Undy's. You're autographing underwear. They're not going to believe it. That's like David Lee Roth level.

Except we're autographing me Undy's for a fan. Some dude. It's not David Lee Roth. All. All right everybody we're back. I couldn't think in. Sure. You may do it again though because you just said that. Okay, everybody we're back. I think I just stepped on you. Stop laughing everybody we need to clean. Stop laughing everybody, we need to clean. It said stop laughing. Hey everybody, we're back. Thanks for hanging there.

Thank you. That was a really long effort. I didn't know where we were now. I got it, I got it, you're right. I got creepy right before, I know that. I know, all right, I got you. Hey everybody, we're back. I got creepy right before I know that I know all right. I got you Hey everybody we're back

Everyone's gonna be like what the hell happened in Atlanta that's good enough for leaving that in all right So by now everybody you may be saying Chuck, Josh, WTF. How could this possibly be going on? How could Ford be doing this kind of stuff? We're going to tell you WTF. Turns out that back in the 60s, the American auto industry was like the last great unregulated industry in the entire country. The reason why was because most Americans

considered the auto industry the backbone of the American economy, right? So everyone said, we should probably just let the auto industry decide what's best for it. And us, it's consumers. Because we don't want to mess with them. Yeah, big corporations love to look out for everyday Americans. All right.

But at the time, there was a fatality rate, a.k.a. death rate, on America's highways reaching 50,000 people a year. We did the math. That's a lot. That is a lot. Ralph Nader had a book called Unsafe at Any Speed that was a big hit. He also had one called Hot Plates Unsafe at Any Temperature.

So does he sell quite as well? Has anyone actually read Unsafe at Any Speed? Don't feel bad. We haven't either. OK, good. So he released his book in 1965. And it was basically like a chapter by chapter, really wonky, detailed description

of how your car was ready and willing to murder you, right? Not kill you, murder you. Incinational. There were like chapters on like the steering column. It's going to impale you. Or that dashboard, it ain't padded and your head's gonna open up like a ripe can All open it comes to contact with it, right?

I was the name of the chapter I think that yeah and the reason that this would happen for both instances because there's no such thing as seatbelts Right, so he goes to the trouble there were seatbelts. It was your mom doing that Right, and that's how you knew knew a really dedicated mom in the 60s because she was missing an arm. That's right. Like her kid was all messed up, had a dent on his head or whatever because it didn't quite work because her arm came clean off when they both went forward.

But he was still alive. She didn't have an arm. It was a badge of honor back then. So Ralph Nader writes this book and it gets a release and it becomes like a best seller almost immediately and it has so much of an impact that the next year Congress passed the Highway Safety Act of 1966. Yeah and this is another way you knew it was a day from way back in the day. The house and the senate passed it unanimously.

This is so quick, they all got together and said, well this is what's good for the American people, so this is our job to do this. And they went, yeah, yeah. Pretty sweet, pretty sweet time. Pretty sweet. So they passed this thing in the upshot of it was that now the auto industry would be regulated.

It was just the way it was going to be, OK? And the auto industry said, OK, OK, fine. But what about this? Why don't we agree to use something called a cost-benefit analysis to decide if we actually undertake any regulations you proposed. Deal?

And the DOT and NHTSA was like, well, no, in the auto industry, we're like that. And the DOT was like, all right, fine, fine. We don't want to arm wrestle over this one. Fine, cost-benefit analysis for everybody. Yeah, so if you don't know what a cost-benefit analysis is, we call it the cruelest of all analyses, because it's basically just a math problem. You plug in numbers and you say, I plug in this, I plug in this, is it worth it to do this?

Which works great in a lot of circumstances if you're talking about, I don't know, like what's a good example. Like if you're trying to figure out whether to go with tire distributor, A, or tire distributor B, kind of easy, right? Exactly. But if you're talking about replacing a fuel tank because it's killing people, it gets a little sticky because one of the inputs on those math problems has to be the value of a human life.

