My dad's new 1971 Vega had a neat feature: an "Add Oil Indicator." When you could no longer read the rear license plate through the smoke residue, you just added a quart. Brilliant!
It was part of the Flo-Thru ventilation that replaced no-draft fly wings and worked along with the manual floor vents. As I recall, there were artificial extraction vents embossed in the C-posts. Now that I think of it, EVERYTHING on his car was fake. Fake gauges and A/C vents on the dashboard, fake stitching embossed on the plastic parts, fake cushioning on the hard plastic panels. The vinyl pretended to be leather, the seats pretended to be buckets and the engine pretended to have power. All it needed was a few fake hood scoops and some test-tube wood and it could have been the Mitsubishi Starion's Granddaddy. (Although, I LIKED the original Starion, with its Battlestar Gallactica looks...)
SERIOUS???????? I know they loved to burn oil because I worked in a full serve gas station about 1974 and she [ a customer] would get 2 dollars of gas and usually give me 2 quarts of oil to dump in
I had a Pinto station wagon as my first car. It was very slow, handled like a slug and interior fit together very loosely. It shuddered over bumps, it was reliable except for a leaky rear main seal, and always started on very cold Minnesota winter mornings without a block heater. It got me all the way through eight years of school!
They didn't take into account the Vega's engine that only lasted 18 months. But seriously, the handling and suspension tests were hardly fair with a wagon versus a coupe.
...and are you going to insult your own intelligence by suggesting the Vega's well earned reputation for non-durability was due to owners who didn't "check the oil once a month"?
I watched two friends from high school race an automatic Pinto against an automatic Chevette in a quarter mile track we set up near the cemetery behind McDonald's. It was the longest two and a half minutes of my life. The Chevette won by a nose.
Is it true that the officials couldn't see the finish line, do they called for an oil painting to determine the winner?😉 Two cars whose acceleration is best timed with a calendar.
I drove my 79 until the whole outer body separated from the platform behind the rear seats, just rusted at the corner joint, probably should have repaired. About 400k miles, had 1/4 ton add a leaf and used it as a truck.
I was a first time buyer fresh out of high school at this time I looked at both and chose to buy the Pinto Wagon. I like the Camaro styled front on the Vega but felt the build quality was no as good as the Pinto. I felt I made the right choice after the Vegas engines began to fail. I really enjoyed the Pinto with a stick shift a lot, although it was no rocketship. Can’t remember the exact price I paid, but it was less than 4K. I even bought custom aluminum alloy aftermarket wheels and Michelin tires which really improved the car handling and ride. I did get great use of the station wagon with lots of storage space for camping gear and bedding down in the back on occasion. Operated it about 8 years and racked up about 85k miles with no major repairs after flogging it as a young driver. 😎
There was a time in the 1980's when I was growing up, that we had five pintos in our driveway. My brothers and I were approaching driving age and used pintos were dirt cheap at that time so my Dad started buying them. And super easy to work on and got good gas mileage. True story five different pintos in the driveway at one time.
Big W were they all running? I hear that the all-aluminum engines were trouble prone. Were you able to find “iron duke” engines for these cars? Pontiac Astre were the first cars that got em.
@@johntapp1411 - The Vega engine used an aluminum block and cast iron cylinder head. It was an open deck block without sleeves. Later, iron sleeves were added but by then Vega was just about dead.
Scooter George I would imagine the sleeves should have helped engine reliability, but like you said, the death knell rang for the car before. BTW, did the cosworth Vega have sleeves and what are its issues?
It took our 74 Vega 7.5 hours to make the 6-hour drive up I-57 from college to home. It struggled mightily to push over 60 MPH. The only upside is that we were usually able to polish off a 12-pack with the extra time. After one long drive, the aluminum engine block literally melted and that was that.
That's why in '77 when Pontiac came out with the Astre version of the Chevy Vega, they used the 2.5L Iron Duke... a tweaked version of the earlier traditional Chevy 4 banger that was vastly more reliable than either the Pinto 2.3L or the Vega 2.3L... It got 28 MPG City and 34 MPG Hiway... unheard of MPG numbers for those days... It used a Weber 2 bbl. carb. and a MPG tuned camshaft... and it had timing gears instead of timing chain... or short lived timing belts like Vega/Pinto engines... I still have a '77 Pontiac Astre Formula Safari Station Wagon... About identical to a Vega GT KammBack wagon, except the vastly better engine...
The Pontiac Iron Duke was for sure a very durable motor, I had one in my 1980 Chevy Monza! they used it in everything from Camaro's to S10 pickups to Fiero's !!
Tony Chavez Love that ol 2.3. Later it grew to a 2.5.....I see em all the time in generators. Ford made some good industrial engines , 2.3 , 300-6, and the 460...some of those were turbo.
The days when the American car companies tried to sell competitively priced economy cars, while paying non-competitively priced UAW wages. And yet they still managed to make a decent product. Those pintos, with that OHC 4 cylinder, made great power for such small engines, and withstood years and years of abuse. I still see pintos and Vegas on the road from time to time, but haven’t seen an early-mid seventies Japanese economy car on the road for almost three decades.
RUST is the reason. My brother had a Datsun from the early 70's in Chicago and it had a frame failure and the front end collapsed from rust. Cars dissolved from the 70's from salt on the roads....American and Japanese so that is why you don't see them.
Kung-fu, plus they sold millions of them, parts were plentiful and cheap, and a dealership was in easy reach. Years ago many private repair shops refused to work on "foreign" cars and those who specialized with import service charged an arm and a leg. The early Asian cars had their share of problems as well.
Back around 1990 I was working on a fox body Mustang project car and frequenting the area salvage yards for parts. At the time, there were still quite a few Pintos and Gremlins littering the yards stripped of many of their parts, never did I see any sign of a Vega on my advantages. I do however remember back in the mid 70's seeing many a dead Vega setting around with grass growing up under it in someone's yard. In other words, by the early 80's, most of the Vegas had been recycled or used for dirt modified bodies.
Back in 1975 I was looking to buy a small block to drop into my 1954 Chevy sedan delivery. Bought a 1970 L-48 350 and turbo 350 transmission from a junkyard north of Ventura CA. Anyway, they had n SC/Rambler sitting in the yard. Holly carb was missing but otherwise complete and very clean. Just glanced at it and moved on. Wasn't interested in it back then but...a few years later began to wonder. Why was it junked?
I had a '73 Vega. On the highway I could get about 50 miles to the quart of oil! When I took off from a stop at a light if I gave it the gas you couldn't see the back of the car. I had a '77 also. Never burned a drop of oil (steel lined cylinders).
Summer 1974. About to start my senior year of high school. Time for my first car and I was determined it would be a new one. Ended up buying a 1974 Honda Civic hatchback with 4 speed manual. $2800 out the door. There were so few on the road that if you saw another you would honk and wave at each other. I enjoyed the uniqueness of the Civic!
I love these old road tests. Whenever I get nostalgic for the cars of my youth, I watch these reviews...and I don't have to go and buy one and fix it up.
The funny thing is people said the Vega GT was one of the best handling American cars at that time. Why they tested a wagon with skinnier wheels and hubcaps is a mystery.
@Sean Sullivan . . . I had a 1974 Vegas GT and it was a good handling car. Even a gearhead friend of mine that could find fault with anything commented on its good handling; but he said it could have been improved with an anti-sway bar. My Vegas GT did have low-profile, wide biased ply tires.
@@freedomwon2004 @ Kenneth Roll . . . I was wondering about that myself. But, the filming production of this piece seems to date back to when the Vega and Pinto were still in production. The way the script was presented with the film, I got the impression this was a promotion piece for Ford; where the producers of the film chose the Vega model they knew was the worse performing of the bunch; especially with the use of skinny tires. The weight distribution of station wagons made them like barges when it came to handling; as that came from personal experience having owned a 1968 Chevy Biscayne wagon. The high-horsepower 327 engine was marvelous for acceleration, but the performance handling was atrocious for a full-sized vehicle.
Sport model vs the plush model (woody), most sport models have bigger sway bars and suspension changes.. cant say if they did on these two but normally they do. Also the wagon, Pinto had a wagon too, should weigh more, why did they not compare wagon to wagon. But it's all just a pissing match nowadays unless you have one i guess. But one thing the Orginal VEGA aluminum motor was garbage the later iron duke lasted (have a fiero with 180,000 still going strong).
Especially the earlier ones with the foreign built engines. My dad's 1600cc manual 1971 was a lot of fun to drive anywhere but on the freeway. I understand the 2000cc was even better.
@@mewrongway Incorrect; Japanese cars are at least as reliable and well built overall as anything 'American made,' not that that means much anymore. And let's be honest here: Detroit built shit for some 80 years and any improvements made over the years were forced into being by safety and insurance groups, as well as competition from overseas.
I bought a used pinto 4 speed stick for 800 dollars for a work car to the steel mills...I beat it to death winding the gears to red line...it never failed me. Below zero it started every time..drove it 2 years..tires ,brakes and plugs ..it was a hell of a good car
Mark Godfrey what a shame unable to make a statement without cursing. I was making a comment. I know a few words too, but I guess I was brought up with manners and an education. Just for the record, I didn’t say that every time they were rear ended they exploded. I stated that all the bugs were taking out. Putting a gas tank between an axle and a bumper was not the smartest design. Maybe in a larger vehicle but the not the Pinto. Many lawsuits were filed. The landmark one being Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co., 128 million dollars was awarded. So Mr. Godfrey, learn how to read and learn how to communicate with adults.
