Engineering Ethics

1978: Ford Pinto Recall 49

S6.5 Moving contoured barrier crash. When the moving contoured

barrier assembly traveling longitudinally forward at any speed up to

and including 30 mph impacts the test vehicle (school bus with a

GVWR exceeding 10,000 pounds) at any point and angle, under the

applicable conditions of S7.1 and S7.5, fuel spillage shall not exceed

the limits of S5.5 (NHTSA, 1994b).

AN ENGINEERING PERSPECTIVE

In 1968, Ford was aware that the threat of fire in rear-end crashes could

be reduced using relatively inexpensive fuel system design considerations.

It had partially financed a study by UCLA researchers that had come to

this conclusion. The study recommended that the fuel tank not be located

directly adjacent to the bumper but moved above the rear axle.

In early 1969, 1

1

⁄

2

years before the Pinto was introduced, Ford engineers

took three Ford Capris and modified their rears to be similar to the proposed

Pinto. For these tests, the fuel tank was moved from above the rear axle to

the rear. When one was backed into a wall at 17.8 miles per hour, the welds

on the gas tank split open, the tank was damaged when it hit the axle, the

filler pipe pulled out, and the tank fell out of the car, resulting in massive

gas spillage. Because the welds on the car’s floor split open, gasoline could

spill into the car interior. In two other tests, a car was rear-ended by moving

barriers at 21 miles per hour. This caused gas to leak either from the filler

pipe pulling out or from the punctured fuel tank (Strobel, 1994).

Even still, the engineers responsible for Pinto components signed off

approval to their immediate supervisors. The Pinto crash tests were

forwarded up the chain of command to the regular product meeting

chaired by Robert Alexander, vice president of car engineering, and

Harold MacDonald, group vice president of car engineering. Harold

Copp, a former executive in charge of the crash testing program, testified

that the highest level of Ford management decided to produce the Pinto,

knowing that the Pinto could ignite during low-speed rear-end collisions

and that design fixes were feasible at nominal cost (West’s California

Reporter, 1994).

Within a few months of the Pinto’s release on September 11, 1970, a

standard Pinto was crashed backward into a concrete wall at 21 miles per

hour. In a report marked “confidential,” engineer H. P. Snider reported

that the Pinto’s soft rear-end crushed 18 inches in 91 msec. According to

Snider,“The filler pipe was pulled out of the fuel tank and fluid discharged

through the outlet. Additional leakage occurred through a puncture in

the upper right front surface of the fuel tank which was caused by contact

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