Remember these:
Ford 100: Defective Pinto almost took Ford's reputation with it
Remember the Pinto? It was one of the industry's hottest-selling subcompacts during the 1970s. Its success enhanced the reputation of Lee Iacocca - until an estimated 500 deaths and hundreds of injuries were linked to a faulty design that made the gasoline tank vulnerable to explosion after rear-end collisions.
It was too late to save Ford's reputation. Ford customers filed 117 lawsuits, according to Peter Wyden in The Unknown Iacocca.
A 1979 landmark case, Indiana vs. Ford Motor Co., made the automaker the first U.S. corporation indicted and prosecuted on criminal homicide charges.
Pinto crashes caused the death and mutilation of 900 occupants after their cars burst into flames after rear-end collisions, according to Wyden in The Unknown Iacocca.
https://www.autoweek.com/news/a20990...reputation-it/
History of the GM Side Saddle Gas Tank Defect
The side saddle fuel tank design installed in over 10 million trucks – all 1973-87 General Motors full-size pickups and cab-chassis trucks (pickups without beds) and some 1988-91 dual cab or RV chassis – is the worst auto crash fire defect in the history of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Based on data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (formerly known as the Fatal Accident Reporting System), over 2,000 people were killed in fire crashes involving these trucks from 1973 through 2009. (Attachment A is a list of fatal C/K fire crashes by state since 1993.) This is more than twenty times as many fatalities as in the infamous Ford Pinto.
https://www.autosafety.org/history-g...s-tank-defect/