'72 Pinto

[hedotwo]

So I finally am getting around to building a car that means alot to me.  As a 19 year old I brought this '72 Pinto coupe home on 12/31/1971 and it cost me just under $2k brand new with WW's, bumper guards, AM radio and floor mats.  Cash, no loan.  Do kids today pay cash today at 19?  This wasn't my first car, but it was the first "new" car for me.  The stock 1600cc OHV 4cyl was short lived as I swapped it out by June with a 2000cc OHC that I'd found from a station wagon in a local junkyard.  Easy swap out for the anemic stock engine but the 2L had an automatic where my 1.6 came with a 4 speed.  I was able to mate the two with a clutch from a Lotus powered Cortina which took some research pre-internet!  From my memory (50 years ago) I remember I'd added a tubing header (I think it might have been a Hooker), slotted aluminum rims (I think Ansen's), D or E 60 series tires, aluminum intake with either a real small Holley 4bbl or a large Holley 2bbl.  I had an exhaust pipe fabbed up to meet a Thrush (I think) side pipe.  Not two, just one ?.  

A couple of pix from '72 show the car without my adding the lower black striping, fender USA flag sticker, and side pipe.  One shows the original OHV cyl.  The wedding pic is from the summer of '73 when we got married and show the dress up stuff I'd added by then.  Color was Bright Lime and the interior was a darkish green and bright white.

I'm starting with an AMT '71 Wonder Pony kit (real close to the '72 other than the seat pleating I think) and needed to source a side pipe, tires/rims (thanks to Steve aka Rodent), some engine parts, and the fender decals (which I made). The bumper guards needed to be made from scratch and needed to add the obligatory Sun tach that we all seemed to have.  This won't be a show winner but I'll be happy with it.

 

Primered with Tamiya white.  The gray made the shade more green than I remember, but the white brought out more of the yellow I remember.  The engine is in primer too.  I know, I know, the tranny is an automatic but I never sweat the stuff I never see once it's in the display case.

 

The 2.0 as far as I'm going to take it.  It's close to what I remember and that's the main thing.  The older I get, the less I spend time on detailing.  Some will roll their eyes but I've been doing this long enough to know what I like, and don't like, doing when building ?.

Struggled a bit with getting the firewall/dash/glass/interior to look to my liking.  Finally got it where I was ok with it.

 

Next up I'll start working on the bumper guards.

Thanks!

[cobraman]

Sounds a lot like my story. I bought my first new car in 1972. A red Ford Pinto with the 1.6 engine and 4 speed. As I recall the base price was 1919.00.  I had a few options that were only about 150.00. I had the same wheels as you with BF Goodrich tires. I blacked out the grill and rear panel as well. It served me well. I was rear ended and the car did not explode. I will be watching your build with interest.

[hedotwo]

25 minutes ago, cobraman said:

Sounds a lot like my story. I bought my first new car in 1972. A red Ford Pinto with the 1.6 engine and 4 speed. As I recall the base price was 1919.00.  I had a few options that were only about 150.00. I had the same wheels as you with BF Goodrich tires. I blacked out the grill and rear panel as well. It served me well. I was rear ended and the car did not explode. I will be watching your build with interest.

Amazing you brought up the fact you were rear-ended.  I too, was rear-ended and like you it never exploded!  For those too young to remember, Pintos were said to be prone to gas tank explosions when hit in the rear.  

[Spottedlaurel]

Love the period photos and your approach to this build, I look forward to seeing it progress.

[peteski]

That's a worth project.   Funny, just couple of weeks ago I posted this in the off-topic forum.

[doorsovdoon]

Cool, love the old photos! Would love to see an earlier pre facelift Pinto released one day.

Edited February 21, 2022 by doorsovdoon

[slusher]

I love Pintos. My first car was a 76 but not new but close. Mine was yellow with black interior. No radio and I put a 8 track under dash and 2 rear speakers. Mine was a 1.6. I really enjoyed driving it fun with a 4 speed…

[espo]

I like the background on your build. Always interesting building a model of a car you owned years ago and all of the memories that start coming back to you. A possible note on your wheels. I notice the Good Year tires and I work in the Good Year retail stores at that time. We sold a couple of brands of wheels and yours look like the Shelby brand. In fact if you look at my Avatar that is a model of my old '67 El Camino and it had Shelbys on it as well. Look forward to following your build here. 

[hedotwo]

2 hours ago, espo said:

I like the background on your build. Always interesting building a model of a car you owned years ago and all of the memories that start coming back to you. A possible note on your wheels. I notice the Good Year tires and I work in the Good Year retail stores at that time. We sold a couple of brands of wheels and yours look like the Shelby brand. In fact if you look at my Avatar that is a model of my old '67 El Camino and it had Shelbys on it as well. Look forward to following your build here. 

You may be right David.  My memory from 50 years ago remembers Ansen as being what I'd bought.  I remember them being something I could afford anyway ?. The style, as you know, was really popular late '60's through the early 70's and there was likely a number of manufacturers that had similar.

[olddude55]

I had a '71 hatchback, 2-liter Cologne engine, 4-speed.  I loved that car.  People trash the Pinto these days even though I doubt any of them have even seen one, but it was a decent car for the time.  Rack and pinion steering--didn't need power assist--and that high-revving engine.  Much better car than either the Vega, Gremlin, or the VW Bug.

Anyway, one of these days, I'm going to build my old Runabout.  Ivy Gold Metallic.  Been looking for the same kit you're building.

