The Pinto wasn't an engineering failure ("it was a two-thousand-pound car on the road with four-thousand-pound cars. It got hit. It lit up. What do you expect?") but a Public Relations failure.
Jason Vines was the PR guy for Ford during the Firestone/Explorer disaster. And he had one guiding principle: Don't blame the customer. Which is what Toyota did with the unintended-acceleration problem.
"PR in a crisis cannot be cleaning up after the elephants in a parade. The PR team needs to have a seat at the table before, during, and after a crisis."
Jason Vines was the PR guy for Ford during the Firestone/Explorer disaster. And he had one guiding principle: Don't blame the customer. Which is what Toyota did with the unintended-acceleration problem.
http://www.amazon.com/What-Did-Jesus-Drive-Christianity-eboo...
"PR in a crisis cannot be cleaning up after the elephants in a parade. The PR team needs to have a seat at the table before, during, and after a crisis."