The Ford Pinto: An Inexpensive and Compact Vehicle

Background

In the late 1960’s, Ford Motor Company was being pressured by its stockholders and the American public to design and manufacture an inexpensive and efficient compact car to compete with other similar vehicles such as the Volkswagen Beetle and Chevrolet Vega. In response, Ford Motor Company began designing the Ford Pinto, a two-door subcompact car that would take only 25 months to engineer, as opposed to the industry average of 43. Furthermore, engineers discovered during the pre-production phase that “rear-end collisions would rupture the Pinto’s fuel system extremely easily ”, which would in turn exponentially increase the odds of the vehicle bursting into flames. As a result, Ford engineers developed two solutions that would entail a relatively small cost per vehicle; the first involved repositioning the fuel tank above the axel, placing it out of the way. The second involved reinforcing the current tank with a rubber bladder to prevent it from leaking fuel if punctured. In spite of this, Lee Acocca, the president of Ford at the time, and other senior executives within the firm decided based on a cost-analysis, that pushing forward with manufacturing and compensating burn victims would be a more economical decision. Although the decision was controversial, the Ford Pinto met the standards and laws set by government regulators within the industry. It was subsequently manufactured and distributed between 1972 and 1980 and since then “by conservative estimates, ha[s] caused 500 burn deaths to people who would not have been seriously injured if the car had not burst into flames .”

In February of 1978, Ford Motor Company was sued for $128 million, which amounted to more than three times the amount that had been previous...

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...hat most likely would have deterred many sales.

The unfortunate truth is that cases like the Ford Pinto have always taken place and will continue to occur in our capitalistic society. Although placing a value on an individual’s life and operating within the gray areas of the law is without a doubt unethical, it is considered by many corporate leaders as simply being good business. According to Hoffman, corporations often seek to meet the standards in place without exceeding them, in order to maximize their profit and increase their value . Although it is unfeasible to create a vehicle that will never result in the loss of a life, it is possible to make one that is safe by anyone’s standards.

Works Cited

Boatright, John R. Ethics and the Conduct of Business. New Jersey: Pearson, 2012. Print.

Hoffman, Michael W. The Ford Pinto. McGraw Hill Education, 1984. Print.