On August 10, 1978, three teenage girls died in a fiery vehicle accident on U.S. Highway 33 in Elkhart County, Indiana. The two sisters and cousin were headed to practice for their church’s volleyball team. They had just refueled their 1973 Ford Pinto and were attempting to pull over and check the gas cap. The vehicle behind them was a van weighing over 400 pounds that was modified with a rigid plank for a front bumper. The van’s driver, Robert Duggar, was distracted and hit the Pinto at about 50 MPH. Duggar said in testimony, “Before I could think, the car was on fire…I wanted to help but everything was burning. I just fell to my knees.” (People) Two of the girls died immediately from the fire; and the other died from her burns eight hours later.
History of the Ford Pinto
In 1967, the subcompact passenger vehicle was becoming a popular automobile choice for consumers in the United States, but no domestic manufacturer offered a vehicle in that class. In May 1968, Lee Iacocca, then executive vice-president at Ford Motor Company, proposed a domestically-produced, small, fuel-efficient vehicle which would become the Ford Pinto. Iacocca set aggressive targets: weigh no more than 2,000 pounds and cost no more than $2,000. In an effort to gain a large market share, Iacocca
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The plans received approval from Ford’s Board of Directors in January 1969. The 1971 Ford Pinto went into production on September 11, 1970 as a “carefree little American car.” The entire product development schedule had been completed in only 25 months—a record at the time and, forty years later, is still considered a fast production schedule. The shorter product development schedule was made possible by overlapping the machine tooling process with product development, which meant that any design changes could require costly and time-consuming changes in machine tooling. Tooling of assembly-line machines typically took about 18
Henry Ford’s development of the single and unchanging automobile model meant the possibility to concentrate upon a single cheap car for the masses. When The Ford Company began to make Model C for $900, Model F for a thousand, and Model B for two thousand, the profits began to drop more and more each year and progress was being made backwards. The Ford factory was taken control over by Henry who stopped the production of
The Man’s Truck In the last thirty-eight years, Ford has known how to target the audience they have for the F- series of trucks. After the new advertisement that Ford produced, it can be implied that they replicated their success again. With the first commercial being aired on television and online during the 2014 college football playoffs, Ford had a marketing strategy. It is apparent in almost all of the advertisements, including this one that Ford produced, is to showcase the newest and the best of the best F-Series of trucks and that they aim to get all the hard working American man.
The First production of the Model T came out on October 1, 1908 at the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit. (www.hfmgv.org) At the time the Model T was going for a price around $850 and by the Twenties a newer model could be bought for at a price of $275.(Gordon) Although having a Model T, was a sign of wealth, it was awfully cheaper than other cars being manufactured by the other manufactures. The Model T was different from all other cars being made at the time because Ford found a way to make his car affordable. The Low Price of the Model T sent a boom around the nation. "Over the next 19 years, Ford would build 15,000,000 automobiles with the Model "T" engine, the longest run of any single model apart from the Volkswagen Beetle." (www.hfmgv.org) "In 1900 America produced 4,100 automobiles; in 1908, the year of the Model T's advent, the number had risen to 63,500; in 1909 it had nearly doubled, to 123,900. In 1916 it stood at 1,525,500." (Gordon)
The division of wealth is unevenly distributed throughout society’s so called social ladder. The “haves,” those who run corporations or have major influence on government decisions, control the majority of the wealth and resource available to achieve that wealth. Their major purpose it to build on that wealth no matter what the consequence may be. Those decisions sometimes negatively impact the lives of the “have nots,” people who, like us, have minimal if any influence on corporate spending and decisions.
In Corsicana, Texas, Cameron Willingham and his family’s home was burned down the twenty-third of December 1991. According to the report, Cameron was asleep when the fire started and survived the accident with only a few injuries, as for his children they were not so lucky, they lost their lives to the tragic accident. At the time of the accident, Cameron’s wife was buying presents for their children for Christmas. According to a witness, her daughter Diane and Buffie from a few houses down went outside and saw Cameron screaming, “My babies are burning up!” Diane and Cameron tried countless attempts to rescue the girls from their room until the fire department could get there.
Foreign markets were beginning to show promise with the vehicles that were going to put out on the market. The Ford Motor Company began to feel the pressure and felt that it needed to be in the limelight of the competition. Lee Iococca, the CEO of Ford, decided that it was time for a change and thus the Ford Pinto was introduced. However, the Pinto had numerous flaws that cost the Ford Company more than ever anticipated.
Fords president wanted to make a car that fitted the American demands, so he made the Pinto which had the price of 12,000 dollars in todays capital measurement. Everything was set, and Ford made some tests, and that is when the company realized that the design placed the gas tank in a vulnerable place. Now, we all know that no car is one hundred percent safe, but the Pinto unwillingly raised public awareness when a
When we consider the case of the Ford Pinto, and its relative controversy, through the varied scope of ethical viewpoints, the results might surprise us. From a personal standpoint, as a consumer, the idea of selling a vehicle to the masses with such a potentially devastating flaw is completely unethical. When we consider the case from other directions and other ethical viewpoints, however, it makes it clear that often ethics are a matter of perspective and philosophy. It’s also clear that there are cases where more information will muddy the waters, rather than clear them.