I believe only 27 deaths were attributed to burning Pinto. You would more likely to die in a small car in the usual collisions. Originally the Pinto was to be a 2,000 pound car that sold for under $2,000. The Geo Metro is a 1,700 pound car and it was smaller than the Pinto. Death in a small car collision was true for Datsun and the others too. The manner that Ford handled the news is what soured the public. I believe the early Pinto wagon didn't have the fuel tank issue. Now, I think the rust of the Vega is a bigger problem as its pretty hard to find one that doesn't need major body work. A Vega would be super fun with a Honda K24 turbo swap, the popular v8 Vega swap is really too much torque for the chassis.
I worked for Chevy in the 70’s. In the winter the Vega wouldn’t start. We had a shop full of them. Clean the plugs and they would start until they say overnight and they would be towed back in the next day. General Motors told us to correct the problem tell the owner to install hotter spark plugs, a bigger battery and use a light weight oil. Imagine telling a customer who just purchased one one these pieces of crap they needed to pay for all this. Then guess what- the next day they still wouldn’t start. GM then said it was a choke problem and came up with a redesigned throttle clip. Still didn’t work. 100’s of service bulletins later people still had problems. GM should be embarrassed having ever built this car. I know their employees were.
i was mainly the vega mechanic in a chev dealer in massachussetts in the late 70,s. none of the guys wanted to work on them. i made good money flat rate , i could quickly do anything on them. the warranty program replacing the engines with the new blocks which had steel cylinder liners instead of the silicone impregnated aluminum . the hard start cold with a lot of those was the low compression from pitted valves or worn cylinders. the new blocks were so much better and most motor problems dissapeared. instead using a timing light i always power timed those in drive holding the brake method till they pinged and brought it back about 2 degrees. they had way better and started quicker in the morning. then the monzas came in which i mainly still did and a good portion of chevettes. this place i worked in was huge with old weaver twin post lifts. it was always too busy because we did maintenance on brewster ambulance co. , boston police cruisers and towing division which was a fleet of gmc wreckers, boston water and sewer trucks. we had a chevrolet medium and heavy duty truck center in another building. i loved them days
marion cobaretti I worked for GM dealers in the service department for over 40 years. I still remember getting read the riot act by Vega owners! Seriously I have a lot of respect for technicians like you who where problem solvers and still knew how to make a decent living. I miss the old days too. The last 10 years or more has been all electronics and never ending training. I’m glad to be out of it now and feel for the young guys who love to work on cars but are bogged down by the problems the new models have, (I worked at a Cadillac store the last 15 years). Are you retired? If so I wish you the best.
But the Vega has those cool side fins in the back that must help with performance. Both represent everything that was wrong with the 1970’s through 1980s American cars. Who can ever forget the rust issues both cars had.
Vega's deluxe woodgrain trim ooooohhhhhhhh! The big advantage of this option is that the brown woodgrain color is almost exactly the same as the rust that will start forming around the wheel wells about 2 years after you buy it!
@@peterjeffery8495 He actually joked about it, said he learned a LOT about corrosion. It was a black art when the steel started getting thinner in those days.
Yah it was common then across all brands. I had a made in Japan 2nd hand 79 Datsun (takes u back, huh?) that was more rust than steel when I got it. The Japanese had a rust problem with their steel rusting too. Also had an E Ford of the same vintage that had a trunk with no floor. A Buddy told me he had one also. In order to pass the Safety he took a Pizza Box and taped it to the car and then covered the whole thing with roofing pitch!
@@peterjeffery8495 I grew up in Michigan, they literally covered the roads with salt, one could watch the cars rust. My uncle had a body shop in the 70's I worked at after school, loved watching the old timers weld in panels and then lead the seams. They refused to use Bondo..
Only when you visited the gas pump. My 70 Tempest Sport got 13-15 MPG. My '69 suburban manual 4 speed got 9. But it would pull a trailer that weighed more than a Pinto wagon.The gas leaving the tank was about same, trailer or no trailer. But it also had two tanks for 48 gallons total of premium. Enough to fill a Pinto and the Tempest. I had a 4 speed Pinto for a while. Not bad for a short ride here or there. But not something good for more than 30 minutes at a time. Kinda like that gal that talked me into buying the cute thing for her. Guess who ended up driving the Tempest?
I do.. I think they looked cool. I never liked the looks of the Mercury Capri they sold in the states, but I liked the Monza. But Toyota killed them all with the 20r.
In the early 80s I bought a 74 AMC Hornet. Not a beautiful car, but it was a good meat and potatoes car with a straight six motor that never let me down
They both outsold the imports. According to Wikipedia 3 million Pintos were produced and nearly 2 million Vegas were sold. Later, GM reskinned the Vega and sold it in different bodies whereas the Bobcat was clearly a Pinto, the Monza and cousins were basically Vegas too.
I purchased new a 1974 pinto ghia. All the fancy really thick shag type carpet. Two tone paint with a vinyl roof and cranking sun roof. After I bought it I had this jingle noise in the passenger side rear that drove me crazy. I took it back to two different dealers trying to find the problem. I kept telling them that it almost sounded like a chain clanking together. Six trips to the dealer before someone finally took off the passenger side rear tire and pulled the cover off of the drum brake and they found two lug nuts in there. Apparently being put together at the factory someone placed them there and someone else sealed them in. To show you the quality at that time, I traded that car in for a 1975 Ford Granada Ghia. I purchased it in central Pennsylvania on the weekend and drove it to DC on that Sunday. Got off of the beltway to go into Georgetown and the very first light I stopped at, the car wouldn't go. Just the engine raced. It was towed to the local Ford dealer and they installed a new transmission a week later.
Regarding the "extra" lug nuts in the brake drum of your Pinto, I had the SAME type of problem with my new 1980 Citation "X-11". When I first got the car, I would hear a "snapping noise" when I would hit a large bump, sometimes. I tended to ignore it thinking it was the rear coil spring just shifting on it's seat, but then while going down my alley at slow speed, I heard a slight rattling sound that was continuous. I thought that maybe there was something wrong with the muffler, I decide to track down the noise, turns out it was coming from the BRAKE DRUM. So, I pulled the drum and found an axle flange bolt inside the drum, was just an "extra" bolt. I discovered that this bolt had been catching on the metal backing plate of the brake shoe. This is what was causing the SNAPPING noise when hitting bumps. Luckily, this bolt never got wedged between the brake shoe and the drum when I was flying down the highway at 70MPH, I PROBABLY would not be writing this reply if it had! BTW, the quality(I use the term lightly) of the Citation was even WORSE than the Vega, and this was in 1980!!
@@TheOzthewiz If you'd had a slightly older model you could have had the same highway results without the bolt. The X-Body was originally famous for trying to get by without a brake bias valve... Brake a little too hard and both rears would instantly lock, and off you go.
I bought a new '73 Pinto...it had the really small 1.6L motor, not a hatchback...put mags, a header, and two one barrel carbs on it...Indy tires on rear, picked up scratch in 2nd every time...I beat the crap out of that car, almost 70K in 3 years (I was military) it never failed me and was a fun car.
By 1974, the Pinto could be had as a 3-door wagon similar to the Vega here. I wonder why they didn't compare the wagons together & hatchback Pinto & Vega together?
Exactly. But that's the way things worked with PR cars for magazine testing. Bud Lindeman was in that same bucket with the magazines unfortunately. They ask for a Pinto and a Vega and they get whatever is on hand in the PR car "Pool"
My older brother and I bought first edition new pinto 1971 models. $1919 stripped and $2100 with an automatic and an am radio. 60 bucks for half vinyl roof if you wanted to spring for it. Fortunately both engines had rods blow out in the first 18 months so we didn’t have to worry about being incinerated if hit from behind. Younger brother bought a 75 Vega that rusted out in less than 2 years in Florida heat and humidity. Total unsafe crap. All Japanese for me for the last 50 years now....other than the new ‘79 Cutlass Supreme loaded up that came with the Firestone “721” tires that had the right front blow out the first weekend I had it and almost killed me.
On that. My Girlfriend had a Chevy Cavalier type 10 or something with Firestone 721's. Three of the four tires disintegrated at freeway speeds, lucky we survived. If it were today I'd file a class action lawsuit against Firestone and probably be re-tired.
The last time I seen a Vega was 1996 sitting in a field in Henry County, Ga. The Last Pinto I seen was almost 2 months ago driving down Pat Booker Rd in Universal City, Tx.
The Vega rusted and its engines "melted" a lot faster than the sea of Pintos across the U.S. disappeared in flames. Just going by my visual memory of seeing these cars on the road in the 1980s as a teenager and adult - Vegas were gone while Pintos were still around. Maybe in the western dry lands the lack of rain and winter salt issues didn't cause so many cheap cars to rust as fast, but in the eastern U.S. rust quickly ended the lives of a lot of 1970s popular cars. The floor of our '75 Pinto wagon rusted through by the time it was seven years old - I discovered this when the driver's seat felt like it was reclining while I was on a two hour trip! A neighbor who worked at a truck body shop had it repaired in short order, once I removed the seat and carpeting for him. But not just the usual exterior places but the rest of the interior (especially the rear wall of the cargo department by the wheel wells) continued to corrode.
