Ford Pinto
hat happened to the Ford Pinto? Ford Motor Company had intended to compete with other automobiles on the market that were smaller and used less gas. But something went terribly wrong along the way. This paper explores the details that led ultimately to the demise of the Ford Pinto -- and to the deaths and injuries of innocent consumers.

hy was the Pinto developed in the first place? Ford Motor Company was seeing strong competition from Volkswagen -- and from other compact-style cars such as the Chevrolet Vega, AMC's Gremlin, the Dodge Colt and Plymouth Cricket -- in the late 1960s, and the company wanted to get into that market. The television commercial that Ford produced opened up with a wide angle shot of a lush green open field. In that field is a very cute pinto colt that stands up a bit shakily. "Meet the Pinto," the male voice…...

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Works Cited

Cherry, Kendra. (2010). Transformational Leadership. About.com. Retrieved November 23,

2012, from  http://psychology.about.com .

Consumer Guide. (2008). 1971-1980 Ford Pinto. HowStuffWorks. Retrieved November 21,

2012, from  http://auto.howstuffworks.com .

Ford Pinto -- Case Analysis
On August 10, 1978 a group composed of three young women, two were eighteen and one was sixteen, were the subject of a rear end automobile accident by another vehicle while driving in a 1973 Ford Pinto (Epstein, 1980). The car was engulfed in flames due to an explosion in the gas tank of the car and the three young women lost their lives in a horrific manner. This represents one example of a trend that was recognized to be associated with the Ford Pinto manufactured during a range of production years. The design of the Pinto was arguably constructed with a faulty fuel system that caused the case tank to explode on a rear end collision in the car.

It has also been argued that Ford actually had sufficient evidence that the design was a problem before so many people lost their lives. Ford had actually…...

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Works Cited

Baron, J., 2006. Prospects for utilitarian decision analysis. [Online]

Available at:  http://www.rff.org/Documents/Events/090622_Risk_Regulation/090623_Baron2.pdf 

[Accessed 25 January 2012].

Epstein, R., 1980. Is Pinto a Criminal. [Online]

here other ethical theories can provide some wiggle room with respect to actions -- Ford's attempt at a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis, for example -- human life has a special place in ethics, precisely because it cannot be replaced or repaired once taken. This categorical imperative supersedes all other philosophies because of the special status of human life. Clearly, all reasonable codes of ethics were violated in this case.
In terms of the five schools of social responsibility, Ford sought to maximize profits. It did not consider a moral minimum, as it violated even the most minimal of corporate ethics codes. Stakeholders other than shareholders do not appear to have been given much consideration in Ford's decision making process, and clearly there was no demonstration of corporate citizenship for if any citizen were to choose to kill hundreds of people one would presume that act to be criminal. For whatever reason,…...

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Works Cited:

Dole, C. (1980). Pinto verdict lets U.S. industry off hook. Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved November 13, 2012 from  http://www.csmonitor.com/1980/0314/031435.html 

Dowie, M. (1977). Pinto madness. Mother Jones. Retrieved November 13, 2012 from  

Because it was deemed to cost too much, relative to the target price of the car, Iacocca negated the proposed mechanical reform. "Safety doesn't sell," was his motto. The Pinto was deemed acceptable for the roads because it was a 1971 model and new National Highway Traffic Safety dministration (NHTS) regulations regarding vehicle safety that would have prevented the release of the Pinto were not passed until 1977.

The 'pros,' however, of avoiding lawsuits seem obvious in retrospect, but within the hothouse managerial atmosphere at Ford, the focus on increasing sales and the bottom line was nearly obsessive, as was meeting set benchmarks.

Feasibility of alternatives

What grabbed the public's attention about the Pinto, in addition to Ford's rigid actuarial calculations of how many lawsuits were likely to ensue per customer death, was the fact that the safety mechanism was so inexpensive and easy for Ford to install. The only reason not to…...

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Are recommendations workable and affordable?

Tragically, the modifications to the Pinto that could have saved many lives were both workable and affordable. The mechanism to prevent the exploding gas tank would have only cost $11, and would have resulted in a delay of the car's release that would have been far less cumbersome for Ford than the recall, the time and effort put into court cases, and the need to fight the negative publicity against the company in the media. Ford's reputation as a company that cared about its drivers was damaged for many years.

Additionally, Ford knew that it would eventually have to adopt the required standard, due to pending changes in the law. After 1977, all Pintos had to have a rupture-proof fuel tank design. Ford's decision was clearly taken as part of a marketing ploy to stress the cheapness of the Pinto, and to fulfill Iacocca's arbitrarily set numerical figure of $2,000.

Ford Pinto
WAS FOD TO BLAME IN THE PINTO CASE?

