there are few cars in American history that have as much negative press behind them as the Ford Pinto unveiled in 1970 the pinto was Ford's new subcompact economy car that offered Ford's most basic form of transportation in an extremely affordable $1900 package it was not particularly goodlooking and it wasn't fast either but that didn't stop a man by the name of Jack Stratton from seeing a diamond in the rough with the pinto he knew what he had here was never going to be a barnstorming V8 brawler but his vision for this performance Pinto took him
down a rabbit hole that led to the creation of a car that wasn't just Leaps and Bounds faster than its stock counterpart but one that could also routinely beat up on the Dotson 240Z and even the Porsche 914s yet so few were made I can almost guarantee that you have never heard of them gentlemen this is the Ford Pinto pangra the creator of the pangra Jack Stratton wasn't your typical car dealer working out of Huntington Ford in California Stratton wasn't just the general sales manager at the dealership he was a Visionary a tinkerer and above
all else a performance Enthusiast in an era where American muscle cars were falling victim to Rising insurance premiums and stinging emission standards Stratton was one of the few people who instead of trying to catch the falling knife of V8 performance decided to embrace the new more emissions friendly platforms as the key to a new era of performance and being at a Ford dealership the newly introduced Pinto was the perfect platform to use for it for most the pinto was an uninspired commuter car built to be cheap and nothing more but that also made the pinto
light like really light 2,000 lb in fact for an American car it was a featherweight and was actually a couple 100 lb lighter than the Chevy Vega with a 94-in wheelbase the Pinta was also even shorter than a contemporary Ford Maverick which meant that while in stock form the pinto may not have been much of a performer it had all the makings of a car that could be really tossable in the corners with the right modifications so much so that Stratton envisioned the pangra as not just setting the tone for American compacts but even to
usurp some of the Imports as well but let's be honest to sell a performance car with the stock Pinto design would have been a nearly impossible task to go head-to-head with true sports cars and to have a chance of being taken seriously the pinto needed more than just a low curb weight and good intentions the first step had to be reimagining is its uninspired Aesthetics Stratton Enlisted the help of Bob Crow who was a fiberglass specialist to develop a radically new front end that would reshape the Pinto's Bland look the Pinto's rather plain front end
was totally ditched in favor of an all-new shark noosed design Sleek aggressive and more like a C3 Corvette than a stock Pinto the new front end did the trick the fiberglass front kit now also gave the pinto popup headlights that were operated by hand lever slimmed down fenders and a much more streamlined and angular profile the car was now a full 10 in longer as well in the front suddenly the pinto didn't look like a grocery getter it looked cool especially with the bumpers off and I have to say I actually do like the way
these pangas look the rear end however stayed pretty much the same as the stock Pinto as did the doors and the quarter panels but looks alone would not be enough to put the pin into serious competitor territory the stock economy car suspension had to be seriously overhauled to give the new Pinto pangra the bite in the corners that it needed and the extra grip to put the power down for its special new motor Stratton then turned his attention to the chassis where he worked with Cony to develop a handling package that included valved shocks a
2-in drop 7in wide magnesium wheels and revised suspension geometry these modifications transform the pinto into a Nimble Handler one that could Dart through corners with precision and Poise a period brochure from Huntington Ford claimed that the pangra would be able to pull 874 gs on a skid pad before it broke traction for comparison the Porsche 914 and Dotson 240Z only pulled about 73 GS like it or not it was clear that the pangra suspension overhauls were enough to give it some pretty serious handling capabilities for the time with all the groundwork laid all that was
left to do was to inject the pinto with some serious power and for that Stratton had a plan that would push the boundaries of what a compact American car could do the stock Pinto engine a modest 2 L inline 4 was never meant to be a fire breathing performance unit in its Factory form it barely crept past 9 horsepower and that was on a good day but Stratton didn't want to go the motion Vega route and stuff a V8 under the hood as that would totally upset the balance of the pinto in the turns with
this lightweight platform the only thing that they could do to get the power that they needed and maintain the car's balance at a small cost to its weight distribution would be through forc induction in the pangra case that would be a Turbocharger Stratton partnered with the legend AR tuner AK Miller a name synonymous with turbocharger innovation in the 70s together they fitted the Pinto's 2 L single overhead cam 4 with an AIR research turbocharger that was drawn through a two barrel carb boosting the power output from around 90 horsepower to a remarkable 175 horsepower nearly
doubling the stock figure and this wasn't just any bolt-on setup it was a carefully engineered system Des designed to maximize performance while still maintaining reliability the turbo was tuned to run at around 10 psi of boost thanks largely impart to the lowered 7:1 compression ratio on the Pinto motor which now made it a more boost friendly environment water injection was even included to ensure that the engine could handle the increased cylinder pressures without compromising durability and it also helped in keeping these cars 100% EPA compli Cent for years when turbocharge applications like the Yanko turbo
Vegas could not get the epa's approval for a similar project and the result of all these modifications done on the pangro was a 0 to 60 Sprint in just about 7 and half seconds and it could tear through the quarter mile in the low 15s which made it faster than the 240Z and the 914 not bad for a pinto right the pinto pangra were on sale from 19 1972 to 1973 through Huntington Ford with an interesting order process you could buy a fully built and assembled Pinto pangra right from the dealership with all the bells
and whistles that I outlined above with ricaro seats and a special dash for right around 5,000 bucks or if you wanted to assemble your own pangra at home there were three kits available the level one kit which was just the new fiberglass front fascia that cost 600 bucks you could purchase this unpainted and install it on your own car if you wanted to the level two Kit was the full pangra Can-Am suspension package that included the lowering springs Cony shocks and the sway bars this kit was just shy of $11,000 and was sold separately from
the kit one and then there was the third kit also sold separately which was the powertrain kit that included the turbocharger the water injection system the exhaust manifold the header pipe the crossover pipe and all the mounting hardware this kit was a whopping $691 but if you really wanted you could add all these different kits together so you could build your own pangra at home except the special dashboard was not available for purchase so you can never clone the official dealer built cars the pangra kits would work for hatchback Pinos as well as the wagons
because they only really modified the front of the car in total estimates say that during its brief production run Stratton sold somewhere between 20 to 50ish complete TurnKey pangra cars and probably over aund something versions of the kits to people who wish to do the modifications themselves today though there are very few of these cars left literally just a handful of them across the kits and the factory ones so if you happen to stumble on a strange looking Pinto at a car show take some time to go look at it because you never know it
could be a pangra which meant that it was actually one of the most unlikely yet capable sports cars of the day let me know in the comments down below if you ever heard of this car before watching this video I actually want to know but otherwise thank you all for watching please make sure to like share and subscribe it really helps me out but otherwise until next time enthusiasts
