1991 was 13 years after the recall during which Ford went out of its way to reinforce the fuel tank to mitigate further criticism. There was a legitimate and well documented problem with the original design of the Pinto, and no article about how it's fun to race them now is going to change that. Here's an NHTSA report: https://www.autosafety.org/wp-content/uploads/import/ODIPint...

"In nine staged collision tests of 1971-1976 Pinto 2-door sedans and 3-door runabouts impacted by 1971 Chevrolet Impalas at closing speeds of 30 and 35 miles per hour, two tests resulted in fires. In all of the remaining seven tests, fuel tank damage occurred with fuel leakage rates ranging from 6 to 700 ounces per minute, with an average rate in excess of 240 ounces per minute."

Does having two out of nine low speed collisions result in fire seem normal? Does having nine out of nine low speed collisions result in significant enough damage to the fuel tank to cause gasoline leakage seem normal? I would certainly hope not.

The original Pinto design was flawed and dangerous, unnecessarily killed people, and Ford was rightfully and successfully sued for releasing it.

P.S. That Rutgers PDF in your citation is about the myth of the Ford Pinto legal case, which is that whole thing about how Ford allegedly calculated that it would cost less to settle on wrongful death lawsuits than to fix their cars, not about the safety of the Pinto. The link in the article is broken but you can find it here: http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/The_Myth_of_the_Ford_Pint...