The Ford Company and Lee Iaccoca are fully responsible for every single death that has occurred due to the Pinto's design flaw. There is ample evidence and testimony that the design flaw was known of long before the car was released. Ford's management decided to produce the car despite the obvious safety issue. A car was released that the manufacturers knew would cause unnecessary deaths, deaths that could be avoided by installing a part for less than ten dollars. With this knowledge in mind, Lee Iacocca committed an act that is tantamount to murder. He ordered the production to continue undisturbed.

The Ford company went on to block safety legislature for the next eight years that would have forced a recall on all the unsafe Pintos. Instead, the assembly lines churned out millions of rolling firebombs to take the lives of innocent…...

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References

Dowie, Mark. (1977,September/October) Pinto Madness. Mother Jones, pp. 18-32.  http://www.motherjones.com /news/feature/1977/09/dowie.html

Design defects of the Ford Pinto Gas Tank. Retrieved May 19, 2004. From Ford Pinto.com.  http://www.fordpinto.com/blowup.html

Ethics
The Ford Pinto case offers an ideal opportunity to apply utilitarian ethics to a real world situation. First, it is important to list the actors and stakeholders in this case. Lee Iacocca was the leader of the Ford Motor Company. He is credited with creating the inflexible parameters for the Pinto automobile as weighing no more than 2000 pounds and costing no more than $2,000. Therefore, the utilitarian analysis can and should apply primarily to Iacocca and his corporate brethren at the helm of Ford. It was their decision that led to the consequences associated with the poor design of the automobile, causing deaths.

However, the Ford Pinto case also highlights the ethical responsibilities of all members of the Ford Motor Company. In particular, the case showcases the role that engineers play in carrying out their jobs. It can easily be said that any engineer who felt that Iacocca's decision was…...

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Works Cited

DeGeorge, Richard T. "Ethical Responsibilities in Large Corporations."

Horas, Matthew R. "The Ford Pinto." Retrieved online:  http://thelittlecarefreecar.webs.com/ 

"Utilitarianism" Trinity University. Retrieved online:  http://www.trinity.edu/cbrown/intro/utilitarianism.html

Ethics and Ford Pinto Crashes
For any organization, the ethics that are embraced will have a dramatic impact on their long-term profit margins and ability to quickly troubleshoot critical challenges. Those who are supporting the highest practices will receive better favorability ratings for the firm, management and brands. These factors will play a critical role in determining if customers will do business with them and the potential litigation from missing critical mistakes that were not disclosed. (Winter, 2011)

In the case of the Ford Pinto, there are obvious problems which were ignored in the design and products phases. These variables created a major product liability with the gas tank exploding in rear end collisions. To fully understand how ethics influenced the decisions made by the firm requires examining the best philosophical approach, Ford's moral awareness and the best approach. Together, these different elements will illustrate the importance of certain values in order…...

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References

Recalling his Time at Ford. (2015).

Bazerman, M. & Tenbrunsel, A. (2011). Ethical Breakdowns. Harvard Business Review.

Trevino, L. & Nelson, K. (2011). Managing Business Ethics. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Wilson, J. (2014). Essentials of Business Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Legally, forcing Ford to make costly payments to the families of the victims of its maleficent inaction was good for society as well as for the individuals who were harmed. Companies are less likely to make such criminally negligent risk/benefit calculations when they know the legal system will penalize the organization financially and legally. Only by increasing the hazardous potential of financial loss from acting immorally can the tort system truly protect consumers. Even in utilitarian ethical calculations, forcing Ford to make costly payments to victim's families makes acting as Ford did in the Pinto case 'wrong' even in terms of corporate profitability analysis as the company is potentially harming the profit margins of shareholders as well as unwitting drivers.

Of course, it could be argued that such an ethical rationale is undeniably influenced by the current litigious environment -- few companies would feel, in today's environment that they could operate…...

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Works Cited

De George. (2006). The Ford Pinto case. Business ethics, pp.298-299.

Leggett, Christopher. (1999, Spring). The Ford Pinto case. Law & Valuation.

Retrieved September 14, 2009 at  http://www.wfu.edu/~palmitar/Law&Valuation/Papers/1999/Leggett-pinto.html 

Newton & Ford. (2008). Chapter 4/Issue 15: Was Ford to blame in the Pinto case? Taking sides,

FOD
Case Study Discussion & Executive Summary Objectives Identify ethical problems faced managers. Apply steps ethical moral decision-making address management issues. Use ethical perspectives make management decisions.

Ford Pinto case study discussion & executive summary

Managers must continually balance their own, personal sense of ethics with the need to render a company profitable. In the case of Ford, the pressure to create an affordable car resulted in the company making unethical decisions that hurt customers and also hurt Ford's reputation and bottom line. While setting certain benchmarks of quality and cost are vitally important, Ford's stubborn refusal to install a basic safety control device in the Pinto is an example of how a failure of diverse sources of information and unwillingness to deviate from the chosen path of an organization can result in folly.