There's no getting around it. No way around it, right? So the NHTSA said, well, I guess we should go ahead and figure out how to quantify human life. They all went home and like, kiss their children. Then they came back to work. And what they came up with, they actually did it. There was a 1972 document that said, everybody, this is the value of a human life we figured it out

200,725 dollars and what they did was they figured out the average lifespan or the average age, I guess, of a person who dies in a car wreck, and then subtracted it from the average lifespan of the Americans at the time in the Iraq, such as. And they came up with 37 years. Most people who die in a car wreck would have lived 37 more years.

And then they say, well, how much would those people make in that time? And they said, well, $200,725. The problem with this is that really what they calculated was the cost to society in lost productivity. If it's just wages, right? They didn't take into account some very important stuff like the value that the individual places on his

or her own life, or whether their family wants them to come home after a car wreck. Stuff like that. But they came up with this dollar amount and they said, they're there. We'll get better at it over time. But here's what it is. And it's a primitive step.

Exactly. Again, the here's what it is. And it's a primitive step. Exactly. Again, the cruelest of all analyses. So Mark Dauy is sorting through all the file cabinets at the DOT and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. It's no faster to say it abbreviated. I know. I would just mess it up, though.

So he's sorting through all the stuff. He's going through file cabinets. Everyone's worried. And he comes across a document, a memo called fatalities associated with crash-induced fuel leakage and fires. And over the years, people come to think, like, this is the smoking gun.

This is Pinto. It was about Pinto fires from getting hit in the rear. And that's what it is. It really wasn't that. What it was was about all cars in the United States and whether they caught on fire when they rolled over. However, the one damning thing in this memo was that Ford used that number, well, almost that number,

to quantify the value of a human life, but Ford rounded down. They rounded down the value of a human life. Just, you know, to make the math easier. Yeah, they made it 200 grand, they cut off the $725, just made it straight up 200k. Right, so they estimated like 180 fatalities and 180 injuries in car fires,

post-collision car fires every year in the US. And they said, well, that would cost society $49 million in lost productivity. But if you want us to do this $11 per car safety improvement that would save those lives and those injuries, well, it cost us the auto industry $113 million. So don't have to do it, right? Great.

See it, Racketball Ted. That was kind of, you guys see Fight Club? Remember Edward Norton's job? That was kind of what he did, right? A little bit. Yeah, he had to kind of calculate whether or not it was worth taking a recall. Exactly. And Ford, thanks to Dowie, had just been caught right handed with one of these, submitted

in the public record. All right, so part of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act was something, and all these bills, this gets a little wonky, but bear with me. They're all broken down into subcategories, and one of them was called Vehicle Safety Standard 301. And 301 was basically our government getting together and saying, you know what, we feel like you should be able to get hit from the rear at like 20 miles an hour and not explode into a firey ball.

We've talked about it, we know you're going to say Detroit, but we've talked about it, we feel very strongly about this. We feel that's reasonable. Democrats push for 30, Republicans push for 10, they met in the middle at 20. There are people from Cobb County here, I'm sure. They are not happy with you right now, Chuck. That's right.

They are going to let us know via email after this show. So angry at the way you feel about life. So they settle on 20 miles an hour, and that was Safety Standard 301. But here's the rub for Ford and the Pinto is they had a problem on their hands. They knew they couldn't withstand 20 miles an hour. They could barely withstand five.

So this would have meant a complete redesign on the Pinto. So they came up with a plan basically to, shall we say, delay the process. Yeah, I co-could that thing. Killed that standard 301, I hate it. And they were happy because they didn't have to kill a human for once. So what the clowns in is, oh yeah, I didn't even mean to say that, but it works pretty well. So here's what they did.

