Can You Cook Bacon on a Ford Pinto? A comedy article
by Brad Poynter 36,184 48 04/01/2011 12:56 AM 9909 views
The Ford Pinto was an early attempt to build an American car with fuel economy, but it's better known for exploding in huge balls of fire. The car has long been the subject of ridicule, and a glorious example of American ingenuity gone wrong. Its use as a mode of transportation was questionable even in its heyday, and having had a junked Pinto behind my house for the past thirty years, I wanted to find some new use for it. But what?
Pinstriped for extra horsepower
Naturally, my first instinct was to blow it into tiny pieces, but I checked with my local law enforcement officials, who informed me it would be illegal to blow up a Pinto on purpose (it's only OK if they do it spontaneously). There's something about making a bomb, even for something as American as an exploding Pinto, that makes Homeland Security start invoking the Patriot Act on a guy.
With that option off the table, I considered converting it to electric. This "green" idea was much like the idea formulated by a certain hippie in 1979, when he sold the Pinto to my dad for $15.00 to buy weed. An electric Pinto sounded like way too much time and money, especially for one that had weeds (plural) growing inside.
Besides, where would I put the flux capacitor?
Then it struck me. I could combine two of my great loves, the wanton destruction of inanimate objects and the most delicious substance known to man, to discover the answer to a never before asked question.
Can a Ford Pinto cook bacon?
Planning
To cook bacon on a Pinto, one can either fry it on the exhaust manifold while the engine is running, or just set the whole thing on fire and use the roof as a skillet. Given my track record and the fact that the engine had been frozen up since the late 1970's, you can guess which option I chose. Plus, the roof had a wide, durable cooking surface, possibly large enough to feed a family of hungry gypsies.
Relics of forgotten civilizations
Next, I purchased ten 12-ounce packages of bacon, or a total of seven and a half pounds, roughly the weight of two newborn pigs. You'd think that walking up to the register with ten packages of bacon, and nothing else, would at least raise an eyebrow or two, but the checkout lady didn't even bat an eye.
"Having some Jewish friends over for breakfast," I told her. Not even a smile.
If you divide by bacon, you get two big religions with a small remainder
Once I got home, I realized I was limiting myself.
Over easy
I realize that setting fire to the undisputed champion of exploding automobiles might sound like a bad idea, but I find bad ideas to be hilarious and awesome. It was time to get started.
Preparation
The first thing I had to do was make sure this thing wouldn't blow up while I was flipping the bacon. To do that, I had to remove all flammable fluids from the vehicle long before I set it ablaze.
Two weeks before the experiment, I drilled a one-inch hole in the gas tank, and ran water though it, until the tank of 30-year-old gas was safely washed away from the area.
Don't worry Mr. Pinto; some people pay big money for something like this
Apparently the reason that the engine was locked up was because there was no oil in the engine. Possibly it had been siphoned out by freebasing squirrels at some point. The battery and tires had been taken off years ago, which is good because battery explosions impart an off taste, while flaming tires give the bacon a charred, rubbery flavor. I needed to keep the fire inside the Pinto, since my house was only a few feet away, and I enjoy living there.
That's my house in the background. (No, behind the shack.)
The morning of the experiment, I washed the decades of wildlife excrement and tree spunk off the roof with steel wool and elbow grease, until I felt it was sanitary enough for the purposes of this experiment.
Before
After
I then filled the car with as many fallen branches as I could gather, and threw in a few rotten cedar posts for good measure.
Wood is good
They were out of chef costumes so I went with longshoreman
Lamp oil in hand, I started the cameras rolling and steeled myself to fry up some answers.
I bet Brad would throw a kick ass party. I imagine people standing around a burning car, roasting hot dogs while the hamburgers cooked on the roof. After dinner, they would all sit around the car, roasting marshmallows while Brad told spooky stories that all started with, "This is a true story.."
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