Since the other Pinto CC is a first year 1971 model hatchback, and so epitomizes the Pinto’s beginnings, it seems appropriate to bookend the Pinto’s long run with a late-model wagon or two, especially since that wonderful late-seventies era was so colorful. These two bright little wagons are still adding cheer to our foggy days here, but sadly I haven’t yet found a retina-busting Pinto Squire or Cruising Wagon. We’ll just have to dig some out of the web, because no survey of Pinto wagons would be complete without them, but put on some shades first.
The Pinto wagon cruised into our lives one year after the coupe and hatch, in 1972. It featured a remarkable tail extension, which made the little wagon reasonably roomy in the luggage compartment. I haven’t looked it up, but I suspect that extra length made the wagons’ gas tank much less vulnerable from smacks to its hind quarters. Maybe that’s why there’s still so many on the road.
More likely, it’s because it was just a lot more practical. The Pinto coupe’s rear luggage compartment was mighty snug, given the high floor because of the live rear axle (RWD) and the fuel tank behind it. But the wagon didn’t really address the Pinto’s key packaging shortcoming, one that it shared with the Vega: both of them were designed to look more like a mini-me Mustang or Camaro, rather than a proper small car. God forbid Dearborn would have used the format of the English Ford Cortina wagon, (above) which was very like the boxy four-door wagons that Datsun and Toyota was busily filling up transport ships with.
So while the actual cargo area was reasonably roomy, the rest of the Pinto’s interior accommodations sucked. The front seating position was fine, if you wanted to sit flat on the floor and pretend you were racing the Pinto in the SCCA B Class. The back seat was truly miserable; sorry; I should have but couldn’t bring myself to take a shot of that torture chamber. The high drive shaft tunnel actually bulged up into the seat cushion, making the center position totally unusable. There is a very good reason small cars have gotten taller and taller.
But unlike the Vega, which supernova-ed its way to a rapid demise, the Pinto soldiered along for a full decade. The gas tank problem was kept out of the public eye by Ford’s lawyers as much as possible, and other than that the Pinto didn’t suffer any serious maladies, one of the advantages to Ford’s use of tried and proven technology.
The old Kent 1.6 was never used in the wagons, and the German-built SOHC 2.0 was an adequate plant, especially so if teamed with the slick four-speed stick. Ford’s automatics were notoriously inefficient, and the 2.0 really suffered under its ability to suck up a shockingly large percentage of its power; the Leach-O-Matic.
In 1974, the Lima-built 2.3 SOHC four appeared, an engine that would be built seemingly for eternity. Looking very much like a development of the Cologne 2.0, the 2.3 would also develop a rep for Toyota-like longevity.
But as smog controls continued to sap power from the fours and the Pinto got heavier as they sprouted mega-bumpers and were more often now ordered with A/C, power steering and other luxuries of life, more help was needed from the engine room (the 2.3 was rated at 83 hp in 1975). Ford again looked to Cologne, and beginning with 1975, the 2.8 L V6 was now optional. Its horsepower vacillated as much as the hips on the disco dance floors at the time: anywhere from a whopping 103 in 1976 to a low of 90 in 1978. Hard to believe, but Ford had developed some remarkable power-sucking secret technology in the seventies.
We’ll save the two most colorful variations for last. The Pinto Squire wagon was inevitable, given how Ford was so invested in that theme. This one in red makes for a particularly harmonizing effect, no?
And the ultimate Pinto wagon is of course the illustrious Pinto Cruising Wagon. Let’s just say you had to be there, because there’s no other way to explain late seventies phenomena such as this. Sorry; can you do any better?
Related 1971 Pinto Coupe Hatchback CC here
Note: A rerun of an older post.
The front end of the ’79-80 Pinto looked very modern and ’80s, completely discordant with the rest of the car.
The little round bubble window (of the type ubiquitous on ’70s customized vans) in an otherwise windowless panel could be ordered without the Cruising Wagon package if you didn’t want the black paint and colored stripes. The carpeted cargo area with the rear seat folded down (and it folded completely flat) was quite long and roomy, and was good for carrying Christmas trees, sleeping, etc.
The Vega wagon really lasted just as long as the Pinto; it just wasn’t called Vega anymore but rather the Monza wagon. Change the name, change the front clip to look like real Monzas, and you now have a car with a better reputation on the cheap. (Pontiac didn’t even bother with a new front clip to make the Sunbird wagon not look like an Astre).
I owned a 1973 Pinto (bought it as my first new car on my 17th birthday), and only had it for about 18 months. I ordered it with the 2.0, a stick and an AM radio. Nothing else—no added weight or complexity. It was light, it was low to the ground, and it handled well.
I had it for about 18 months. T-boned a red-light runner and the body shop never could make it right, so I bought a ’74 Capri V6.