They got the attorneys on the case and they said, here's what you'll do. You're going to file these arguments. On the last day that you can file an argument, and you're going to get all this data together, and you're going to shove it in their face and say, here's an argument. D-O-T. D-O-T. And now you've got to look through all this stuff,

and you have to satisfy that argument. So they may not have even cared if the argument held up or not. The point was, they just wanted to delay things so they could keep selling the very dangerous Pinto. So they did this and they didn't file them concurrently all at once, which is sort of what you usually do in law and court. They would file one, they would go look through them all and say, hey, this holds water, it doesn't, they go great.

They wait until the next deadline and file another one. And all of a sudden, they have delayed this process for nine years. Nine years. They started arguing against it in 1968, and Standard 301 went to effect in 1977, right? Yeah. Boo. So, there's kind of like a silver lining to this whole thing. And that Ford's objections actually forced the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration

to study the problem of car fires to answer Ford's objections and say no actually you're wrong, they're kind of a problem. Yeah, they were giving them reams of data and then they went oh sh**, we just gave them reams of that. Right. But the NHTSA also had to contract with people to study this stuff. And what they were finding was that car fires in America were way, way more of a problem than even forward, I think, realized at the time. They turned up some stats.

Like, 400,000 cars were burning up on the American highway every year, burning more than 3,000 people of death. Is that high? 400,000 cars. Yeah. Maybe it's a little high, I don't know. But this is what they turned up. That sounds high. Here's one. 40% of all calls to all fire departments in the United States and the 1960s were cars on fire. Isn't that nuts? Just the last time you guys saw cars on fire. This would be like an, like you would see one

in a couple of miles later, there's another one. Well, yeah, and this was, people didn't have cell phones. So you would have to see a car on fire, have a diamond in your pocket, be narrowed up to a pay phone to report it. Right, and that was 40%. And it made the judgment that there was a chance that the person was gonna make it

in the time that you went to the pay phone. Right. You know, there's a lot of factors here. 40% seems high. Like if you had a Christmas parade in your town, there was a pretty good chance. A couple of those cars were just gonna catch fire in the middle of the parade.

This is insane. And this is what the NHCSA was finding from studying this problem. There's a University of Miami study. They found that rear end impact fires were, quote, a clear and present hazard to all Pinto owners. That was the cane saying that. All right, so, wait, wait, wait, we're going to take another amp right now. Okay, everybody, we'll be right back, don't get up, we'll be right

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Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey everybody, we're back. It's a lot better live, huh? They get it now. So the original draft of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act had a part that provided, it was very controversial, provided for criminal sanctions, criminal sanctions against executives of auto companies. And these, well, let's be honest, these white dudes that were executives at these auto companies said, well, I don't think you really mean that, right?

That means we could go to prison, you understand. I think we should, we have some lobbyists on the case. So they put the lobbyists on the case, and they did get that lobby out of the Safety Act, unfortunately. Yeah, I say unfortunately, that's me talking. Sure. Well, you're speaking for both of us, buddy.

They end up with like $5,000, $10,000? Yeah, in 1977, money, which today translates to like 40 grand. So if you were an auto executive who knowingly put a dangerous car out on the American market, you could face a fine of $40,000. And from what we understand, that's like once, one time fine. Yeah, that was it. So it would be up to the media and the courts to force Ford to do something about its Pinto.

And boy did they ever. The drumbeat started, isn't that right? Yeah, it started with Dowey, right? Like Mark Dowey gets a lot of credit for the Pinto article. And definitely, he definitely had a big impact. But he gets some undue credit for getting standard 301 to come into effect, because it came into effect pretty shortly after the Pinto madness article came out.

It turns out later research turned up that the NHTSA hits it ford were so sick of you arguing against Standard 301. How long will it take for you guys to get your cars up to Standard 301 level, which again is a 20 mile an hour rear impact that doesn't lead to fuel loss. And Ford was like, oh, no, no. It seems like a big job, right? Four years? And the NHTSA was like, you know, it took you two years to design the car from scratch,

right? They're like, yeah, this is huge massive improvements to make it safe. So four years, so the NHTSA said fine, fine. In 1977, it'll come into effect. So it was just coincidence. But Dowie's article did have a big impact in the way of shaping public opinion. Yeah, for sure.