Ethical and moral decision-making must be integrated into the managerial decision-making process. Just as Ford set benchmarks for the Pinto's…...

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Reference

One Ford vision and mission. (2012). Ford. Retrieved:

http://corporate.ford.com/our-company/our-company-news/our-company-news-detail/one-ford

Sustainability report 2010/2011. (2012). Ford. Retrieved:

http://corporate.ford.com/microsites/sustainability-report-2010-11/default

These costs are far greater than what Ford originally anticipated. In addition, the improvements to the gas tank gave Ford a valuable opportunity. They could use this improvement as a means of differentiating themselves from the competition. Although safety may not have been a primary concern in the 1970s, the proper marketing campaign could have made Ford a leader in safety, like Volvo, which could still be serving the company now, nearly 40 years later.
Conclusion:

On paper, the decision to leave the faulty gas tanks on the Pintos as is seemed to be a good business decision. However, it turned out to be a poor ethical decision. Ford failed to realize that they could not put a dollar value on human life. In addition, they failed to take into account a variety of secondary costs that could have led to the downfall of the entire organization. In an effort to…...

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References

Becker, P., Jipson, a., & Bruce, a. (Feb 2000). The Pinto legacy. Justice Professional, 12(3). Retrieved November 4, 2009, from Business Source Complete.

Gioia, D. (No date). Pinto fires.

Halpern, P. (1982). The Corvair, the Pinto and corporate behavior. Policy Studies Review, 1(3). Retrieved November 4, 2009, from SocINDEX.

Ford Motor Company's experience with its Ford Pinto model are some of the darkest in the long history of the company. Although the company only manufactured the Pinto for a short number of years, the vehicle left a lasting impression on the company's operation (Dowie M., 1977).
The production and marketing of the Ford Pinto began in 1970 in response to the public's demand for small, economical vehicles. Over the subsequent years, the Pinto became subject to repeated complaints about its susceptibility to catching fire in low-speed, rear-end collisions. There were numerous such complaints but little was done to address the problem but Ford did little to address the problem until the summer of 1978 when three teenage mid-American girls were tragically burned alive inside a Pinto that had been struck from behind. This time the prosecutor of the county in which the young girls had been killed decided to…...

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References

Dowie, M. (1977). How Ford put two million fire traps on wheels. Business and Society Review, 51-55.

Dowie, M. (1977, September). Pinto Madness. Mother Jones, p. 18.

Schwartz, G.T. (1991). The Myth of the Ford Pinto Case. Rutgers Law Review, 1013-1015.

Wheeler, M.E. (1981, January 14). Product Liability, Civil or Criminal - The Pinto Litigation. ABA Tort and Insurance Law Journal .

Ford Pinto Fuel Tank Controversy
businesses for the most part do not offer products and services for the joy of going through the motions of production, marketing and sales. The driving motivation for any business is to earn a profit. In fact profits are the principal reason any private company is in business. Earning profits is as American as motherhood and the Fourth of July. But what are the ethical boundaries a company should adhere to in order to assure a profitable outcome for stakeholders? This is the central issue to be addressed in this paper, and the issue that will be focused on is a darkly unethical decision by executives in the Ford Motor Company in the 1970s. Knowing full well that the gas tank on the Ford Pinto could (and did) explode on impact, the decision-makers at Ford went ahead with production and balanced the cost of upgrading the…...

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Works Cited

Becker, J. Paul, Jipson, Arthur J., and Bruce, Alan. "The Pinto Legacy: The Community as an Indirect Victim of Corporate Deviance. The Justice Professional, Vol. 12, 305-326. 2000.

Dowie, Mark. "How Ford Put Two Million Firetraps on Wheels." Mother Jones. Issue 23.

Retrieved December 20, 2014, from EBSCO Host. 1977.

Privileging the rights and needs of people with financial stakes in the American auto industry runs counter to American ideals of equality and Rawlsian justice.
Should we try to restrain, in this and other product liability situations, the litigiousness that seems to characterize American life? How might we do this?

Litigation that is blatantly foolish against corporations, such as a recent lawsuit against Quaker Oats for false advertising because Crunchberry cereal did not contain real fruit, usually fails, or is reversed upon appeal (inter 2009). The appeals process is the constitutional 'check' to juror's tendency to award too much to aggrieved plaintiffs. ithout the ability to sue corporations, the corporate lack of concern at Ford for the safety of the Pinto can occur once again. Litigation can be a powerful tool of consumers against large corporations.

orks Cited

Ford Pinto. Engineering.com. Retrieved June 17, 2009 at http://www.engineering.com/Library/ArticlesPage/tabid/85/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/166/Ford-Pinto.aspx

Shaw, .H. & Barry, V. (2007). Moral…...