[hedotwo]

Just a bit of progress...  worked on the bumper guards a bit today.  Used some 060x156 strip and made the needed notches and angle to have it mate up to the bumpers.  I added a small strip of 040 half round on the face of guards.  I'm happy with them.

 

Flattened the leading edge of both bumpers in preparation to adding a bumper strip.

[Bainford]

Cool project. I love the Pinto. My first car was a Pinto, and I have gathered up the stuff needed to build a model of it. I need to get to that someday. I'll definitely be watching your build. Nice looking Pinto.

[4 Pulsars]

Hi !  my first model car was a pinto. i still have it. its been pro streeted years ago. i was 6 years old  in '72. 

my aunt barb had a med blue one. continue your project. cheers

[carl63_99]

On 2/20/2022 at 7:23 PM, hedotwo said:

Amazing you brought up the fact you were rear-ended.  I too, was rear-ended and like you it never exploded!  For those too young to remember, Pintos were said to be prone to gas tank explosions when hit in the rear.  

 

One of the big accidents reported was a full-size pickup slamming into the back of the Pinto at 65 MPH. I honestly don't think many cars of that time would have fared well. I think at least part of it all was sensationalist news.

[bisc63]

1 hour ago, carl63_99 said:

I think at least part of it all was sensationalist news.

There was an infamous lawsuit, won by Ford, against one of the news networks for falsely exaggerating the risk of fire. The news people could NOT get one to explode for the cameras, so they actually rigged one to get the effect they wanted, and they got busted HARD for it.

[slusher]

On 2/22/2022 at 3:57 PM, hedotwo said:

Just a bit of progress...  worked on the bumper guards a bit today.  Used some 060x156 strip and made the needed notches and angle to have it mate up to the bumpers.  I added a small strip of 040 half round on the face of guards.  I'm happy with them.

 

Flattened the leading edge of both bumpers in preparation to adding a bumper strip.

Nice scratch building on your bumper guards..

[rightrudder]

49 minutes ago, bisc63 said:

There was an infamous lawsuit, won by Ford, against one of the news networks for falsely exaggerating the risk of fire. The news people could NOT get one to explode for the cameras, so they actually rigged one to get the effect they wanted, and they got busted HARD for it.

I know Dateline on NBC rigged a full-size Chevy truck to explode, and lost the lawsuit.

I remember reading about the Pinto Explode-gate, and something like a bolt head on the rear end could tear into the fuel tank in a very heavy rear impact. Ford knew about the problem and considered fitting a reinforcement/guard to that area, but when they did a cost analysis they figured it would be cheaper to pay off the families of the injured/deceased than to modify the car!

[Jantrix]

On 2/20/2022 at 6:23 PM, hedotwo said:

  For those too young to remember, Pintos were said to be prone to gas tank explosions when hit in the rear.  

As I recall hearing back in the day, it was due to bumper mounting bolts that were over-long from the factory and they could puncture the gas tank when hit back there. I'm not positive if its true, but it sounds likely.

I have seen a side pipe in scale that looks similar to that one, but I can't place it. Likely a C3 Corvette kit. I'll be watching this one. 

[br67]

Ill be following this with interest as I just gave my dad a 1:1 Pinto as a Xmas present 

[Lunajammer]

This (web photo) is identical to my high school runner. Horrible power, had to take a running charge at hills, but handled surprisingly well.

[hedotwo]

Update...  finished the bumpers to my liking and now moving on to the body work.

Tried to flatten the leading edge of the bumpers to ready them for the 1.5mm black chart tape to replicate the bumper strips.  Down and dirty way to do the bumper strips rather than my first idea to use styrene strips.  I used Testor's Dull Cote brushed onto the tape to take the sheen off.  The end result looks good from a distance but could've been better.  The 'ol arthritis sometimes has different standards than what I'd like to accomplish with smaller parts and such

The front posed a bit more of a challenge because of the sequence doing the painting of the grille, bumper "fill in" piece and the bumper itself.  The lime green was done first and I tried masking off as best I could before doing the rest.  That green was important IMO.  I used strips of 1mm masking tape to leave the plastic bare where the guards would go.

 

 

[espo]

Using that tap is a good idea and it looks like it is even the thickness looks to be in scale. 

[doorsovdoon]

Some nice work there. Love these basic kits for this very reason, whatever you do is an improvement and lots of fun doing it.

[hedotwo]

Got around to getting the color laid down.  It's a horse apiece between MCW paints and Scalefinishes and I use them both equally.  This time I used the MCW Bright Lime, which was the correct '72 Pinto color that mine had.  The first pic shows the difference between Tamiya's light gray and white primers.  Not much difference on the photos but in natural light you could see the spoon on the left that had the white primer, came out a bit more yellow which my memory says was more correct.  The right spoon had the gray primer.  I was a bit concerned choosing the white and hoped it wouldn't turn out too yellow on the body but the greenish tint came through just enough with the white.  Also worked a bit on the door stripes and rear window trim.  Nice change from the big chrome barges I generally build in that there's very little brightwork on these little strippers. 

The following pic shows me using a regular Ultra Fine Sharpie to do the black window seal but after the pic was taken I switched to the black Gundam marker I'd picked up at HL for $3.99.  It's a paint (their website says acrylic) marker rather than the Sharpie being ink.  I really like the way it applies compared to the Sharpie in this case.   The pic of the Gundam isn't the greatest but the tip is pretty fine.  I picked up a gray one as well.

[Bainford]

Good progress. The colour looks right on, and the bumpers look great.