You could spin the tires in the v6 pinto. I had a 76 coupe. It wasn't a bad car. Fairly fast, but not built for handling. It was dying to throw itself off the road. I couldn't imagine trying to handle a v8 in it, unless you're just drag racing at the track.
Yep. I've driven a few. Mostly they go straight, especially since most people just slapped on a set of slapper bars and called it a deal.
My best friend's brother decided to open a body shop when we were in our teens. He picked a totaled Pinto as his masterwork. We tried to get him to convert it to V8, but he insisted on keeping it box stock. He did straighten it out and made it look better than new, but a better than new looking used Pinto was still pretty much worthless, especially without a clean license.
Later my friend owned a 302 Datsun pickup and a '62 390 Falcon. The Falcon was sweet, looked like a factory installation until you had to drop the driveshaft, remove all the motor mounts, and hoist up the engine to change plugs. The Datson however was the world's worst conversion; it wasn't only scary fast, it was just plain scary. To fit the 302 they replaced the coil-over springs with blocks of wood, with all-thread replacing the shock absorber. And the 302 being a long engine, it protruded through where the grill would be, so instead of a grill there was a bare radiator spray-painted green and almost flush with the front of the bumper. However, it did not kill anyone, mostly because my friend had enough sense to not do burn-outs facing immovable objects. Or inhabited objects.
Almost forty years later I'm still kicking myself for allowing my buddies to talk me into buying a gutted '57 Chevy instead of a Karman Ghia mounted on a cut-down V8 Camaro unibody subframe. But hey, least I didn't kill my father. Gotta keep things in perspective.
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