Grimshaw v. Ford Motor

Grimshaw v. Ford Motor

Introduction

Grinmshaw v. Ford Motor was a case that was filed by Grimshaw against the Ford Motor company. According to this case, the company had brought in the market defected cars which proved detrimental to the lives of the people. The car had stalled on the freeway and erupted into flames. This caused huge human damage and loss to the family who was sitting in the care. They were the ones who filed the case against the company because the company had promised safety. Following trial of six months, the court decided in the favour of the plaintiff and against the Ford Motor Company.

Discussion

In the early 70's, Ford's position in the automotive market was being badly eroded by competition from foreign producers, especially Japanese companies producing compact cars, with high fuel efficiency. Read Iacocca, then President Ford, was struggling desperately to regain Ford's participation in the market. Its strategy focused on design, manufacture and market quickly a new car to be called "Pinto". It would be a low cost subcompact weigh less than 2,000 pounds, cost less than $ 2,000. - and would leave the market and 2 years, not 4 as was normal. Since the Pinto was a project accelerated style considerations determined the design of engineering to a degree greater than usual (Dowie, 1977). In particular, the style required Pinto fuel tank is placed behind the rear axle where it would be in greater risk of piercing a collision from behind. When tested one of the first models of Pinto subjecting it to collisions, was that if the car was beaten from behind at a speed of 32 mph or more, the gas tank sometimes breaking and sharing of passengers was sprayed by the fuel. In a real accident, a spark gasoline could ...