I had a '74 Vega back in the day. Unless you bought the total stripper model, emphasis really was on comfort over performance - then the GT version took over and gained much better handling. The Vega had a definite edge in passenger room - much more legroom up front and a lot of space behind the rear seat (on the hatchback) for storage, and the spare tire was under the floor. Too bad the engine still wore out and the body rusted out. The sleeved engine came out for 1975, but they didn't make an issue of it until later in the model year. My engine was shot at 50K - that Pinto engine was fantastic and about the only thing that really made it the better car.
I got my ass handed to me by Turbo Joe in 1987 on Magnolia Ave, in Riverside. My bad ass looking Pinto against his not so bad ass looking Pinto. Well, we did the "1, 2, 3 Go" and after me and my girl caught up to him he was already stepping out of his car. I had to see under his hood to find out why his car jumped forward at each shift - finding out immediately why he was known as "Turbo Joe" - I made a new friend. That car actually made it into Hot Rod magazine. Fast forward to today and I'm the owner of my Uncles complete and stock, brown 1971 Half-Hatch that he lowered in 74, put in a Maverick rear end, installed 14/15 inch Slotted 5 US MAGS. The 72 he built in 72 (with the 350/350 chevy driveline) is held by my cousin and is the original Bumblebee - Mustard Yellow with black hood and black tail-light panel. Same rim/tire combo as the 71 except it has a 9in rear end. Both cars are 70's time capsules and priceless - also not for sale. Ever.
Awesome story. Damn we getting old. These kids don't know shit except mommas credit card and a turbo. Back then we tried everything. 40 hours at work and 50 hours in junkyard and built fun fairly fast stuff on our own dime. Really a dime. On the dollar. On todays money. I really liked your comment and rare for me to reply. I wish you well, and thanks for the memories
I have a 1972 Pinto woodgrain wagon. I've owned it for over 15 years. It still runs like new. I did have to replace the clutch once, other than that and a few minor issues it has been trouble free, unlike my sisters 2013 Chevy Sonic, which had a blown engine at 60,000 miles, out of warranty. I can easily rebuild the Pinto's 2.0L OHC engine, not possible with the disposable engine in the Sonic. $17,000 down the drain.
Clicked on this because I remember "being passed" by a Pinto in 1972. Pulling a long hard hill out of Md on I70 in my 68 Formulas S 340 Barracuda fastback (turned 13.95 @Magnolia Oh ) ~3/4 of the way up, I look n the rear view and here comes a 72 Pinto like a home sick angel. Im doin OK with 275 horses (really 325) boogieing along doin about 70, he passed me like I was standing still. Now that's a Pinto. I dont think it was stock tho LOL
That's pretty much what people did to panic stop. Stuff one's foot in the brake and try to keep it straight. Long before anti-lock brakes locking the tires was about as effective as it got. My first car was a '70 Firebird, so been there, done that. Mom had a '73 Vega she and dad bought just before I was born. It was surprisingly reliable too.
@@catjudo1 No the most effective way of braking, but you are right...it was what untrained people did in a panic. Pumping the brakes and threshold braking are the most effective way to stop a vehicle that doesn't have anti-lock braking system. My brother had a girlfriend who owned a Vega. The engine was an oil burner even as a new car. The Ford Pinto was a better car in terms of reliability...I had a 1978 wagon that lasted until the 1990's...when it was sold to a teenager...it was in great condition until that point.
1:45 "We took the Vega off the line first and clocked a zero 0 to 60 run in 5.3 seconds." Then the pit crew had to to put my pants out with a Class D extinguisher.
0-60 in 5.3 seconds in a Vega wagon? Surely that can't be right, there were plenty of musclecars that couldn't do that. EDIT; Haha, I caught Bud Lindeman in a blooper---he said right after that the 0-45 run took 10 seconds. He obviously meant to say 30, not 60.
Yeah, he said 60 MPH for 30 MPH... both took 16's to get to 60 MPH... no 1/4 mile numbers given... Vega quicker to 60... 16.2 seconds... Pinto 16.4 seconds... but he claims Pinto is faster... At 1:15 clearly shows 2.3L Pinto engine... but at 2:30 he says 2.0L engine standard now (over earlier 1.6L) and really boosts the performance... but this is a 2.3L...
I've been looking for this video like crazy. love the pinto, handles like it's on rails. I took a 90 degree turn at 35 once. it stuck to the road like a slot car.
If you were fortunate enough to not get rear ended, the Pintos weren't that terrible. In my opinion the Vegas were worse. Pintos had better engines, better build quality, except for the unprotected fuel tank. Vegas would dissolve into dust after about 3 years.
The Pinto was made an example out of to inform the public about safety. Ralph Nader later admitted (in the early 80s) that most small cars at the time had similar safety concerns, and some were worse (even imports). They chose the Pinto because people trusted Ford as a domestic brand more than the imports at the time, and of course that documentation showing that companies actually balance production costs to safety/liability.
That being said, the Pinto didn't have a bad run, 10 years and by the time the final 1980 model rolled off the line it was fundamentally obsolete and selling mainly on price.
@ brealistic1970. It was WAY worse than that. Internal Ford documents were uncovered showing that they compared the costs of recalling and repairing the Pintos against the costs of settling claims where people were killed or injured.
My family bought a 72 Vega GT in the fall of 71. Sharp looking pos.silver with black stripes. By 15k miles it was blowing oil smoke. They got a few hundred dollars for trade in on a 73 Levi's Gremlin that was trouble free the 6 years they had it.
This Vega test car has the 1BBL std engine, not the 2bbl optional engine. Bud is mis-informed.If they tested a Vega GT with the stabilzer bars and stiffer springs it would have been a different ballgame.
Are you sure? There's a brief interior shot where you see the GT's round gauge cluster, as opposed to the standard model's rectangular speedometer. May have been a special car that had the uplevel 2bbl engine too.
@@davekunz6359 no cold air duct from the air cleaner, that means its the base engine without the hotter cam. The gauges are a separate option without the GT. This wagon has the base engine and the base suspension. The wagon being heavier also doesn't handle as well as the coupe with std or GT suspension. The two cars aren't evenly matched. None of the handling issues would have been apparent with the F41 suspension or GT package which includes it.
Pinto's were rare in Europe, I bought one from an American soldier stationed in Germany, it was a '79 Pinto Runabout 2.3 manual, loved it. The rear hatch was completely made out of glass which draw a lot of attention at the time.
I swapped 76 Chevette for a 74 Vega but not any ordinary Vega this one was set up with a 350 and turbo 400 transmission. The guy that put the engine in was not a mechanic as he failed to provide proper crank case ventilation. by the time I got home the engine was all but destroyed...so my father and I rebuilt the engine and used racing parts. I finally got a Carter AFB best carburetor I ever had. My Vega pulled wheelie when I floored it for the first time WOHHOO!! fastest car I ever had!!
I enjoyed my 1974 Vega GT - That handled really well - though steering was a bit heavy. Still on Polyglas Bias Ply tires. It was like a Junior Camaro. Could really dive into turns and hang the back end out.
I had a 1974 Mercury Bobcat 2.3 litre 4 Speed. That little car took me reliably were ever I wanted to go. The body fell off but the engineering just kept going. Honestly I don't want to go back. Great in the day, but time marches on and so does technology. My E350 Mercedes station wagon, 0-60 MPH in 6.5 seconds, 120 MPH before you know it. Reliable, comfortable and like the Bobcat Sexy. Bet you weren't expecting that conclusion.....
6:31-A station wagon in a high speed corner. Too many things not right with this comparison. In the spirit of this video, how did the Vega wagon do against the Saturn-IV rocket engine?
The gas tank issue aside, the _Pinto_ really wasn't that bad of a subcompact, when you really looked at it... The later 2.3 Lima I-4 overhead cam engine teamed with the 4 Speed was a pretty reliable and somewhat fuel economic combination when maintained at regular intervals... Access to the engine and the tranny was wide open if you had to get to anything vital, and most parts were easily obtainable at most discount auto parts stores or even the junkyard! Depending upon where you resided, the car's body would often rust out before the engine and drivetrain failed due to high mileage... They were a lot better than a Vega... The AMC Gremlin however, was a completely different matter...
American's had a long learning curve when it cam to making a 4 cylinder engine. In the beginning they all were terrible! The only thing worse was the bodies. The Vega was so bad that at night if it was quiet you could hear them rusting all over town!
The 2.3 ford was no power house but the engine was a tuff compared to the garbage engine that came from Europe at that time. My girlfriend had a 1974 Pinto that we drove for over 100,000 miles with out a problem.
I disagree. The Ford Kent 1.6L was/is legendary. THAT IS the Formula Ford motor from decades long world wide fame. The 2.3 Lima was still being produced in evolutionary form until a decade ago or so. Even the German 2.0 was reliable, and the Lima was a domestic derivative of that engine. You mean GM didn't figure it out and Chrysler didn't even try until the 2.2 VW motor? Is that what you meant? Oh wait! What is a good GM 4 banger? In 2019 does anyone know off the top of their head? I have no clue, and I've looked because I have a gutless Miata and a swap might happen.
