Ford Pinto is First Produced

The Ford Pinto was Ford Motor Company's first domestic North American subcompact automobile marketed beginning on September 11, 1970. It competed with the AMC Gremlin and Chevrolet Vega, along with imports from makes such as Volkwagen, Datsun and Toyota. The Pinto was popular in sales, with 100,000 units delivered by January 1971,[2] and was also offered as wagon and Runabout hatchback. Its reputation suffered over time, especially from a controversy surrounding the safety of its gas tank.
Its 10-year production run outlasted the Vega through the 1980 model year, when 68,179 were built.[3] It and the smaller Ford Fiesta were replaced by the front wheel drive Ford Escort. The rebadged Lincoln-Mercury version, the Mercury Bobcat debuted in Canada in 1974, and subsequently in the U.S. in 1975.

US automakers had first countered imports such as the Volkwagen with compact cars such as the Falcon, Corvair and Dart. These cars had six cylinder engines, but actually defined a larger class of vehicles. As the popularity of smaller imports such as the Volkswagen and Japanese makes such as Toyota and Datsun increased throughout the 1960s, Ford first responded by the Ford Cortina from its British line as a captive import. But US automakers soon developed their own new class of "subcompacts", though many of them would be classified as "compact" today.
The AMC Gremlin was the first to arrive on the market on April 1, 1970, six months before the Pinto. The Chevrolet Vega was introduced the day before the Pinto, September 10, 1970. Both the Pinto and the Vega were new, but the Pinto used powertrains proven in Europe, while the Vega's innovative aluminum engine would prove troublesome. The Gremlin was designed around a six-cylinder engine, and was derived largely by truncating the rear body from the compact-class AMC Hornet to achieve its short length.
A team of stylists at Ford was assigned to design the Pinto's exterior and interior. However, Robert Eidschun's design of th...

The Ford Pinto was a compact car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. The car's design began in 1968 under the direction of Ford executive Lee Iacocca. It was first introduced in 1971, and was built through the 1980 model year. Like many Ford cars, it had a "twin": in the Pinto's case, the Mercury Bobcat.
Body styles included a 2-door sedan, a three-door hatchback, a two-door station wagon, and the Ford Pinto Cruising Wagon, produced 1977-1980 and styled to resemble a tiny van conversion (very much the trend in the late 1970s) complete with a round "bubble window" in the sheet-metal side panels.
The car's design was conventional, with unibody construction, a longitudinally-mounted engine in front driving the rear wheels through either a manual or automatic transmission and live axle rear end. Suspension was by unequal length A-arms with coil springs at the front and the live axle rear was suspended on leaf springs. The rack and pinion steering had optional power assist, as did the brakes.
Road & Track faulted the suspension and standard drum brakes, calling the latter a "serious deficiency". But they praised the 1.6 L Kent engine, especially compared to the much-larger 2300 found in archrival Chevrolet's Vega.
Original engines included a British-built 1.6 L pushrod straight-4 and a German-built 2.0 L SOHC straight-4. In 1974, the 1.6 L powerplant was dropped and a new 2.3 L engine became available; a 2.8 L V6 was available from 1975.