Seven years later, the Hertz counter in Las Vegas handed me the keys to a 1980 Pinto Wagon. Dear God, what a dreadful thing.
Six hundred pounds heavier than my ’73 (it was a Las Vegas rental car, so it had to have air), and some interior and exterior cosmetic changes, but zero improvements. They actually made the Pinto worse as it went along.
The (relatively) tall transmission tunnel in the interior shot tells you just how low these were. If I was looking for a small wagon in the era, I might have checked out the Vega and Pinto, then made a beeline to the nearest AMC dealer to find out if they were eager enough to move a Hornet/Concord wagon at a price somewhere near that of a Pinto or Vega.
It was 1977, in Roanoke VA. First job after graduating with my BFA Interior Design degree. Just wanted to spend a year, save money, move to Houston. The interior design firm that hired me gave me a simi-new Pinto hatchback. Driving the hills and mountain’s of western Virginia, that Pinto was a slug. Going up some inclines I had the pedal to the floor and it still lost speed.
I like the look of two-door wagons, like the look of the Vega. But I will always remember that Pinto with not very fond memories. But it was my first interior design job and they gave me a company car. And yes, I left Roanoke one year to the day and moved to Houston.
Had a well used ’72 Pinto wagon with 72k mi. bought cheap around 1980 for commuting from dairy country into Baltimore for a couple of years, while the family/wife’s car was a ’73 Plym Custom Sub 400. The Pinto was dependable, cheap to drive (2.0/auto) and with decent tires kinda fun. Totaled in ’83 by an 18 yr old kid paying more attention to his GF than driving, and hit very hard the Pinto’s rear. I bent out the wheel flanges off the tires and drove it home, but it was toast, the poor thing.
If used only as in town city cars these were pretty okay for the owners, no one else liked to ride in them .
I’ve not seen any Pinto’s of any sort in years, good to know the basic station wagons are still going in Paul’s neck of the woods as they’re handy haulers, cheap and cheerful .
-Nate
Like em both!
I had a 73 runabout. My first new car. 1600 with a 4 speed. No air. The handling was actually pretty good. Wide , low. I always wanted a panagra kit for mine. The 1600 was a great engine. It powered everything from tractors to generators. A rhesus monkey could repair one. I think they were ok. Wagons ? You could screw in ( sorry) . None of us could afford our own place back then. I dumped mine and bought a 1956 Fairlane town sedan in Arizona on my first duty station at Luke AFB. What could I say. That was love at first sight. You thunderbird v8 you
We purchased a new ’74 Pinto wagon upon moving back home to Wisconsin from L.A. and Art Center graduation. It had the 2.3L with the slick 4 spd behind it. Given we were young and limber the front seats were ok. I sure would NOT want to try them now. However, by 10K miles the Pinto needed a tuneup, etc…………$$$. I $old it shortly there after and purchased a well used ’69 Nova 6 from Arizona; it worked fine for the rest of our time in Wisconsin! Overall the Pinto was so-so at be$t, IMO. DFO
We only got the Cortinas which sold pretty well, then it morphed into a bigger more modern car in 71 wagon included,
Pintos the few that have turned up are gutted and repowered for drag strip duty, Ive never actually seen one in stock condition with a 4 banger.
Had to smile at your comment about Ford’s Leech-o-matic! My Cortina came with a BW35 behind the 2.0 OHC mill – and it didn’t seem too bad. No emission controls here yet. I assume the Pinto got the C3 – was that worse?
In outline the Pinto doesn’t seem to suffer too much compared to the Cortina, but it needs a longer wheelbase/shorter rear overhang to open up some back seat space, and allow decent access to the rear. The Cortina Mk 3 seating position was pretty low to the floor – I wouldn’t have wanted to sit any lower.
They should have left out the strut in the side rear window (C-pillar?). That would have looked better and given the car a shooting-brake look. But perhaps that would have been too visually similar to the Vega station wagon.
Green matallac is almost “de rigeur”, Though the pewter metallic (or what ever it may be)
on the Crusing Wagong doesnt look bad either.
I’ve long wondered why Ford spent so lavishly on a new hood and fenders for the last two years of an aging model that was fundamentally obsolete and selling on price.
I don’t think new bumpers, fenders, hood, and instrument panel were that lavishly expensive given the volume — Ford did sell 384,000 more Pintos in 1979 and 1980. They needed to keep the Pinto at least sort of viable for CAFE purposes, and they were probably hedging a bit in case the FWD Escort wasn’t ready in time for 1981.
They did briefly toy with making a 4-door version, as this factory photo attests.
Ah yes. The factory “3 door”. I’ve seen this on CC before. If you look carefully (through the car), you can see they didn’t bother modifying the passenger side to try it out.