The Chevy 4's from 1920's - 1970 were good engines, then they messed them up... '76 they brought out the Iron Duke version also used in boats for 40 years...
It was my understanding that the Ford 2.3 was not that bad of a 4-cylinder engine. Besides, there were plenty of garbage 4-cylinder engines entering the USA from foreign companies. Renault and Fiat never gained a good reputation in the USA, and they made numerous 4-cylinder engines.
I think that the early (pre-giant bumper) Pintos should have succeeded the Deuce Coupe as the hot rod base of choice. It was very good-looking, it was small and light and basic and had plenty of room for something like a 302. And really, sitting in it was like sitting in a sports car.
This was fun to watch, but they should have used equal body style cars, either two wagons or two hatchbacks. I have driven a Pinto several times, years ago, that a friend owned, it was very fun to drive, but so were my Vega's! I had three of them over the years when I was young and had little money. They were all used, could be bought cheap and were easily repaired and maintained by yourself. Only the first one I owned at age 17, a '72 notchback, burned plenty of oil. But I had it a year, and it started up every day, took me anywhere I wanted to go, I just kept the oil checked! The other two I owned were a '74 hatchback and a '75 notchback. Those didn't burn oil, and I put a lot of miles on the '75 Vega, dependably.
Would have been great if someone had some footage of Bud L. and company with a hot mike just after these tests... He probably had to grit his way through a few of these to get his pick of 455 Trans Ams.
@@scootergeorge9576 but its not like there wasnt a pinto wagon available ,wouldnt that make more sense but somebody probably had a ford sponsor they didnt want to upset
I guess the woodgrain trim on the Vega made up for the soft-sprung suspension since someone didn't have enough gumption to find a GT coupe, that would of had better performance gearing than the overweight wagon...oh but they noted the wagon had more space... really? I never would have thought of that, thank you for thinking we had the IQ of a hubcap!
I remembered both but the Vega was soon forgotten even to the most loyal . Both had issues but the Vega didn't stay on the road long enough to find even more problems . My uncle went through about four motors in the Vega ii lasted long enough for the rear end to go out He got his money back and bought a Volkswagen .
Yes it was. The fuel crisis, 55-mph speed limits nationwide, and that awful starter interlock device that prevented the car from starting unless you fastened your seatbelts. (Side note: Ohio license plates from 1973 to '75 had the slogan, "Seat Belts Fastened?")
Try telling this to Jennifer Lauren Dixon, the 17-year-old girl who died in a terrible crash involving her '74 Chevy Vega at the intersection of Sepulveda and Saticoy in Los Angeles in May of 1984 - with a drunk driver who led the LAPD in a high speed pursuit. That poor Vega was absolutely totaled - no one could ever survive such an impact like this. Like you have said, 1974 takes the cake on a bad model year for the auto industry in America and rightly so.
In the late '70's I had a Pinto and my brother had a Vega. Mine never gave me any problems, but his Vega was constantly in the shop and was a piece of junk. Pinto had much more room . The Vega aluminum engine block warped on his.
I owned both of these cars back in the day, not the same year though. But for some reason I always liked the Pinto better than the Vega. The Pinto engine was just easier to work on, and it was just more fun to run around town. The Vega wasn't far off the Pinto but did leak oil all over the place and it handled like a car twice its size. The Vega did feel more solid on the highway but I think it weighed much more than the Pinto. I think if I had to do it all over I would have bought a Toyota.
And the 2.3 ford engine went on to kick butt in the turbo coupe, being 1mph faster on top end than the mustang back in 87. After that it kept kicking butt in naturally aspirated form well into the mid 2000s as an industrial engine. Sometime in the late 90s it was brought up to a 2.5. I see a lot of em on gen sets. One of my favorite industrial engines next to the 300-6. The Vega engine? It’s known for other qualities.
My dad's new 1971 Vega had a neat feature: an "Add Oil Indicator." When you could no longer read the rear license plate through the smoke residue, you just added a quart. Brilliant!
New & it did that? 2bad, they were great looking cars. Why did trunk lids have large air vents like a rear-engine Corvair?
It was part of the Flo-Thru ventilation that replaced no-draft fly wings and worked along with the manual floor vents. As I recall, there were artificial extraction vents embossed in the C-posts.
Now that I think of it, EVERYTHING on his car was fake. Fake gauges and A/C vents on the dashboard, fake stitching embossed on the plastic parts, fake cushioning on the hard plastic panels. The vinyl pretended to be leather, the seats pretended to be buckets and the engine pretended to have power. All it needed was a few fake hood scoops and some test-tube wood and it could have been the Mitsubishi Starion's Granddaddy. (Although, I LIKED the original Starion, with its Battlestar Gallactica looks...)
SERIOUS???????? I know they loved to burn oil because I worked in a full serve gas station about 1974 and she [ a customer] would get 2 dollars of gas and usually give me 2 quarts of oil to dump in
LOL your 100 percent correct.
@1967 Chevelle LSx MoPar or no car, Shirley!
In high school, my first car was a 1972 Ford Pinto Runabout. It is the most effective form of birth control I’ve ever used.
Baaahhh!😂
Chick magnet!😂😂😂
Gotta applaud the willpower of young ladies if they could resist a man in a Pinto.
Lololo
I had a Pinto station wagon as my first car. It was very slow, handled like a slug and interior fit together very loosely. It shuddered over bumps, it was reliable except for a leaky rear main seal, and always started on very cold Minnesota winter mornings without a block heater. It got me all the way through eight years of school!
In 1973 I looked at the Vega and the Pinto and ended up buying an Opel Manta at the Buick dealer. I never regretted that decision!
How long did you own the Opel Manta? How many miles on the odometer?
Im glad you knew back then . Most American cars was junk . Not much has changed.
@@brianevans656 Drove it until 1982 and sold it with 90k miles on the clock. It was always a very dependable car for me.
@@roaddawg831 German built quality.
You were one smart dude!
They didn't take into account the Vega's engine that only lasted 18 months.
But seriously, the handling and suspension tests were hardly fair with a wagon versus a coupe.
why did you let the coolant run dry .and it would've been nice to check the oil once a month. you freakin moron
Trollin' ain't easy, is it Robert?
...and are you going to insult your own intelligence by suggesting the Vega's well earned reputation for non-durability was due to owners who didn't "check the oil once a month"?
Like I said you're a moron You can't help yourself.
That's right. They didn't check the coolant levels either. The engine block is aluminum. duh
Did you guys catch it???? The misstatement about Vega 0-60???? in 5 sec. He meant to say 0-30.
8000RPM I noticed that too . ahah he kind of corrected himself later when he gave the true 0-60 time
I caught that too! I was like, Holy shit that's faster then some modern cars with V6's and 8"s!
I think he meant to add a "1" in front of that.
Zero to sixty in 5.3 seconds? Off a cliff maybe!
William Reed
And if they revved the engine to the name of the original poster in this thread, the pistons would be on the moon!
I watched two friends from high school race an automatic Pinto against an automatic Chevette in a quarter mile track we set up near the cemetery behind McDonald's. It was the longest two and a half minutes of my life. The Chevette won by a nose.
Is it true that the officials couldn't see the finish line, do they called for an oil painting to determine the winner?😉
Two cars whose acceleration is best timed with a calendar.
Still driving my 78 Pinto Cruising Wagon. Bought it new 40 years ago this summer. Great car!
I drove my 79 until the whole outer body separated from the platform behind the rear seats, just rusted at the corner joint, probably should have repaired. About 400k miles, had 1/4 ton add a leaf and used it as a truck.
@@ty2010 👋😂👍helllll noooo! Lmfao!
👋😂👍hahahaha...nice!
@@anibalbabilonia1867 also, the wagon got almost the mileage of the sticks I owned, had the c3 instead of the c4
Watch out for drunk drivers in the rear view mirror. And be sure to wear a flame retardant suit in case one of them forgets to stop.
I was a first time buyer fresh out of high school at this time I looked at both and chose to buy the Pinto Wagon. I like the Camaro styled front on the Vega but felt the build quality was no as good as the Pinto. I felt I made the right choice after the Vegas engines began to fail. I really enjoyed the Pinto with a stick shift a lot, although it was no rocketship. Can’t remember the exact price I paid, but it was less than 4K. I even bought custom aluminum alloy aftermarket wheels and Michelin tires which really improved the car handling and ride. I did get great use of the station wagon with lots of storage space for camping gear and bedding down in the back on occasion. Operated it about 8 years and racked up about 85k miles with no major repairs after flogging it as a young driver. 😎
There was a time in the 1980's when I was growing up, that we had five pintos in our driveway. My brothers and I were approaching driving age and used pintos were dirt cheap at that time so my Dad started buying them. And super easy to work on and got good gas mileage. True story five different pintos in the driveway at one time.
I once test drove a Pinto standard shift. It was a fuuun car to drive!!
I had a neighbor that had at least 3 different Vegas in their driveway.
Big W were they all running? I hear that the all-aluminum engines were trouble prone. Were you able to find “iron duke” engines for these cars? Pontiac Astre were the first cars that got em.
