Found this pic online. It's the Pinto I used to race at Flat Rock and Toledo Speedways back in the '70s.
Posted 30 January 2018 - 02:50 PM
Found this pic online. It's the Pinto I used to race at Flat Rock and Toledo Speedways back in the '70s.
Posted 30 January 2018 - 02:53 PM
Neat car, Mike! I recall when Pintos were a popular body for modifieds here in the Northeast.
Posted 30 January 2018 - 02:56 PM
Fortunately they installed fuel cells to get rid of the "kaboom" problem!
Dennis Dominey
Lifelong half-assed slot racer
Posted 30 January 2018 - 03:05 PM
There was also a road racing version you could buy from a fellow named Hintz back in the '70s. They called it a Hinto. I raced against them with my Toyota SR-5.
Posted 30 January 2018 - 06:14 PM
Still running them - GT Pinto. They have been running since at least the 80s when I ran FC in the Northeast.
https://www.motorspo...56379D6E300776C
Posted 30 January 2018 - 09:34 PM
Didn't Car & Driver race one back in the mid 70s, and wrote about it in the magazine? Or am I having another "false memory" surface?
And Mike, which cost more to race, retro or the Pinto?
I am not a doctor, but I played one as a child with the girl next door.
Posted 30 January 2018 - 09:55 PM
I had a red, 71 Pinto.
Bigger 2.0L engine, lowered, big sway bars, small diameter padded steering wheel, Koni's, Pirelli's, but ultimately a bit lame, with an automatic.
I sold it to a friend's dad, when I bought my X1/9.
My friend, Ron Burgett, who I worked with at a hobby shop, in Downtown Chicago, reconnected with me, in about 2009, when visiting relatives, in the area.
He wound up with the car, and raced it for quite a few years, in some sort of hobbystock class, down in Arkansas, where he had moved.
He said it was still a makeshift storage unit, on his property, a farm. LOL
Mine was the "runabout"/hatchback, and it did not suffer from the gas tank filler hose maladies.
Below is a semi-common paint job, you'll see on a Pinto, especially back when there was more on the road.
I definitely saw one or two, painted this way, out on road, back in the day.
Mike Swiss
Inventor of the Low CG guide flag 4/20/18
IRRA® Components Committee Chairman
Five-time USRA National Champion (two G7, one G27, two G7 Senior)
Two-time G7 World Champion (1988, 1990), eight G7 main appearances
Eight-time G7 King track single lap world record holder
17B West Ogden Ave., Westmont, IL 60559, (708) 203-8003, mikeswiss86@hotmail.com (also my PayPal address)
Note: Send all USPS packages and mail to: 692 Citadel Drive, Westmont, Illinois 60559
Posted 31 January 2018 - 05:37 AM
Statistically the Pinto was no more or less prone to gas tank fires than most small cars of its day. It became an issue for Ford because the magazine "Mother Jones" got a hold of some inner office memos from Ford where they had looked into the issue and decided it would be cheaper to pay off claims than to make the car safer.
Posted 31 January 2018 - 09:00 AM
Posted 31 January 2018 - 09:33 AM
For Glidden the Pinto was a snap. He even made the Fairmont cool. That was a trick.
Posted 31 January 2018 - 11:27 AM
I had 77 Pinto my Sr. year at BGSU. It was black w/ white "SE" stripes, 4 speed 4 banger. I even put a small steering wheel and 60 series tires on it.LOL! Saw one race at Laguna Seca (IMSA) in 82. His hood flew back and he limped back to the pits!
Posted 31 January 2018 - 12:10 PM
There was an article in the Wall Street Journal a number of years ago about a race track in PA that had a Pinto class. Guys were pulling them out of junkyards and for a couple hundred bucks and a roll bar they had a "race car".
"Racer" Walsh who raced them on a regular basis in SCCA and/or IMSA races still shows up at vintage races and runs them. I've seen the car. Frankly I think it is the original untouched car in the same shape he ran it in the '70's. LOL He was at the PRI show last year selling Pinto related performance parts.
Posted 31 January 2018 - 12:19 PM
I got to do some SCCA events in a Pinto, it was actually the exact car that Lynn St. James started racing in.
Racer Walsh had some very cool Pinto's and Mustang's, I stopped by his shop years ago on the way to Sebring.
Ralph Thorne
ralph@ralphthorneracing.com
RTR Facebook page
Posted 31 January 2018 - 01:44 PM
Santa Fe Speedway had a class for small four-banger cars, They were called "lightning rods". Us guys running
the big cars called them nimrods. There were a lot of Pintos in that class. They had as much fun as we did.
Posted 02 February 2018 - 03:23 AM
I owned a 74 Pinto. I lived.
I remember my friend's father trying to convince me how much more car his Vega was.
Remember the Steube bar! (ask Raisin)
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Nelson Swanberg 5618
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