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Works Cited

Ford Pinto. Engineering.com. Retrieved June 17, 2009 at  http://www.engineering.com/Library/ArticlesPage/tabid/85/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/166/Ford-Pinto.aspx 

Shaw, W.H. & Barry, V. (2007). Moral issues in business. (10th ed.). USA: Thomson

Wadsworth

Winter, Michael. (2009, June 8). Judge kills suit claiming crunchberries aren't real fruit.

Product Liability Claims: Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Company
What is the official citation?

Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Company, 9th Circuit, 849.F.2d 460 (1968).

Facts

On August 10, 1978, three teenage girls driving a 1973 Ford Pinto sedan stopped to refuel the car they were driving. After they got done filling up, the driver then loosely put the gas cap back on the tank which then by accident fell off as they drove back down U.S. Highway 33. Looking to find the cap, the girls made a stop again directly in the right lane of the highway shoulder. They did this because there was not any kind of space on the highway for cars to be able to safely pull away from the roadway (Boyce, 2015). Not long after, a van that weighed over 400 pounds and improved with an unbending plank for a front bumper was moving at fifty five miles per hour and…...

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References

$128 Million -- Fuel System Fire. (2015, July 16). Retrieved from  http://www.rcrsd.com/verdicts-settlements/fuel-system-fire/ 

Boyce, D. (2015, July 16). Ford Pinto Case Information. Retrieved from The Ford Pinto Case:  http://fordpintoethics.webs.com/ 

Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co. . (2013, May 16). Retrieved from Court of Appeals of California, Fourth Appellate District, Division Two:  http://online.ceb.com/calcases/CA3/119CA3d757.htm

Ford's tests also determined that the gas tanks could be protected by the installation of a simple part that would have cost the company $11 per vehicle. To make matters even worse, Ford was also aware that rear-end collisions typically caused the Pinto's doors to malfunction and become inoperable, sealing occupants inside the vehicles to burn to death when their cars caught fire.
Because the applicable government safety tests had been changed to include rear-end crashes only after the Pinto was already in production, the company was not under any statutory obligation to meet the new government standards. The company calculated the price of recalling the Pinto and of installing the $11 part on all 12.5 million affected vehicles at $137 million. t also calculated the total monetary cost of paying out the damage awards to the owners of 2,100 Pintos statistically likely to be involved in burns from crashes…...

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In the early 1970s, Ford was rushing to design its Pinto model automobile to capture the entry-level car market. Whereas the typical development cycle for new automobiles was then nearly four years, Ford had condensed that time to approximately one half as long, partly by omitting various safety tests or by executing them contemporaneously with other production and design steps to safe time and capture the 1971 market. The Pinto was purposely designed as a very small vehicle to comply with directions and design specifications issued by the top level of management to produce a vehicle that weighed less than 2,000 pounds and that cost less than $2,000, the approximate equivalent of $11,000 in today's dollar value.

By the time the model was ready for rollout, Ford engineers had already identified a serious and potentially deadly problem with the Pinto's design. Specifically, because of its very compact size and the positioning of the gas tank to maximize trunk space, there was insufficient space to protect the gas tank from being ruptured in rear-end crashes of 30 miles per hour or greater. Ford's tests proved that the gas tank was extremely vulnerable and that it would likely result in deadly fires in many ordinary rear-end collisions in situations where the collisions themselves would not necessarily have caused significant bodily injury or deaths to occupants of the vehicle. Ford's tests also determined that the gas tanks could be protected by the installation of a simple part that would have cost the company $11 per vehicle. To make matters even worse, Ford was also aware that rear-end collisions typically caused the Pinto's doors to malfunction and become inoperable, sealing occupants inside the vehicles to burn to death when their cars caught fire.

Because the applicable government safety tests had been changed to include rear-end crashes only after the Pinto was already in production, the company was not under any statutory obligation to meet the new government standards. The company calculated the price of recalling the Pinto and of installing the $11 part on all 12.5 million affected vehicles at $137 million. It also calculated the total monetary cost of paying out the damage awards to the owners of 2,100 Pintos statistically likely to be involved in burns from crashes (including approximately 180 injuries from burns and 180 deaths from burns) and determined that the total cost of compensating the victims of the design defect would be less than $50 million. As a result of the decision to value corporate profits over human lives and welfare, hundreds of people died horrific deaths and hundreds more suffered painful and debilitating injuries and disabilities. Today, the decision by the company to value corporate profits over human lives and welfare stands as a model of bad corporate ethics and ethical decision making in business organizations.