@@johntapp1411 - The Vega engine used an aluminum block and cast iron cylinder head. It was an open deck block without sleeves. Later, iron sleeves were added but by then Vega was just about dead.
Scooter George I would imagine the sleeves should have helped engine reliability, but like you said, the death knell rang for the car before. BTW, did the cosworth Vega have sleeves and what are its issues?
It took our 74 Vega 7.5 hours to make the 6-hour drive up I-57 from college to home. It struggled mightily to push over 60 MPH. The only upside is that we were usually able to polish off a 12-pack with the extra time. After one long drive, the aluminum engine block literally melted and that was that.
the Ford 2.3 was far superior in durability than the Aluminum Chevy mill. Pintos were everywhere in the late 70's..
That's why in '77 when Pontiac came out with the Astre version of the Chevy Vega, they used the 2.5L Iron Duke... a tweaked version of the earlier traditional Chevy 4 banger that was vastly more reliable than either the Pinto 2.3L or the Vega 2.3L... It got 28 MPG City and 34 MPG Hiway... unheard of MPG numbers for those days... It used a Weber 2 bbl. carb. and a MPG tuned camshaft... and it had timing gears instead of timing chain... or short lived timing belts like Vega/Pinto engines... I still have a '77 Pontiac Astre Formula Safari Station Wagon... About identical to a Vega GT KammBack wagon, except the vastly better engine...
The Pontiac Iron Duke was for sure a very durable motor, I had one in my 1980 Chevy Monza! they used it in everything from Camaro's to S10 pickups to Fiero's !!
Tony Chavez
Love that ol 2.3.
Later it grew to a 2.5.....I see em all the time in generators.
Ford made some good industrial engines , 2.3 , 300-6, and the 460...some of those were turbo.
The 300 six was one of Fords best motors of all time. My neighbor had one as a stationary to run a large water transfer pump.
Both engines would snap a cam belt at 40K - 80K miles and leave you stranded eventually...
I'd have bought an AMC Gremlin.....
Why?
th-cam.com/video/ITWHVmWlTWA/w-d-xo.html
Robert Spinello. Because the Gremlin is more distinctive, better in crash testing and the AMC Buyer Protection Plan...
Never seen a black in an AMC
Oh, they often had an 8 track of Alice Cooper "Billion dollar babies" on the floor somewhere too. One of my mom's friends had a metallic purple one.
The days when the American car companies tried to sell competitively priced economy cars, while paying non-competitively priced UAW wages. And yet they still managed to make a decent product. Those pintos, with that OHC 4 cylinder, made great power for such small engines, and withstood years and years of abuse. I still see pintos and Vegas on the road from time to time, but haven’t seen an early-mid seventies Japanese economy car on the road for almost three decades.
I bought a '69 Subaru...mixed the oil and gas...a really small car, everyone kept hitting it....
Depends on what part of the country you are in.
BULLSHIT.....
RUST is the reason. My brother had a Datsun from the early 70's in Chicago and it had a frame failure and the front end collapsed from rust. Cars dissolved from the 70's from salt on the roads....American and Japanese so that is why you don't see them.
Kung-fu, plus they sold millions of them, parts were plentiful and cheap, and a dealership was in easy reach. Years ago many private repair shops refused to work on "foreign" cars and those who specialized with import service charged an arm and a leg. The early Asian cars had their share of problems as well.
Back around 1990 I was working on a fox body Mustang project car and frequenting the area salvage yards for parts. At the time, there were still quite a few Pintos and Gremlins littering the yards stripped of many of their parts, never did I see any sign of a Vega on my advantages. I do however remember back in the mid 70's seeing many a dead Vega setting around with grass growing up under it in someone's yard. In other words, by the early 80's, most of the Vegas had been recycled or used for dirt modified bodies.
Back in 1975 I was looking to buy a small block to drop into my 1954 Chevy sedan delivery. Bought a 1970 L-48 350 and turbo 350 transmission from a junkyard north of Ventura CA. Anyway, they had n SC/Rambler sitting in the yard. Holly carb was missing but otherwise complete and very clean. Just glanced at it and moved on. Wasn't interested in it back then but...a few years later began to wonder. Why was it junked?
I had a '73 Vega. On the highway I could get about 50 miles to the quart of oil! When I took off from a stop at a light if I gave it the gas you couldn't see the back of the car. I had a '77 also. Never burned a drop of oil (steel lined cylinders).
Can't remember ever seeing a Pinto Hatchback with a sunroof let alone a power one.
This one was LOADED !!!
If you look carefully at 1:08, you can see a hand turning the handle to open the sunroof....No power sunroof on the pinto.
@@frits4ever Very Good, Thanks
Summer 1974. About to start my senior year of high school. Time for my first car and I was determined it would be a new one. Ended up buying a 1974 Honda Civic hatchback with 4 speed manual. $2800 out the door. There were so few on the road that if you saw another you would honk and wave at each other. I enjoyed the uniqueness of the Civic!
I would take the duster any day. That slant six was great!
The styling was ahead of the others
I love these old road tests. Whenever I get nostalgic for the cars of my youth, I watch these reviews...and I don't have to go and buy one and fix it up.
The funny thing is people said the Vega GT was one of the best handling American cars at that time. Why they tested a wagon with skinnier wheels and hubcaps is a mystery.
@Sean Sullivan . . . I had a 1974 Vegas GT and it was a good handling car. Even a gearhead friend of mine that could find fault with anything commented on its good handling; but he said it could have been improved with an anti-sway bar. My Vegas GT did have low-profile, wide biased ply tires.
My wife had a 73 Vega GT hatchback. They should have tested that instead of a wagon.
Probably the only one that was running right at the time.
@@freedomwon2004 @ Kenneth Roll . . . I was wondering about that myself. But, the filming production of this piece seems to date back to when the Vega and Pinto were still in production. The way the script was presented with the film, I got the impression this was a promotion piece for Ford; where the producers of the film chose the Vega model they knew was the worse performing of the bunch; especially with the use of skinny tires. The weight distribution of station wagons made them like barges when it came to handling; as that came from personal experience having owned a 1968 Chevy Biscayne wagon. The high-horsepower 327 engine was marvelous for acceleration, but the performance handling was atrocious for a full-sized vehicle.
Sport model vs the plush model (woody), most sport models have bigger sway bars and suspension changes.. cant say if they did on these two but normally they do. Also the wagon, Pinto had a wagon too, should weigh more, why did they not compare wagon to wagon. But it's all just a pissing match nowadays unless you have one i guess. But one thing the Orginal VEGA aluminum motor was garbage the later iron duke lasted (have a fiero with 180,000 still going strong).
The pinto with a manual was actually pretty fun to drive and reliable.
Especially the earlier ones with the foreign built engines. My dad's 1600cc manual 1971 was a lot of fun to drive anywhere but on the freeway. I understand the 2000cc was even better.
They had some oomph with the 2.8 v6
Cars that made the Japanese famous
Not really. It was our support of Israel that did that.
@@mewrongway American Yugos. Pinto up in smoke (literally).
@@mewrongway Incorrect; Japanese cars are at least as reliable and well built overall as anything 'American made,' not that that means much anymore. And let's be honest here: Detroit built shit for some 80 years and any improvements made over the years were forced into being by safety and insurance groups, as well as competition from overseas.
I bought a used pinto 4 speed stick for 800 dollars for a work car to the steel mills...I beat it to death winding the gears to red line...it never failed me. Below zero it started every time..drove it 2 years..tires ,brakes and plugs ..it was a hell of a good car
It’s a shame, by the time the bugs were worked out of these two cars, the damage was already done. Oil eating Vega and exploding Pintos.
Mark Godfrey what a shame unable to make a statement without cursing. I was making a comment. I know a few words too, but I guess I was brought up with manners and an education. Just for the record, I didn’t say that every time they were rear ended they exploded. I stated that all the bugs were taking out. Putting a gas tank between an axle and a bumper was not the smartest design. Maybe in a larger vehicle but the not the Pinto. Many lawsuits were filed. The landmark one being Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co., 128 million dollars was awarded. So Mr. Godfrey, learn how to read and learn how to communicate with adults.
@Mark Godfrey "Nadder"?
I believe only 27 deaths were attributed to burning Pinto. You would more likely to die in a small car in the usual collisions. Originally the Pinto was to be a 2,000 pound car that sold for under $2,000. The Geo Metro is a 1,700 pound car and it was smaller than the Pinto. Death in a small car collision was true for Datsun and the others too. The manner that Ford handled the news is what soured the public. I believe the early Pinto wagon didn't have the fuel tank issue. Now, I think the rust of the Vega is a bigger problem as its pretty hard to find one that doesn't need major body work. A Vega would be super fun with a Honda K24 turbo swap, the popular v8 Vega swap is really too much torque for the chassis.
I worked for Chevy in the 70’s. In the winter the Vega wouldn’t start. We had a shop full of them. Clean the plugs and they would start until they say overnight and they would be towed back in the next day. General Motors told us to correct the problem tell the owner to install hotter spark plugs, a bigger battery and use a light weight oil. Imagine telling a customer who just purchased one one these pieces of crap they needed to pay for all this. Then guess what- the next day they still wouldn’t start. GM then said it was a choke problem and came up with a redesigned throttle clip. Still didn’t work. 100’s of service bulletins later people still had problems. GM should be embarrassed having ever built this car. I know their employees were.
