I have been watching this ebay auction for a Pinto Sprint: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330721421640 The seller has the Marti report posted in the auction. I can't read the number exactly, but it looks like 35,000 or 36,000 Pinto Sprints were made. That would be twice as many Maverick Sprints that were made. (15,425 Maverick Sprints were made). Does anybody know EXACTLY how many Pinto Sprints were made? If Ford did make twice as many Pinto Sprints than it made Maverick Sprints....it makes you wonder why we don't see more of them?
We dont see more pinto sprints cause they all burst into flames at some point. They were really a cheap throwaway car...More so than Mavs/Comets and didnt live long...Powertrains were poor. (no longevity) They were cheap to buy so...Engine finally died...Body was getting rusty...Off to the scrap yard they went. You didnt put a new/re-man 4 banger in it...It cost as much as the car did. Law of diminishing returnes.
I agree. Drivetrains were a weak link, made too poorly to have survived much longer then about 10 years. I also think many Mavericks were owned by older people that took better care of them. Often a second car for Mom or Grandma to drive on short errands. Pintos were budget cars that were rode hard and put away wet. Often the only car in a poor family or a teens cheap car to beat. According to production figures I found online. Pintos out sold Mavericks in 1972 close to 2 to 1. Roughly 480,000 Pintos to 255,000 Mavericks.
The only thing that looks Sprint from his pics is the tiny bit of blue in the door jamb. He should have posted some interior pics.
Those Pinto drivetrains are very popular in the mini-stock race cars around here. I suppose the main downfall over the years of the drivetrain is the timing belt. Belt breaks....valve meet the pistons....off to the junkyard the car goes. I was at Carlisle the year when they had the Pinto Stampede. LOTS of Pintos. More Pintos in one place than I have ever seen Mavericks in one place. It is pretty common that Pintos out number Mavericks at most of the big Ford shows. Knowing that....it would seem that more Pinto Sprints would have survived...just from shear numbers. I have seen/know about more Maverick Sprints than Pinto Sprints. I would guesstimate by a 10:1 ratio.
Maybe a '72 Pinto wasn't as likely to survive as the later ones? They did make a number of small changes over the years, and some big ones like when the "no-gruesome-flaming-death-when-you-back-into-a-mailbox" feature became standard.
I don't know, I had a 71 Pinto for a long time. Indestructable little 4 cylinder, manual transmission, no AC. Bought it for $175, drove the wheels off of it (even pulled a boat with it), killed the transmission. Me and my dad went out to the salvage yard, pullled another tranny, got it put in my Pinto the same afternoon, cost $25. Those were the days. Sold it for $250 a few years later. I wouldn't mind having another to play around with now..... but even with that said, it was nowhere near the car that my Mav is. CommieHook
Being the littlest car that Ford made, like Vegas for Chevy, I'm going to say that they were disposa-cars. By 1980, I think only friend had one that I would say was truly cared for ... and a girl at that. I really do think the "beat-on-them, they're cheap" mentality did most of them in. The few that I rode in were never vacuumed. Debris abounded. As far as Pinto racecars go, I have now witnessed two of them get wadded up, both of them in qualifying, prior to any actual rounds ... both of them scary-loose and barrel-rolling at the top end of an 1/8th mile track. They might be more aero-dynamic if launched down the track backwards.