Expert Says Ford Knew the Pinto Would Explode Before It Was Recalled. It Would’ve Only Been 11 Dollars to Fix

A viral video has brought back one of the more notorious chapters in automotive history—the Ford Pinto scandal. It has raised fresh questions about how carmakers weigh safety against profit.

In the clip, TikTok creator Nikki (@nikki_either_or) revisits a lesson she learned years ago in a college course called the sociology of corporate violence. She said she’s now a clinical psychologist who studies violent behavior, and credits the Pinto story with changing how she thinks about the nature of harm and accountability.

The short of it? Ford could have fixed cars for $11 apiece but instead chose to take a chance and ended up settling lawsuits instead.

“Fast-forward, I’m now a clinical psychologist, and I’ve come to realize that corporate violence is far more disturbing than individual violence,” Nikki says.

'People Were Gonna Die'

Introduced in 1971, Ford launched the Pinto as the company’s answer to the rise of compact imports from Japan and Europe. Critics have alleged that they rushed, limiting time for safety testing. Engineers discovered early on that the Pinto’s fuel tank, positioned behind the rear axle, could make the car highly vulnerable to rear end collisions.

“They knew the Ford Pinto would explode if the front of it tapped something,” Nikki says. “And they put that in their documents.”

Internal memos later showed that Ford performed a cost-benefit analysis weighing the price of fixing the issue against the potential cost of lawsuits from fatal crashes. Fixing the flaw by adding a plastic shield or reinforcing the tank would have cost about 11 dollars per vehicle. Ford calculated it would be cheaper to let accidents happen and pay out claims.

“They factored it into their budget,” Nikki said. “They knew ahead of time that people were gonna die, and people did die.”

By the time production ended in 1980, the Pinto had been linked to dozens of fatal fires and hundreds of injuries. The resulting lawsuits, along with a landmark investigative report by Mother Jones in 1977, exposed the internal documents and forced Ford into the national spotlight. The controversy led to major reforms in automotive safety standards and product liability law, effectively ending the era of cost-driven safety tradeoffs in Detroit. In 1978, Ford agreed to recall 1.5 million Pintos due to fuel tank design defects. 

Nikki told this story to TikTok, presenting it as more than a historical footnote. She says it made her stop trusting corporations.

“It really radicalized me as a young person to be like, oh, these companies know what they’re doing and it’s not really this blunder. It’s deliberate,” she says.

“When I think about violence now, it really makes everything else pale in comparison. It’s grotesque to know for a fact that people are gonna die — and for companies to just move on,” she says.

Motor1 reached out to Nikki for comment through TikTok but didn’t immediately receive a reply. If she does, we will update the article.