People didn't figure out to pump the pedal before cranking. Dumb
i was mainly the vega mechanic in a chev dealer in massachussetts in the late 70,s. none of the guys wanted to work on them. i made good money flat rate , i could quickly do anything on them. the warranty program replacing the engines with the new blocks which had steel cylinder liners instead of the silicone impregnated aluminum . the hard start cold with a lot of those was the low compression from pitted valves or worn cylinders. the new blocks were so much better and most motor problems dissapeared. instead using a timing light i always power timed those in drive holding the brake method till they pinged and brought it back about 2 degrees. they had way better and started quicker in the morning. then the monzas came in which i mainly still did and a good portion of chevettes. this place i worked in was huge with old weaver twin post lifts. it was always too busy because we did maintenance on brewster ambulance co. , boston police cruisers and towing division which was a fleet of gmc wreckers, boston water and sewer trucks. we had a chevrolet medium and heavy duty truck center in another building. i loved them days
marion cobaretti I worked for GM dealers in the service department for over 40 years. I still remember getting read the riot act by Vega owners! Seriously I have a lot of respect for technicians like you who where problem solvers and still knew how to make a decent living. I miss the old days too. The last 10 years or more has been all electronics and never ending training. I’m glad to be out of it now and feel for the young guys who love to work on cars but are bogged down by the problems the new models have, (I worked at a Cadillac store the last 15 years). Are you retired? If so I wish you the best.
Not exactly fair to test a wagon vs coupe.
Exactly!
But the Vega has those cool side fins in the back that must help with performance. Both represent everything that was wrong with the 1970’s through 1980s American cars. Who can ever forget the rust issues both cars had.
Vega's deluxe woodgrain trim ooooohhhhhhhh! The big advantage of this option is that the brown woodgrain color is almost exactly the same as the rust that will start forming around the wheel wells about 2 years after you buy it!
2 years, you're be generous. Fun fact, the Executive Engineer of the original Viper program was the corrosion control Engineer on the Vega.
@@charliedee9276 LOL they had a corrosion control engineer on the Vega product?! Really? Was he for or against corrosion?
@@peterjeffery8495 He actually joked about it, said he learned a LOT about corrosion. It was a black art when the steel started getting thinner in those days.
Yah it was common then across all brands. I had a made in Japan 2nd hand 79 Datsun (takes u back, huh?) that was more rust than steel when I got it. The Japanese had a rust problem with their steel rusting too. Also had an E Ford of the same vintage that had a trunk with no floor. A Buddy told me he had one also. In order to pass the Safety he took a Pizza Box and taped it to the car and then covered the whole thing with roofing pitch!
@@peterjeffery8495 I grew up in Michigan, they literally covered the roads with salt, one could watch the cars rust. My uncle had a body shop in the 70's I worked at after school, loved watching the old timers weld in panels and then lead the seams. They refused to use Bondo..
no matter how nostalgic you may be for old cars, no one misses these dogs.
Only when you visited the gas pump.
My 70 Tempest Sport got 13-15 MPG.
My '69 suburban manual 4 speed got 9. But it would pull a trailer that weighed more than a Pinto wagon.The gas leaving the tank was about same, trailer or no trailer.
But it also had two tanks for 48 gallons total of premium. Enough to fill a Pinto and the Tempest.
I had a 4 speed Pinto for a while. Not bad for a short ride here or there. But not something good for more than 30 minutes at a time. Kinda like that gal that talked me into buying the cute thing for her.
Guess who ended up driving the Tempest?
Drab racers love them to this day.
i miss my gt ..if you actually changed oil you didnt have smoking issues ..it was unmaintained ones with problems
I do.. I think they looked cool. I never liked the looks of the Mercury Capri they sold in the states, but I liked the Monza. But Toyota killed them all with the 20r.
@@yourallbrainwashed the monza came factory v8 in 75 76 ..i had a 4 speed car only smoke was blazing rear tires
1:50 Damn that Vega is fast. 0-60 in just 5.3 sec.!
yeah what's up with that, and than they mention 0-45 top 10 sec flat................(1:55)
They installed the new high-performance 454 in it, lol
Downhill, off the side of a cliff. That part got cut in production.
In the early 80s I bought a 74 AMC Hornet. Not a beautiful car, but it was a good meat and potatoes car with a straight six motor that never let me down
Bud should have said, “The Pinto tried to be the worst car but the Vega tried harder.”
1974 and Bud said “they’ll both have to compete against The Imports.”
-> He already saw it coming!
Yeah they would have to compete with the Datsun now Nissan and Honda civic and Toyota corolla.
They both outsold the imports. According to Wikipedia 3 million Pintos were produced and nearly 2 million Vegas were sold. Later, GM reskinned the Vega and sold it in different bodies whereas the Bobcat was clearly a Pinto, the Monza and cousins were basically Vegas too.
Now I know where the guy on the Fantom Works TV show learned how to test brakes ! LOL
I purchased new a 1974 pinto ghia. All the fancy really thick shag type carpet. Two tone paint with a vinyl roof and cranking sun roof. After I bought it I had this jingle noise in the passenger side rear that drove me crazy. I took it back to two different dealers trying to find the problem. I kept telling them that it almost sounded like a chain clanking together. Six trips to the dealer before someone finally took off the passenger side rear tire and pulled the cover off of the drum brake and they found two lug nuts in there. Apparently being put together at the factory someone placed them there and someone else sealed them in. To show you the quality at that time, I traded that car in for a 1975 Ford Granada Ghia. I purchased it in central Pennsylvania on the weekend and drove it to DC on that Sunday. Got off of the beltway to go into Georgetown and the very first light I stopped at, the car wouldn't go. Just the engine raced. It was towed to the local Ford dealer and they installed a new transmission a week later.
Regarding the "extra" lug nuts in the brake drum of your Pinto, I had the SAME type of problem with my new 1980 Citation "X-11". When I first got the car, I would hear a "snapping noise" when I would hit a large bump, sometimes. I tended to ignore it thinking it was the rear coil spring just shifting on it's seat, but then while going down my alley at slow speed, I heard a slight rattling sound that was continuous. I thought that maybe there was something wrong with the muffler, I decide to track down the noise, turns out it was coming from the BRAKE DRUM. So, I pulled the drum and found an axle flange bolt inside the drum, was just an "extra" bolt. I discovered that this bolt had been catching on the metal backing plate of the brake shoe. This is what was causing the SNAPPING noise when hitting bumps. Luckily, this bolt never got wedged between the brake shoe and the drum when I was flying down the highway at 70MPH, I PROBABLY would not be writing this reply if it had! BTW, the quality(I use the term lightly) of the Citation was even WORSE than the Vega, and this was in 1980!!
@@TheOzthewiz If you'd had a slightly older model you could have had the same highway results without the bolt. The X-Body was originally famous for trying to get by without a brake bias valve... Brake a little too hard and both rears would instantly lock, and off you go.
I bought a new '73 Pinto...it had the really small 1.6L motor, not a hatchback...put mags, a header, and two one barrel carbs on it...Indy tires on rear, picked up scratch in 2nd every time...I beat the crap out of that car, almost 70K in 3 years (I was military) it never failed me and was a fun car.
I can't believe those cars cost $3900. I bought a V8 Firebird that year for $4300.
With prices like that, VW would have gotten my business for a 1973 VW 3 Squareback for $2,999.
By 1974, the Pinto could be had as a 3-door wagon similar to the Vega here. I wonder why they didn't compare the wagons together & hatchback Pinto & Vega together?
Exactly. But that's the way things worked with PR cars for magazine testing. Bud Lindeman was in that same bucket with the magazines unfortunately. They ask for a Pinto and a Vega and they get whatever is on hand in the PR car "Pool"
There is no comparison, one runs and the other blows up !
My older brother and I bought first edition new pinto 1971 models. $1919 stripped and $2100 with an automatic and an am radio. 60 bucks for half vinyl roof if you wanted to spring for it. Fortunately both engines had rods blow out in the first 18 months so we didn’t have to worry about being incinerated if hit from behind. Younger brother bought a 75 Vega that rusted out in less than 2 years in Florida heat and humidity. Total unsafe crap. All Japanese for me for the last 50 years now....other than the new ‘79 Cutlass Supreme loaded up that came with the Firestone “721” tires that had the right front blow out the first weekend I had it and almost killed me.
On that. My Girlfriend had a Chevy Cavalier type 10 or something with Firestone 721's. Three of the four tires disintegrated at freeway speeds, lucky we survived. If it were today I'd file a class action lawsuit against Firestone and probably be re-tired.
So you're going to test a wagon against a sports version and expect the same results? Apples to oranges.
I've owned 6 Pintos in my life. Loved them all. Still my favourite model. My 1973 Runabout was my favourite of the ones I had.
The last time I seen a Vega was 1996 sitting in a field in Henry County, Ga. The Last Pinto I seen was almost 2 months ago driving down Pat Booker Rd in Universal City, Tx.
I placed an order yesterday for a Pinto at my local Ford Dealer.
I’d take the Pinto today!
I lovethe look of Pinto but would still buy Gremlin.
I had a Pinto wagon 4 speed and loved it. The good old days.