Observed as a technological mastermind, Ford commenced experiments involving machinery from the time he was adolescent to launching his career working at the Edison Illuminating Company. He examined internal combustion engines and gasoline buggy ideas, eventually resulting in removing himself from Edison’s company and his introduction into the emerging automobile industry. Following in 1903, he established the Ford Motor Company, which expeditiously became a leader in the automotive industry and would gain extensive wealth within only a few decades. While other manufacturers strove to produce automobiles to be extravagant and luxurious predominantly for the wealthy, he immensely focused on efficient mass production of durable, affordable vehicles for the expanding middle-class market. The car should be like a fine watch," Ford said.
The film named “Crash” is a story taken place in Los Angeles, California. The story in a movie was written by Paul haggis. This movie was released on May 6, 2005. While viewing this movie, most people notice occurrence of the racial issues. Crash movie also holds gender stereotypes, and not only strong racial stereotypes. Gender stereotypes play a noticeable role in the film due to the fact that they are not mentioned or resolved as the racial matters are. Movie’s ending part holds hope for a world which accepts all forms of race, but the plot does not talks about gender, it does not bring hope for a gender which is accepted by world. Several stories take place in the movie crash during the period in Los Angeles. The women in this film share similar characteristics with each other although they are of different class and race. Most of the men also have similar characteristics, but in a masculine and controlling way compared to the women. All the characters in the movie are very narrow-minded and self-justifying. The difference in the movie is that men are macho and self-justifying of their masculine power while the women are self-justifying of their possessions and loved ones.
He looked through hundreds of books on bicycles and books on horse and buggies. Ford decided to use wheels from a bicycle, and the same steel framing. From the horse and buggy, he took the idea of the shape of the actual frame. He also made a handlebar that was in the same place as horse rider for a buggy. When Henry For opened his first automobile plant, not only did it bring much attention to the industry, but it also made people want to own a car so that they looked “cool”. People knew that this was going to be a successful industry so they wanted to work in it. Even though most people think that the first true car ever made by Henry Ford was the Model A; they are actually being deceived. Henry Ford’s first actual cars were made for racing. Only a year or so later did Ford start making Model A’s.
After a year of engineering Iacocca discovered that it was not what he wanted to do with his life, he wanted to be in sales. Ford agreed, which was the start of a very successful venture for Iacocca and the Ford Motor Company. Through many years of hard work, Iacocca was promoted to top management. This is where he found himself living his dream. He never wanted to leave work at the end of the day and could not wait to go back the next morning. Although Iacocca was doing very well and could not be happier, the Ford Motor Company was going through hard times. General Motors was really hurting Ford in sales and in innovations. In the late 50's and early 60's Ford produced cars that were just not selling and were real failures in the industry. Iacacco knew something had to be done, and he convinced president and CEO Henry Ford Jr. that he was the man to do it. Through many months of close arduous work with Ford's design team, Iaccoca came up with the Idea of the Mustang.
There was strong competition for Ford in the American small-car market from Volkswagen and several Japanese companies in the 1960’s. To fight the competition, Ford rushed its newest car the Pinto into production in much less time than is usually required to develop a car. The regular time to produce an automobile is 43 months but Ford took 25 months only (Satchi, L., 2005). Although Ford had access to a new design which would decrease the possibility of the Ford Pinto from exploding, the company chose not to implement the design, which would have cost $11 per car, even though it had done an analysis showing that the new design would result in 180 less deaths. The company defended itself on the grounds that it used the accepted risk-benefit analysis to determine if the monetary costs of making the change were greater than the societal benefit. Based on the numbers Ford used, the cost would have been $137 million versus the $49.5 million price tag put on the deaths, injuries, and car damages, and thus Ford felt justified not implementing the design change (Legget, C., 1999). This was a ground breaking decision because it failed to use the common standard of whether a harm was a result of an action on trespass or harm as a result of an action on the case (Ferguson, A., 2005).
By 1899 Ford created a more proper looking motorcar with the help of wealthy businessman William Murphy. It had high wheels, a padded double bench, brass lamps, mud guards, and a "racy" look. In the same year Ford founded the Detroit Automobile Company. Within 3 years Ford had built an improved, more reliable Quadricycle, using a four-cylinder, 36 horsepower-racing engine. In 1901 his car beat what was then the world's fastest automobile in a race before a crowd of eight thousand people in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. The publicity he received for this victory allowed Ford to finance a practical laboratory for refining his auto ideas. In 1903 Ford launched his own car company, The Ford Motor Car Company, and by January 1904 he had sold 658 vehicles. By 1908 he built the famous Model T, a car that was affordable to the middle class. The automobile was no longer the toy of the rich.
The Mustang got its name from the World War II P-51 Mustang fighter plane (Harris). The “five generations” evolved each year model until, in response to the 1971-1973 models, Ford returned the car to its original size and concept in 1974 (Bowling). The first generation of the Mustangs appeared in 1964 and lasted through 1973. On March 9, 1964, the first Mustang, a Wimbledon white convertible with a 260 cu in V8 engine, rolled off the assembly line in Dearborn, Michigan. A month later on April 17, 1964, the Ford Mustang made its world debut at the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York (Kelly).