Ford Pinto engineers notoriously placed the fuel tank directly behind the rear axle in the 1970s, turning the highly popular compact car into an explosive death trap if it got rear-ended at a moderate speed.

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Ford Pinto engineers notoriously placed the fuel tank directly behind the rear axle in the 1970s, turning the highly popular compact car into an explosive death trap if it got rear-ended at a moderate speed. When internal crash tests revealed that the filler neck would instantly snap and dump raw gasoline underneath the car during a collision, corporate executives performed a cold, calculated cost-benefit analysis. They literally decided it would be much cheaper to just pay off the lawsuits from the burn victims than to spend the extra eleven dollars per vehicle required to install a tiny plastic safety shield. It remains one of the most infamously evil corporate decisions in automotive history, forever solidifying the Pinto as the gold standard for prioritizing minor profit margins over the basic right of your customers to not be incinerated while waiting at a red light