The Vega rusted and its engines "melted" a lot faster than the sea of Pintos across the U.S. disappeared in flames. Just going by my visual memory of seeing these cars on the road in the 1980s as a teenager and adult - Vegas were gone while Pintos were still around. Maybe in the western dry lands the lack of rain and winter salt issues didn't cause so many cheap cars to rust as fast, but in the eastern U.S. rust quickly ended the lives of a lot of 1970s popular cars. The floor of our '75 Pinto wagon rusted through by the time it was seven years old - I discovered this when the driver's seat felt like it was reclining while I was on a two hour trip! A neighbor who worked at a truck body shop had it repaired in short order, once I removed the seat and carpeting for him. But not just the usual exterior places but the rest of the interior (especially the rear wall of the cargo department by the wheel wells) continued to corrode.
Every episode that guy drove the shit out of those cars, i like the 68 hurst olds review.
I had a '74 Vega back in the day. Unless you bought the total stripper model, emphasis really was on comfort over performance - then the GT version took over and gained much better handling. The Vega had a definite edge in passenger room - much more legroom up front and a lot of space behind the rear seat (on the hatchback) for storage, and the spare tire was under the floor. Too bad the engine still wore out and the body rusted out. The sleeved engine came out for 1975, but they didn't make an issue of it until later in the model year. My engine was shot at 50K - that Pinto engine was fantastic and about the only thing that really made it the better car.
Miss my small block Pinto. True sleeper!
Thank you for posting these videos.
The Wagon was heavier than the Hatch, especially in the back. That was the only way to give the pinto the advantage. Great video.
I got my ass handed to me by Turbo Joe in 1987 on Magnolia Ave, in Riverside.
My bad ass looking Pinto against his
not so bad ass looking Pinto. Well, we did the "1, 2, 3 Go" and after me and my girl caught up to him he was already stepping out of his car. I had to see under his hood to find out why his car jumped forward at each shift - finding out immediately why he was known as "Turbo Joe" - I made a new friend.
That car actually made it into Hot Rod magazine.
Fast forward to today and I'm the owner of my Uncles complete and stock, brown 1971 Half-Hatch that he lowered in 74, put in a Maverick rear end, installed 14/15 inch Slotted 5 US MAGS. The 72 he built in 72 (with the 350/350 chevy driveline) is held by my cousin and is the original Bumblebee - Mustard Yellow with black hood and black tail-light panel. Same rim/tire combo as the 71 except it has a 9in rear end.
Both cars are 70's time capsules and priceless - also not for sale. Ever.
Awesome story. Damn we getting old. These kids don't know shit except mommas credit card and a turbo. Back then we tried everything. 40 hours at work and 50 hours in junkyard and built fun fairly fast stuff on our own dime. Really a dime. On the dollar. On todays money. I really liked your comment and rare for me to reply. I wish you well, and thanks for the memories
Chuck Whitson
Yeah man, you’re welcome.
I have a 1972 Pinto woodgrain wagon. I've owned it for over 15 years. It still runs like new. I did have to replace the clutch once, other than that and a few minor issues it has been trouble free, unlike my sisters 2013 Chevy Sonic, which had a blown engine at 60,000 miles, out of warranty. I can easily rebuild the Pinto's 2.0L OHC engine, not possible with the disposable engine in the Sonic. $17,000 down the drain.
Clicked on this because I remember "being passed" by a Pinto in 1972. Pulling a long hard hill out of Md on I70 in my 68 Formulas S 340 Barracuda fastback (turned 13.95 @Magnolia Oh ) ~3/4 of the way up, I look n the rear view and here comes a 72 Pinto like a home sick angel. Im doin OK with 275 horses (really 325) boogieing along doin about 70, he passed me like I was standing still.
Now that's a Pinto. I dont think it was stock tho LOL
I love the "braking tests" that are really tire skidding tests.
That's pretty much what people did to panic stop. Stuff one's foot in the brake and try to keep it straight. Long before anti-lock brakes locking the tires was about as effective as it got. My first car was a '70 Firebird, so been there, done that. Mom had a '73 Vega she and dad bought just before I was born. It was surprisingly reliable too.
@@catjudo1 No the most effective way of braking, but you are right...it was what untrained people did in a panic. Pumping the brakes and threshold braking are the most effective way to stop a vehicle that doesn't have anti-lock braking system. My brother had a girlfriend who owned a Vega. The engine was an oil burner even as a new car. The Ford Pinto was a better car in terms of reliability...I had a 1978 wagon that lasted until the 1990's...when it was sold to a teenager...it was in great condition until that point.
I noticed they didn’t do any rear crash testing on the Pinto.....
💥 🔥😦😧😮😲
Bugs bunny drove a pinto with a bumper sticker that says STOP STEAMING UP MY TAIL!
Perhaps this film was made before the infamous flaming crashes.
Mark Godfrey ....takes one to know one
there was only ONE year that the Pinto had that issue - not all years had it.
I had a 1979 Pinto Wagon with the wood grain on the outside. It even had the V6 in it. It was a great little car.
My grandpa had an original Pinto. It was an export market, R-Code car with 427 side-oiler, Top Loader 4-speed and 9-inch Traction-Lok diff.
My grandpa had an "experimental " VW bug with a twin rotor Wankel running "nitro". Did the quarter in "mid 9's" !
1:45 "We took the Vega off the line first and clocked a zero 0 to 60 run in 5.3 seconds." Then the pit crew had to to put my pants out with a Class D extinguisher.
This is funny. Why didn't they include an AMC Gremlin?
Ford Pinto: the barbecue that seats four.
I Owned both of these cars years ago. they were what they are. Got me to where i always wanted to go.
0-60 in 5.3 seconds in a Vega wagon? Surely that can't be right, there were plenty of musclecars that couldn't do that.
EDIT; Haha, I caught Bud Lindeman in a blooper---he said right after that the 0-45 run took 10 seconds. He obviously meant to say 30, not 60.
Yeah, he said 60 MPH for 30 MPH... both took 16's to get to 60 MPH... no 1/4 mile numbers given... Vega quicker to 60... 16.2 seconds... Pinto 16.4 seconds... but he claims Pinto is faster...
At 1:15 clearly shows 2.3L Pinto engine... but at 2:30 he says 2.0L engine standard now (over earlier 1.6L) and really boosts the performance... but this is a 2.3L...
They were probably at only 70 by the time they hit the traps lol
Right. 86hp.
@@Coupydog Had a girlfriend that got a new 75 Vega from her mommy on her 18th birthday. She called it her Vagrant.
That test driver has such a mean look, hes taking this test drive way too serious
I've been looking for this video like crazy. love the pinto, handles like it's on rails. I took a 90 degree turn at 35 once. it stuck to the road like a slot car.
Yep, Pintos, drugs and the 70's made for some special moments. Glad you had fun and are still alive.
Removed the 4 in a Vega (don't remember the model year) and swapped with a 305. This was fairly popular and simple to do for both Vega and Pinto.
If you were fortunate enough to not get rear ended, the Pintos weren't that terrible. In my opinion the Vegas were worse. Pintos had better engines, better build quality, except for the unprotected fuel tank. Vegas would dissolve into dust after about 3 years.
The Pinto was made an example out of to inform the public about safety. Ralph Nader later admitted (in the early 80s) that most small cars at the time had similar safety concerns, and some were worse (even imports). They chose the Pinto because people trusted Ford as a domestic brand more than the imports at the time, and of course that documentation showing that companies actually balance production costs to safety/liability.
'The vega would dissolve into dust after three years'....So Ive heard..
That being said, the Pinto didn't have a bad run, 10 years and by the time the final 1980 model rolled off the line it was fundamentally obsolete and selling mainly on price.
@ brealistic1970. It was WAY worse than that. Internal Ford documents were uncovered showing that they compared the costs of recalling and repairing the Pintos against the costs of settling claims where people were killed or injured.
The Vega rust issues were resolved by 1975-1976.
Those were the days. A little green wagon with simulated wood around it.
They were called 'tin woodies' as I recall
My family bought a
72 Vega GT in the fall of 71. Sharp looking pos.silver with black stripes. By 15k miles it was blowing oil smoke. They got a few hundred dollars for trade in on a 73 Levi's Gremlin that was trouble free the 6 years they had it.
Vegas with small block swaps are bad ass, if you can find one....
Yeah wouldn't that green fake-woodgrain wagon be awesome with a vette 327?
I wonder if they still have the “iron duke” engines left.
@@johntapp1411 A similar car called the "Pontiac Astre" was built with the Iron Duke.
Skyline Fever yes, I know. But I could not find too many of these-even in 1977 when they were new and I was nine.
This Vega test car has the 1BBL std engine, not the 2bbl optional engine. Bud is mis-informed.If they tested a Vega GT with the stabilzer bars and stiffer springs it would have been a different ballgame.
Heck, if they'd tested manual versions they'd have shaved a few seconds off the times of both.
Are you sure? There's a brief interior shot where you see the GT's round gauge cluster, as opposed to the standard model's rectangular speedometer. May have been a special car that had the uplevel 2bbl engine too.
It seems that the pinto was better at the cones than the jaguar lol
If the Pinto had the 2.8L v6 (Capri) engine, it would have "sucked" that Vega through it's 2-barrel Holley venturi !
