Back in the day, I had a buddy, Darrell, who was a Pinto nut. He had a bunch of 'em. I lost track of him in the late 80s or early 90s. About five years ago, I found out ol' Darrell wasn't doing too good. He picked up some uncurable disease like MS or something. He was quite a character.

Anyway, the problem with Pintos was the gas filler neck behind the license plate. A lot of cars had that back then, but the Pinto was so much smaller than the typical car back then that the filler neck would break off when a bigger car hit it. The wagons had the filler on the side, so they weren't a problem. I think it was around the mid 80s when they started pitting the gas tanks amidships.

Anybody remember the old P/U trucks that had the gas tank in the cabin behind the seats? Those were dangerous as hell. I wonder why they did that?

I bought a banged-up '71 or '72 Pinto in 1979 for $35 and kept it for a few days before selling it for $50. Took it down to the river and and had some fun off-roading with some friends. Big powerful 1.6L 54 hp engine!

My main vehicle from '77-'83 was a 1970 Ford F100 pickup with the gas tank in-cab behind the seat.