Ford Pinto engine
At the beginning of 1984, Ford Pinto engine displacement range switched from 1.3/1.6/2.0 to 1.6/1.8/2.0. The newly introduced 1.8 L engine used the 2.0 L crankshaft, so to uniform engine parts for the whole range after dropping the 1.3 L — the 1.6 L was redesigned to also take the 2.0 L crankshaft which had a stroke. This of course led to bringing the bore down to to keep the displacement within range — it was now 1598 cc. The TL16E became now the only available 1.6 L engine of the Pinto range. Although the compression ratio was raised to 9.5:1, the power figures did not differ much from the earlier TL16H version — the engine developed of power and of torque.
This engine is sometimes referred to as 1.6 E-Max engine.
Ford Pinto
The recall was included in "Time" magazine's 2009 top ten product recalls, "Popular Mechanics" magazine's 2010 five most notorious recalls of all time, and NBC News' 2013 twelve famous recalls. "Time" said "The Ford Pinto was a famously bad automobile, but worse still might be Ford's handling of the safety concerns."
According to the "Los Angeles Times" in 2010, the award "signaled to the auto industry that it would be harshly sanctioned for ignoring known defects."