@@davekunz6359 no cold air duct from the air cleaner, that means its the base engine without the hotter cam. The gauges are a separate option without the GT. This wagon has the base engine and the base suspension. The wagon being heavier also doesn't handle as well as the coupe with std or GT suspension. The two cars aren't evenly matched. None of the handling issues would have been apparent with the F41 suspension or GT package which includes it.
I call "UNFAIR!" The Pinto was a "Sport" so the Vega should have been a "GT" hatchback.
Pinto's were rare in Europe, I bought one from an American soldier stationed in Germany, it was a '79 Pinto Runabout 2.3 manual, loved it. The rear hatch was completely made out of glass which draw a lot of attention at the time.
I swapped 76 Chevette for a 74 Vega but not any ordinary Vega this one was set up with a 350 and turbo 400 transmission. The guy that put the engine in was not a mechanic as he failed to provide proper crank case ventilation. by the time I got home the engine was all but destroyed...so my father and I rebuilt the engine and used racing parts. I finally got a Carter AFB best carburetor I ever had. My Vega pulled wheelie when I floored it for the first time WOHHOO!! fastest car I ever had!!
The all time low for american
I enjoyed my 1974 Vega GT - That handled really well - though steering was a bit heavy. Still on Polyglas Bias Ply tires. It was like a Junior Camaro. Could really dive into turns and hang the back end out.
It's too bad only one of them was a station wagon. They should've ordered the Pinto in station wagon form.
6:35 aahhhh.... the reverse spin, betcha didnt learn that one in driving school !
I had a 1974 Mercury Bobcat 2.3 litre 4 Speed. That little car took me reliably were ever I wanted to go. The body fell off but the engineering just kept going. Honestly I don't want to go back. Great in the day, but time marches on and so does technology. My E350 Mercedes station wagon, 0-60 MPH in 6.5 seconds, 120 MPH before you know it. Reliable, comfortable and like the Bobcat Sexy. Bet you weren't expecting that conclusion.....
Can you give me directions to the Toyota dealer ...?
6:31-A station wagon in a high speed corner. Too many things not right with this comparison.
In the spirit of this video, how did the Vega wagon do against the Saturn-IV rocket engine?
16 seconds for 0-60 is downright dangerous.
The gas tank issue aside, the _Pinto_ really wasn't that bad of a subcompact, when you really looked at it... The later 2.3 Lima I-4 overhead cam engine teamed with the 4 Speed was a pretty reliable and somewhat fuel economic combination when maintained at regular intervals... Access to the engine and the tranny was wide open if you had to get to anything vital, and most parts were easily obtainable at most discount auto parts stores or even the junkyard! Depending upon where you resided, the car's body would often rust out before the engine and drivetrain failed due to high mileage... They were a lot better than a Vega... The AMC Gremlin however, was a completely different matter...
American's had a long learning curve when it cam to making a 4 cylinder engine. In the beginning they all were terrible! The only thing worse was the bodies. The Vega was so bad that at night if it was quiet you could hear them rusting all over town!
The vega in this video had rust, it shows at 6:25
The 2.3 ford was no power house but the engine was a tuff compared to the garbage engine that came from Europe at that time. My girlfriend had a 1974 Pinto that we drove for over 100,000 miles with out a problem.
I disagree. The Ford Kent 1.6L was/is legendary. THAT IS the Formula Ford motor from decades long world wide fame. The 2.3 Lima was still being produced in evolutionary form until a decade ago or so. Even the German 2.0 was reliable, and the Lima was a domestic derivative of that engine. You mean GM didn't figure it out and Chrysler didn't even try until the 2.2 VW motor? Is that what you meant? Oh wait! What is a good GM 4 banger? In 2019 does anyone know off the top of their head? I have no clue, and I've looked because I have a gutless Miata and a swap might happen.
The Chevy 4's from 1920's - 1970 were good engines, then they messed them up... '76 they brought out the Iron Duke version also used in boats for 40 years...
It was my understanding that the Ford 2.3 was not that bad of a 4-cylinder engine. Besides, there were plenty of garbage 4-cylinder engines entering the USA from foreign companies. Renault and Fiat never gained a good reputation in the USA, and they made numerous 4-cylinder engines.
I think that the early (pre-giant bumper) Pintos should have succeeded the Deuce Coupe as the hot rod base of choice. It was very good-looking, it was small and light and basic and had plenty of room for something like a 302. And really, sitting in it was like sitting in a sports car.
This was fun to watch, but they should have used equal body style cars, either two wagons or two hatchbacks. I have driven a Pinto several times, years ago, that a friend owned, it was very fun to drive, but so were my Vega's! I had three of them over the years when I was young and had little money. They were all used, could be bought cheap and were easily repaired and maintained by yourself. Only the first one I owned at age 17, a '72 notchback, burned plenty of oil. But I had it a year, and it started up every day, took me anywhere I wanted to go, I just kept the oil checked! The other two I owned were a '74 hatchback and a '75 notchback. Those didn't burn oil, and I put a lot of miles on the '75 Vega, dependably.
Back in the 80s I put a V8 302 in a pinto. Very fun car to drive. Wish I had it today.
One of the dumbest, most ill-conceived road tests I've ever seen.
Would have been great if someone had some footage of Bud L. and company with a hot mike just after these tests... He probably had to grit his way through a few of these to get his pick of 455 Trans Ams.
totally ford biased a wagon vs coupe yea thats fair
@@rctopfueler2841 - A hatchback actually. And if it were "totally ford biased" (sic) Ford would have dominated. Vega won on some issues.
@@scootergeorge9576 but its not like there wasnt a pinto wagon available ,wouldnt that make more sense but somebody probably had a ford sponsor they didnt want to upset
@@rctopfueler2841 -Also possible is that these are the cars that the manufacturers provided and the testers just went with it.
Brakes test is basically a tyre grip test. What sort of "Test driver" just locks them up? Noobs
Apparently back in 1974 cars were still so new nobody had figured that out? lmao
Yep, maybe you're right there Glenn ha ha :)
how do you get brake fade when all they did was lock them up?
And how do you correct the path with the front tires completely locked and smoking?
I am guessing, however the brake testing was done to simulate the actions of a typical driver in a panic stop.
I guess the woodgrain trim on the Vega made up for the soft-sprung suspension since someone didn't have enough gumption to find a GT coupe, that would of had better performance gearing than the overweight wagon...oh but they noted the wagon had more space... really? I never would have thought of that, thank you for thinking we had the IQ of a hubcap!
I remembered both but the Vega was soon forgotten even to the most loyal . Both had issues but the Vega didn't stay on the road long enough to find even more problems . My uncle went through about four motors in the Vega ii lasted long enough for the rear end to go out He got his money back and bought a Volkswagen .
why couldn't they test these cars with the 4 speed manual?
Because Americans like to drive automatics.
@Sam Jones
94% of Americans prefer automatics. Is that enough proof?
@Sam Jones
And I've never owned a stick. So what's your point?
Automatics really sucked the power and economy out of subcompacts in the 70's. Was a shame Ford didn't offer a stick shift in the V6 Pinto.
74 was a bad years for American cars.
most of the 70s and the 1st half of the 80s sucked for anything that detroit made.
Yes it was. The fuel crisis, 55-mph speed limits nationwide, and that awful starter interlock device that prevented the car from starting unless you fastened your seatbelts. (Side note: Ohio license plates from 1973 to '75 had the slogan, "Seat Belts Fastened?")
No The new Mustang ll was a hit along the olds mobile cutlass etc.
Try telling this to Jennifer Lauren Dixon, the 17-year-old girl who died in a terrible crash involving her '74 Chevy Vega at the intersection of Sepulveda and Saticoy in Los Angeles in May of 1984 - with a drunk driver who led the LAPD in a high speed pursuit. That poor Vega was absolutely totaled - no one could ever survive such an impact like this. Like you have said, 1974 takes the cake on a bad model year for the auto industry in America and rightly so.
Except for the sd-455 cars
In the late '70's I had a Pinto and my brother had a Vega. Mine never gave me any problems, but his Vega was constantly in the shop and was a piece of junk. Pinto had much more room . The Vega aluminum engine block warped on his.
I owned both of these cars back in the day, not the same year though. But for some reason I always liked the Pinto better than the Vega. The Pinto engine was just easier to work on, and it was just more fun to run around town. The Vega wasn't far off the Pinto but did leak oil all over the place and it handled like a car twice its size. The Vega did feel more solid on the highway but I think it weighed much more than the Pinto. I think if I had to do it all over I would have bought a Toyota.
They should have matched similar body styles. Two wagons or two sedans.
They made a comparable Vega but it was not used?
I don't think Bud was a fan of Chevrolet.
Lived out of a pinto wagon one summer when I was 17 sleeping better than in a tent.
And the 2.3 ford engine went on to kick butt in the turbo coupe, being 1mph faster on top end than the mustang back in 87.
After that it kept kicking butt in naturally aspirated form well into the mid 2000s as an industrial engine. Sometime in the late 90s it was brought up to a 2.5.
I see a lot of em on gen sets.
One of my favorite industrial engines next to the 300-6.
The Vega engine?
It’s known for other qualities.
The 2.5 in my 1998 ranger felt like a V6. It was a very strong runner...