So what happens is there start to be some lawsuits. People that are getting burned alive in Pinto's and other cars say, well, maybe we could sue somebody. And is that a duck clack? Is there a duck in the house? Is that a duck in the house? Well? Okay, let's get back on track. Get back on track. It works, doesn't it?

You're all charmed. Thank you for taking that one for us, Chuck. Jerry, cut that part. All right, so, Jerry, cut that part. All right, so that's delicious. It's good, yeah, bullet, bullet-bram bourbon. Woo! It's called buzz marketing, everyone. They don't even pay us for that.

Yeah. So, there are these people that have this job where they recreate accidents for, sometimes it's for court, for attorneys, for the state, sometimes it's for insurance companies, but they recreate these accidents to kind of show what went down. And some of them started to say, and again, it was a radical notion, started to say, wait a minute, I think that if you get in a car wreck, you maybe should be able to live through it.

It's a radical idea, but maybe they should make cars safer? Yeah, they could go back to San Diego hippie. Well, the notion from America, everyone sort of agreed to this thing where like, you get in a car wreck and die Like you got in the car wreck. It's your fault. It was a driver's fault Yeah, it's a driver's fault. You can't make cars safer in the case of an accident It seems weird now because it's all we think about as auto safety But it was just not on the radar. Leia Koka was not the only one

But that was thanks to Detroit like saying it's your fault. You're a dummy But everyone agreed to it. Everyone was in the closet. Yes But that was thanks to Detroit, like saying, it's your fault, you're a dummy. But everyone agreed to it. Everyone was put in Detroit's defense. At the time, everybody was drunk while they were driving. It's driving. Way more than today. So they kind of had a point, but still,

they could still make the cars safer. And should have even more back then. Yeah, for sure. So these, I don't know, we call them accident recreationists. Reconstructionists. Reconstructionists? Recreationists are the Civil War dudes. Does anyone here do that?

Any Civil War reenactors? There's three who are just sitting there like this right now. All right, quick sidebar. Emily and I went hiking. You guys ever go to Sweetwater or State Park? See, local show. Emily, remember this? We went hiking in Sweetwater, and there were some Civil War

reenactors. But it wasn't like what I know about Civil War reenactors. This is they throw a big battle party or whatever it's called and they act like it's a big war and they go bang, you die or don't die and bang, bang and then that's sort of what happens. Do they do that? I have no idea what they do. But it's a big show, like on a field, like I went to one when I was a kid.

I remember that. But these dudes were just hanging out in the woods at Sweet Quatter State Park. They were like, they had a fire going, and it was like three or four people. It was a couple of dudes and a couple of ladies in their outfits, and they were cooking, I guess like a squirrel on a spit.

That's Huckabee style. It was no organized thing. And when I was just hiking by. It was like a year ago. It was like, well, that's weird. I mean, you guys just like back slowly into the wood. I did. Don't make eye contact. I guess I approved because it wasn't war.

So that's kind of cool. Well, no, they were prepping for war. So they were gathering their strength from squirrels' pain. Loading their muskets. To go. feign war. Very strange. Don't go to sweet waters.

By the way, don't go there. No. Not after that. Oh, OK. I don't know if there's something out. Like there's a lot of abandoned tires in the ravine or something. All right, so where are you, Jerry? So cut that whole story.

I don't know. I think it was a good story. I think we should keep it, Jerry. Is she dead? Is she the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great, the great should be safer. And people went, oh, well, that's not a bad idea. Yeah, because they're a revolutionary idea. These guys were saying, with the Pinto in particular, I'm starting to notice a lot of charred bodies that are otherwise in perfect shape.

