Beware the nuclear village as it readies to rear-end docile Japan again

If you remember the Pinto, dear reader, then you may be as old as the hills — or at least as old as I am.

No, I am not referring to the horse that the Cisco Kid rode, a feisty pinto named Diablo. I'm talking about a small car that Ford began marketing in 1970. The Pinto takes the Grand Citrus Prize for being "the lemon of that decade."

But it wasn't a lemon by accident, though the accidents it caused led to injury and death. During the process of manufacture, Ford engineers knew that the positioning of the fuel tank behind the rear axle meant it could explode in a rear-end collision. But instead of protecting it for a mere $11 per vehicle, Ford decided to "pass on" the fault to the unsuspecting consumer.