My Pinto Experience
Heading into the last weekend of January 1977 a snowstorm fell upon greater Boston. The winter had already been cold enough that Sunset Lake in Braintree was completely frozen over; a not at all uncommon occurrence back then with the added benefits of both a great place for pick up ice hockey and a shortcut home when walking back from high school to avoid the school bus and upperclassmen in freshman year. Dad left work from his Import Specialist job with Customs at Logan Airport on Friday to find his ’75 Duster had been sideswiped on the passenger side with the obvious yellow paint witness marks that pointed guilt at a snowplow. Still drive able, fortunately with no broken glass, dad proceeded on the trek home through the Sumner tunnel into the North End and onto the Central Artery in pre-Big Dig Boston traffic; fully aware that no amount of pushing through the MassPort bureaucracy was going to find the culprit. Thankfully the car had comprehensive coverage.
The weekend was spent procrastinating homework, avoiding writing a paper on something we were studying in world history. Sunday afternoon involved a short drive to the lake with my older brother Robert for some hockey in the as yet unrepaired Duster.
If you’ve ever been on a large lake, you’ll know what freeze cracks are; small crevices in the ice that relieve the tension formed in the ice that expands as it freezes. Playing defense, chasing down a dump in tailed by a wing man as I circled the net, my right skate descended into one of those cracks just as he leaned into me. Instant fractured tibia, probably the most pain I’ve ever felt in my life. Yep, definitely the most pain I’ve ever felt in my life.
Laying on my back, screaming in pain, over comes Robert, with a typical big brother response, thinking I had just sprained an ankle, “Get up ya f’n baby,” (read that in full Boston accent for effect) followed by an expression of terror and an “oh, shit” as he caught sight of the odd position of my right foot in relation to the rest of my leg. No cell phones back then, but fortunately he had a friend about 100 yards away on the lake shore. I watched him skate full tilt across, then run to the house, skates still on, to use the Sullivan’s phone to call the police, as they provided ambulance service back then in Satellite sized Plymouth Fury wagons. In fairly short order, I was transported by sled across the lake, onto a stretcher and into a brown metallic wagon, fully police equipped, as they served as both ambulance and cruiser for the town. Off to South Shore Hospital I went. Strangely, I recall that those police cars, both sedan and wagon, were all painted in different normal passenger colors available on the Fury, none were black and white.
After 3 days in the hospital, having mastered the use of crutches, including up and down stairs while fully medicated with some powerful painkillers; and sporting a full cast from the toes of my right foot to my hip, it was time to go home.
Dad had come to the hospital in the only rental car available from Avis at the time, a glorious white with blue interior Pinto. It took a good five minutes to figure out how to fit me and my unbend-able right leg into that passenger seat, but manage it we did. Despite the somewhat large door opening, the front seat had insufficient travel to make enough room. We had to fully recline the seatback, I backed myself onto it, ducking low enough to clear the roof-line, and maneuvered my leg into the footwell. Without the encumbrance of seat belt laws back then, I rode home perched on the reclined seatback. Getting out was about as miserable as getting in, and the painkillers were beginning to wear off. Obviously, my Pinto opinion is rather tainted by experience. Thankfully, the repaired Duster returned. The normal entry height and gloriously large door opening of that slant 6 coupe was a welcome sight. Even with its bench seat, entry and egress was easily accomplished. Evidently, those lengthy doors back then clearly had a purpose, and by luck, I never did have to write that paper.
Owned 73 pinto wagon with the 2.0 and automatic in 79 It was a great car for our young family, dependable and got great mileage owned it for three years until the family grew to five. Say what you will, I wouldn’t pass on getting another 73 pinto wagon if i came across one of course I might stick a V8 in it.
Paul mentioned “tried and true technology”.
I was going to flip it and make a joke “tired and true technology” but that would be unfair to the pinto. IIRC, it was ford NAAO’s (N. American Automotive Operations) first US-built rack and pinion equipped vehicle.
Btw, if I’m not mistaken, in that pic of the 4-Dr wagon on the Dearborn proving ground, in the background one can see the NAAO building. Originally it was the Ford Div HQ, then later was the home of purchasing and quality departments (but not all of either) and it was torn down ca 10 years ago. It was a mini version of the Ford WHQ glasshouse, and in the early days sported FORD in block letters (like in Ford v Ferrari) where the oval is in this pic.
In the neighborhood where I grew up there were lots of Ford Managers (we saw cars like the 4-dr) who got dirt cheap lease deals on slower moving vehicles (one year, seemed everybody had a Courier pickup) but I don’t recall seeing any my schoolmates in Cruising Wagons.
In 1973 we bought a used English Ford Estate Wagon identical to the blue photo in the article. Great engine. Steering components used nylon ball joints, that wore out and parts came slowly from England! Great interior space and seats for young families. We moved on to a sluggish Vega wagon. Frugal choices! Odd times in auto industry.