Most people do not trade a Mustang for a Pinto. Jerry Sharp did, straight across, even money, and more than fifty years later he still smiles about it.
The story starts in 1970, when Jerry bought a 1969 Mustang and never quite warmed to it. A year later Ford rolled out the Pinto, and mid-year they added the hatchback. Jerry saw the Runabout and made up his mind. He traded the Mustang in even for a brand-new Pinto Runabout and drove off happy. That would already be a good story if it ended there. It does not.
Thirty years in the garage
In 1981, Jerry was out looking for the family dog when he hit a fire hydrant hard enough to rip the entire rear suspension out from under the car. He had it towed home. Then life happened, the way it does, and the Pinto sat in his garage, untouched, until he retired in 2011.
Most cars do not come back from thirty years in storage with the back end torn out. This one did. With a lot of advice and some real engineering, Jerry cut the entire rear off the car and grafted on a replacement section from a junkyard donor. From there he restored the body and interior back to original, piece by piece. The car that came out the other side looked like it had every right to be on the road again. The engine was the last question.
"Not the car. The engine."
Jerry could not find a machine shop willing to prep the original block. Then a shop pointed him toward a name he had never heard: Niebel's. He read up on them and changed his whole direction.
Niebel's is not a Pinto shop. The year Tony Stewart won the triple crown in open-wheel racing, Niebel's had built the engines in two of the three cars. Through the 2000s they built the engines for USAC champions in five of six years. So when Jerry walked in with a Pinto block, he braced for the usual speech about who bothers restoring a Pinto.
It never came. "All the time," the man told him. Jerry said he had not seen a Pinto on the road in ten years. "Not the car," came the answer. "The engine."
He explained what most Pinto owners never learn. Indy Car ran a series called Formula Ford that used only Pinto engines. USAC ran a midget series built around the same four-cylinder. The one Jerry wanted was the 2.0-liter, used in 1971 and 1972 Pintos and built in Germany, with an overhead cam that racers had trusted for years.
So Niebel's went to work on the original engine. They shaved the heads, ported the valves, and added an Offenhauser intake with a Holley four-barrel, Pertronix electronic ignition, and a Hedman header. The estimate on the finished motor: horsepower up from about 100 to over 200. Fuel economy down from 23 miles per gallon to 10. Jerry knew exactly what he was trading, and he made the trade gladly.
The wheels that finished it
A 200-horsepower Pinto is a different animal than the one that left the factory, and the original 13x5 wheels were not going to be safe under it. Jerry started searching online and asking around in forums for suggestions. The VTO eight-spokes kept coming up.
This is the part every classic owner with an odd car knows well. Picturing the look is easy; finding a wheel that actually fits a Pinto is not, because it is not a fitment most companies keep on the shelf. Working with VTO's service technicians, Jerry landed on the 15x7 in the eight-spoke style, with a backspacing and offset worked out to sit right under a Pinto's body. The original wheels had always looked a little lost in the wells. These filled them the way the car always should have.
That is the quiet advantage of a made-to-fit wheel. The eight-spoke looks the part, and just as important, someone on the other end of the phone knew how to spec it for a car almost nobody else builds.
Favorite car at the show
Jerry took the finished Pinto to an all-Ford show in Indianapolis. It won a Judges trophy. As he handed it over, the curator of the Ray Skillman Museum told Jerry it was his favorite car at the show.
A room full of Mustangs, Shelbys, and every Ford worth trailering to Indianapolis, and the judges' pick was a resurrected Pinto Runabout on a set of eight-spokes.
The best sign of all is at home. Jerry's grandkids are already arguing over who gets the Pinto.
If you are building something the catalogs forget about, that is exactly the kind of car VTO is built for. The eight-spoke comes in the sizes, bolt patterns, and offsets that make an odd fitment work, and there is a real person who can help you get it right. Give Alex a call at 866-855-3473, or send us a photo of your build. We never get tired of seeing our wheels out in the wild.