Pinto Case Study

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Set to debut in 1970, the Pinto was Ford’s first attempt in the subcompact car market. The Pinto was a simple, fuel efficient vehicle and performed well against its foreign competitors. Not soon after the Pinto’s release, complaints concerning the car’s rear-end catching fire began to trickle into Ford. After an evaluation of the Pinto, Ford was unable to find a consistent pattern pertaining to the complaints and the topic was dismissed. What brought the Pinto into the public realm was the highly publicized Grimshaw v. Ford civil trial; a woman had died and her passenger severely burned, after the Ford Pinto they were in was rear-ended and caught fire. Ford was forced to pay punitive damages and was scorned in the public spotlight. The trial was followed by the popular and controversial Mother Jones article “Pinto Madness”, written by Mark Dowie. Although the article was a brilliantly written blockbuster, it construed the facts involved in the Pinto case, which led to a public misconception of Ford, the Pinto and corporate ethics in general. In 1978, in an effort to put to rest what had become a publicity nightmare, The Ford Motor Company announced a recall on all early model Ford Pintos. The events leading up to and after the recall, remain to this day, a popular topic in business ethics debate.
In May 1972, Lily Gray and her 13 year-old neighbor Richard Grimshaw began their trip in Lily’s new Ford Pinto. Due to a mechanical failure, the car stalled and slowed to a stop in the middle lane of the freeway. The Pinto was then rear-ended by a car which reportedly, had been traveling at about 30 miles per hour. The collision resulted in a rear-end fire which killed Lily Gray and left Richard Grimshaw with 3rd degree burn...

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...n 1970 and 1976, the years concerning the Pinto controversy, Ford had performed 464 recalls on various models. The number of Ford vehicles affected by these recalls totaled over 2 million.
Compared to others in its class, the Ford Pinto was an average performing vehicle; there was nothing astonishing about the car, good or bad. Ford’s actions regarding the Pinto’s development and release were not unique. From an engineering standpoint, Ford fulfilled the car’s purpose; a fuel efficient, subcompact vehicle which the public could afford. The media frenzy which followed the Pinto was an exploitation of the separation between public opinion and the hidden standards and processes behind design liability. It’s difficult to imagine any company being able to convince the public that the math makes sense; Ford had the deck stacked against them from the beginning.

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