Look great, aside from the charred part, right? Like, they don't have any contusions. They don't have any broken bones. So, like, these accents are happening. It really loves to be. Maybe it's actually a design flaw with Ford. And so, the lawyers were like, that sounds great. And they started circling the courthouses, like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz

and dropping lawsuits down on a Ford's head. And at first, Ford was like, bring it. We're Ford. You know, Jury's are made up of like, upstanding registered voters. We're going to be just fine. And Ford won a couple at first, and then they started losing them. And Ford was still kind of like, we're still

taking the jury trial on. But the whole thing turned on this one trial in 1977 in Orange County, California, and Ford lost big time actually in a Pinto case. Yeah, they lost, and this was in 1977. They lost $125 million in damages to a boy named, he's 13 years old, Richard Grimshaw was very sad. He's burned very badly, and the driver of the car died.

And 125 million bucks back, I mean, it's a lot of money now. But back then, it's a ton of money. And it's what they call, you've heard of like a symbolic award where they'll just hit a company with a ton of ton of money. And it later gets reduced. But all they care about is that the media knows that they got hit with this ton of money. Right.

That was sort of the case here. It got reduced to what, three and a half million bucks. It's still pretty expensive. Yeah, so a lot of money back to that, of course. But that initial figure really made a point and sent shockwaves through the auto industry. Yeah, and so Ford changed its tactics. They're like, okay, well, maybe we'll start settling.

And we got another quote, and Chuck reads it way better than me. So if you don't mind. Yeah, this was an attorney for Ford. And I'll read it in the voice of Lionel Hut, Subdicemsons, the Great Phil Hartman. Here we go. We'll never go to a jury again, not in a fire case.

Jury is a just too sentimental. They see those charred remains and forget the evidence. No sir will settle. Thanks for that. That is a... He was an overheard saying that, right? A TV reporter stuck a microphone in his face,

and he said that. Right. That was his quote that he gave. Like, Amazon Alexa didn't overhear him, saying that to his wife at home later. Right? Exactly. So Ford was like, OK, kill that guy, that lawyer.

We're going to start settling. And so they did start settling. There's some benefits to settling. Well, there's some drawbacks too. One is that it tells the entire world that you know your case is terrible. But it says, while there's going to be lower payouts to the lawyers, and there's going to be lower payouts to the defendants, and it also cuts down on

discovery. So discovery, if you go to jury, the plaintiff, the person filing the case, has legal access to any and all documents that you have that prove their case against you, right? So with all these jury trials, there was this steady trickle or flow even of, yeah, it wasn't even a trickle, it was a flow. Of damning evidence, coming out of Ford, going into the hands of lawyers who were happily turning it around and handing it to the media,

who were reporting on this stuff, which was getting the public just good and pissed. And that drumbeat that Chuck was talking about started to really pick up. And like people were really looking at Ford, like in this weird, unsettling, non-blinky way. You know? Everyone took their shirts off and they put more paint on and just Ford was starting to get a little nervous.

They were like, like us? America said, you. So. They got a little weird. America said you. That got a little weird. Yeah, thank you for gliping for that. Thank you buddy. You did a t-shirt that bordered on performance art. Did it? I think so. Had I taken my shirt off it would have been perfect. Oh my god. Do it. No Oh my God. Do it. No. You're out of your mind.

You got to feel that sheer intent. Blood comes out of your mouths, and I still wouldn't take my shirt off. There is nothing you can do to make me take my shirt off. Actually, I would probably be wearing it to take my shirt off. Which would be, uh. Yeah!

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! That does feel good though. Now we've reached David Lee Roth level. I wish I had another shot. Oh my God. Alright, that's so shy. That's just having common values.

Not taking your shirt off in public when people tell you to. That's normal stuff, man. You did good as one of them said. Thank you. Thank you. Jerry, cut out the last one. Serious, too, and I'm just shame. Shame on all of you. I'm town show.

