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Read it if ya want ... pass it over if ya don't ... but herein lies another one of my stories ...
Nitetimes wrote:planovet wrote:doug hodder wrote:I've just never heard a sentence with the word "cool" and "Pinto" in it.
Wouldn't that be an oxymoron??
Never seen one with a 351 and a 4 speed in it have ya??
Well, my first real car (you know ... one that you didn't have to work on every day and worry about whether it would break down or fall apart half way across town) was a 1971 Pinto Runabout, 1600cc, 4-speed (you remember the Runabout, right ... had the hatchback and the rear seat that folded down and absolutely flat ...
...?). Bought it brand new in Jan. of '72 with 196 miles on the clock and payed $1,976.00 for it, tax, title, & license. The first thing I did was put 2" of foam rubber under the snap-down carpet padding in the "cargo area" (think about that for a minute ...). The second thing I did was put a killer 8-track sound system in with a set of speakers from my home unit. Finally, I put on a set of slotted mags with 60-series tires ... skinnies up front, fatties out back.
Now, most of the guys I hung out with and cruised downtown with had cars like a '68 Firebird, '68 Dodge Coronet 383 Six-Pack, '67 GTO, or '67 Hi-Po Mustang ... you know, muscle cars, that really attracted the ladies! Funny thing was, though, that when we were hanging out in the parking lots or down at the City Park, everyone was gathered 'round the back of my lowly Pinto, hatchback up, tunes crankin'! The other thing was that when ever any of my buddies got hold of a hot date and wanted to take them on the "Dam Cruise" and check out the submarine races over on the west side of the lake, they'd want to trade cars with me for the evening ...
...! I'd get their car with a full tank of gas and they'd get my car with a full tank of gas ... I'd get my car back with over half a tank left and I'd typically go through 1-1/2 to 2 tanks in their cars! Oh, and when it came to hot dates picked up downtown (or otherwise), they weren't doing any better than me!
I was also a member of the local Sports Car Club and would run the Pinto regularly at area Autocrosses, routinely bringing home 2nd & 3rd place trophies and occasionally a 1st ... spanking older guys in my class with supposedly superior-handling cars and more experience! And for about 3 months, I frustrated the hell out of a former classmate who had a Porshe 911 when every weekend I would outrun him on the River Canyon Road between Lakehead & Dunsmuir, CA on I-5 (not because the Pinto handled better or had more power, but because I knew how to drive it ...)
I put 70K miles on that car in just over 2 years, never babied it, thrashed it regularly, but always took good care of it ... it never let me down, and all the while gave me around 27 mpg on the highway and about 23 mpg in town (as long I wasn't playin' squirrel ...
...). No, it wasn't as cool as a muscle car or bona fide spots car, but with the custom (for the time) wheels & tires, the killer stereo, and my racing helmet as an arm rest between the bucket seats (never knew when I might "happen" upon an Autocross, ya know), it managed to trip the cool meter, if only a little. More importantly, we maintained a certain level of respect among our peers ... and while my buddies were slavin' to put gas in their tanks for their weekend playin', I was sailin' along havin' a good time and takin' my girlfriends on real dates!
So, give the lowly Ford Pinto its due (at least, the ones before 1973 when the Feds started messin' things up). It might not be the Sophia Loren of the four-wheel set, but in a pretty dress and some tasteful makeup, there's a lively little filly, there, that will take you places in more-than-adequate fashion ... and might even elicit a little envy along the way ...
CHEERS!
Grant
And not a full sized one at that. 
escapade on the way home. 
Mark (& Cindi) 
