1978 Ford Pinto Goes 0 to 60 in 3.5 Seconds!

Not my 1972 Pinto! I loved that car anyway. It had a 4 cylinder engine, nice 4 speed stick shift on the floor, rack and pinion steering, and disk brakes- all unheard of in American cars at the time. It handled like a little British sports car. That’s because all of the parts came from a European English Ford. It got good gas mileage too- 30 mpg. Europe was serious about energy conservation even back then- we just laughed at them. We had the oil. They didn’t. Sorry for the digression, back to the fast Pinto…

So how did this guy do it? He cheated! He put an electric motor in his Pinto.

Check this out: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112006313

As he said in the article, the only pollution from this car is the rubber burning when he accelerates! Wow, I wonder if all drag racers will go electric some day? What about NASCAR? Probably not- it’s not very macho. It would be like racing golf carts! And if the crowd could hear you talk, you’d have to have something to say besides “Drill baby drill!”

It just isn’t the same without the noise. The noise is half the fun. It stimulates the primal senses. I have a Harley. It goes very loud. When I was a kid, I clipped baseball cards on my bike with clothespins and made noise. That was cool. I wish I had those baseball cards today. I’m sure I clipped a $200,000 Mickey Mantle on there at least once.

I hope the lack of noise won’t kill the electric car. I will miss the purr of the engine when it accelerates. I suppose we could install boom box speakers and simulate the good ol’ days. Someday I’m going to have a plug-in electric car. I can’t wait, but I will miss the noise.