All right, so finally in 1977, safety 301 came into effect. What we talked about, you should be able to hit a car from 20 miles an hour, not be a flaming death ball. And the 1977 new Pinto debuted with a very brand new safety feature that won dollar, one pound piece of plastic in between the flaming death bolts and the gas tank. That they've known since 1968 would save lives.

Boo. Thank you. Thank you. So, Leia Eccocca by this time and forward in general were scared to death of the PR crisis that had been growing and growing. And the whole thing again was started by Dawey's article.

Not only did he get the mother Jones readership involved, he really kind of awakened the mainstream media to the thing. So everybody was reporting on this. People were suing for it. It was a huge big problem. And I had Coke. I told everybody, clam up.

It's actually a direct quote from his book, his 1988 book. I used to think in a happier time that it was called Straight Talk, but that's a Dolly Parton movie. It's called Talking Straight. I got to say, you sent me this initial, Josh did this, wrote this show, and he sent it, and he said Straight Talk, and I was like, The Dolly Parton play Lee, I still, it still sends it. I never corrected it.

I never saw the movie, that would be great. You never saw Straight Talk? Oh no, I'm so shaved. It's good. Is that gonna be your movie crush pick? Oh, maybe. That's Buzz Mark of it. Now I have to do it.

No, no, no, no. So yeah, I was called Talking Straight in the end. I think Straight Talk might have been the working title. Okay. But in it, he says, like, we were so afraid of this PR crisis, bankrupting Ford, if you could imagine that. That they just said, no one talked. Don't talk to anybody.

Just climb up. And they thought that if somebody said no one talk. Don't talk to anybody, just climb up. And they thought that if somebody said something the wrong way and like there was a scary turn of phrase or something like that, it was just taking the wrong way, it would be seen as an admission of guilt. The problem was to the public that the fact that they weren't talking was seen as an admission of guilt more than anything.

Yeah, it was a big deal. Like 60 minutes was literally knocking at the door. Like, morally safer was it Ford knocking at the door. And he said, a morally safer, and if you're not intimidated now, I got ed Bradley with me. We've sent two of our best dudes. So you should be pretty worried. And Ford was crouched down under their window like,

are they still out there? He's so funny. I used to love 60 minutes. Sure. You know what, but when I was like 13, it's such a weird show to watch as a kid. It's sophisticated. Yeah, I was not sophisticated.

Apparently you were? Yeah, I was not. I don't know what, I like the little... Great. And then after that you just like, alright, I don't turn the channel. Well, and I'll see you know. And also, now the thing about, I think it came on after either like the wonderful world of Disney or that was great or wild kingdom or something.

I don't know what that is, sir. That was like full house was on there. That was like the 90s. You're way off, buddy. Yeah, I'm so old. Do you see this beard? So much gray. Like the Davey Crockett story hour?

Was that one? Did I just make that a, whoa, I'm not that old. Okay. No, didn't. Night writer. That was a good, that had a good theme song. This is devolved into like shout out your favorite old thing. We're almost done, everybody.

Calm down. All right, we're hitting the end. So, 1978 in June, they started their own recall proceedings, and 60 minutes was on the door. They're knocking, they're knocking. And Ford says, you know what, we're going to undertake a voluntary recall. If anyone believe that. They'll make us look so good. Of 1.4, and I don't know if we mentioned the Pinto was a big, big seller.

Like despite all this, it was a super, super popular car. It was like the best selling subcompact of the 70s. It very much was. It was, it's Winona Riders car and Stranger Things 2. Oh yeah. Haven't seen it, right? I don't know. Was it her car and Stranger Things 1?

