Under the leadership of Ford CEO Lee Lacocca, The Ford Pinto Company introduced in 1971 in Canada, and later in U.S, had reputation as being the safety pioneer in the automobile industry. But was trouble impending, the car did not pass on the test, meaning that it failed bellow the state of the art for cars of that size. The design of the car flaws in its Pinto model could cause the car to burst into flames even in minor rear-end collisions. At the time there was no National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rear-end impact standard.
Understandably American automobiles were losing market share in the 1960’s due to cheaper Japanese imports. Smaller, cheaper, better gas mileage, and lighter all meant better value to the consumers. Competition is suppose to fuel innovation and help make better products with smilier or better value. In this case Lee Iaccoca did not make a better product. Iaccoca wanted to simply compete and with the Japanese imports. In 1971 The Ford Pinto was made and produced in a accelerated fashion, so it was designed and produced in 25 months rather than the 43 months that it should have taken. Truth to be told it was a decent design it weighed under 2000 pounds and it cost less then 2000 dollars. The only really down fall was the rear-end design the Pinto was not really tested for rear-end impact, and when Ford engineers testing the rear-end impact for standard safety procedure the car failed the test. To make matters worse the rear-end testing was after the car was produced. The reason it failed was the fuel tank was positioned in the rear-end such that if the Pinto was rear-ended by another car at a speed above 20 mile per hour the gas tank would be poked by a bolt from the bumper and could possibly a fire. To fix this design flaw the only thing Ford had to do was place a baffle between the bumper and the gas tank, which was a