I don't remember, but they feature the Pinto and stranger things to Night rider Spoiler thanks a lot Now I know what car she drives All right, so they undertake a 1.4 million car recall on Just the Pinto alone, but also another car they had right? The Mercury Bobcat. Right. Which is it's like more luxurious but equally deadly twin. And we're not quite sure like what made it so luxurious. No, I do. Maybe it

had like an on board like blow dryer brush like feather your hair with while you were going home. Well where the back you sit in the back seat and they just have the thing from the hair place that just lowers over your hair. That is the pinnacle of luxury that we can think of for the 1970s. God bless the 70s. All right, the bad news is this, though, and this is very sad to stop laughing. Between the time Ford decided to undergo that recall in June, and the time it told consumers like internally They said all right June will do this September. We announced it to the public in those few months

There was a very very sad crash rear rear rear end You need another shot no You need another shot. No. A rear-end impact where some young women died, and there was a prosecutor in Indiana named Michael Constantino that said, you know what, I've had it. I've done. I know the deal.

I'm going to bring these dudes on trial for murder. Murder? Like, he filed criminal homicide charges against the executives at Ford for that crash. Yeah, very big deal. Murder. Like he filed criminal homicide charges against the executives at Ford for that crash. Yeah, very big deal. Yeah, so, and it wasn't just like a flash in the pan, like this trial actually, or these charges went to trial, it was over like three years. And over the three years everybody was reporting on Ford executives on trial for murder every day. And the charges got dismissed, but the public criminalizing of Ford's executives

were, it was huge, like it was a bad PR crisis before. It couldn't get worse than that. Your executives on trial for murder, right? Yeah, for sure. So despite all this, despite the fact that the Pinto was if I mean to death trap to a certain extent, when you look at the numbers today and when you look at the real statistics, it was not much worse and sometimes better

than other cars on the market at the time that would kill you from fire. Like the Vega or the Gremlin, they would kill you. Right. So we tried to figure out, and actually it turns out there was this 1993 article in Harvard Law Review, where this guy said, I've done the math, I've actually figured it out, and here's the number I came up with. It was 27. 27 people is probably the number of people who died in low-speed rear collision impact fires in Pinto.

And that's over like 10 years. Yeah. Like millions of cars, 27. It's not that bad actually, right? It was way less than I think Mother Jones said like 500 to 900. Yeah. And this is so Mother Jones, they said that was a conservative estimate that we just made up.

And then I think 60 minutes, Chuck's beloved 60 minutes said like thousands of people had died in Pinto's. No one knew so they were just making up numbers. But this 1993 article said no, it was probably 27 actually. Exactly. So in the end, we looked back, and the Pinto was, even though it could have been a flaming death trap, what it really was was a very bad victim of PR.

Yeah. Yeah. So the problem was, is that the way you could die in a Pinto was just too bad to be allowed to continue, right? The idea that like if you got in a rear-end collision and the passenger compartment filled up with gas, that's bad enough. But the idea that it could happen is such a low speed that you would still be conscious when you caught fire and burned a death.

The American public said, that can't happen. It doesn't matter. And so thanks to Dawi's article, and 60 minutes eventually, the Pinto was basically laid to waste as far as the American public was concerned, and still has a bad reputation today. That's right. In the end, the Pinto took the rear impact.

Right. But not the good way. But not the good way. Not in the good way. In every kind of bad, you know. That's true. Never thought about that. So in the end, Mr. Lee Ayakoka would go on to write his legend with Chrysler Corporation by bringing them back

from kind of the brink of bankruptcy into huge success in the 90s and the 80s. And he was named, I think, by Portfolio Magazine as the 18th greatest CEO of all time, just ahead of Oprah. Which is bulls. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes is still alive today. The ripe old age of 92 and Bell Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.

Where there is nary a pinto to be found. That's right. And that is the story of the Ford Minto. Thanks. Yeah, you're welcome. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. So, there is a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Yeah, like does the US government really have alien technology?

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I'm Marcus Jordan, CEO of Trophy Room. We decided to launch this podcast separation anxiety. We can't live without each other. We can't. And I think we go through separation anxiety when we're not together. We kind of want to share our stories. We're going to talk about everything and be brutally honest as far as relationships, whether it's your boyfriend, kids, even at work.

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