1980 Ford Pinto wagon for first car?

I'm a car guy looking for a first car. For a long time I wanted an old VW beetle but right down the road from me I spotted a 1980 Ford Pinto wagon for sale. It is $4000. It has 41,000 original miles. The interior is in excellent original condition and the guy has took very good care of this car. Don't tell me stuff like "they exploded when rear-ended" because that is a myth. Give me your take on this and give me your advice. Have you ever owned a pinto? Anything helps.

Do not buy it at any price. The car is way too old and out of date. If you need a part, you won't find one. Pintos did catch fire when hit in the rear. You can't deny reality.

That wasn't a myth. It was documented fact. No big deal. If it runs good and you like it buy it.
Hope you're not gay and used to taking it in the rear end!

Pintos are only fair and nowhere near great. People back then would call them a piece of sh*t. I think the Chevrolet Vega had an aluminum block motor, and it caused a lot of problems. Pinto and Vega were basically the first time that the Big 3 in Detroit tried building small cars. Almost everything was a big block 8 or 6 cylinder motor in the early 70's, and then there were problems with buying oil from the Middle East; and the price of gas shot up from 25 cents a gallon to a dollar a gallon. So Detroit for the first time built small cars. They are sort of sh*t, but they go down the road sometimes. For the most part, I wouldn't want to be seen driving one today.

"they exploded when rear-ended because that is a myth".
NO myth pal. That's fact. If you would take the time to do a little research on the matter, you would be a little smarter.

"The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ultimately ordered a recall, and a design modification was made to reduce the risk of fire"
(From Wikipedia.org)

If you are interested in a 1980 Ford pinto Wagon for $4000, you are not a car guy. You car a chump wanna be car guy.

Those are junk get a fiero with an ls swap

Its not everybody ideal choice of transport. Yes in heavy rear end shunt there's a fire risk. Though one might ask what exactly is the risk of being heavily rear ended anyway?
aside from that and very little street cred. It is old but balanced with low mileage and age .it may even become a classic car one day.
never going to be worth money as such but if it suits your needs. Is within budget. And we can ignore put downs from folks. Then probably decent value for money.

The Pinto was actually a fairly reliable car, but the catching fire thing was real. Also, $4,000 for that car is way too much, even if 1980 was the last year they made the Pinto, before replacing it with the Ford Escort (and 20 years after that, the Focus). That car probably sold new for around that. Here's the catch: You will need to replace a lot of things. People think that low miles automatically means best. Not quite. Cosmetically, it can be, but age is your enemy. You will likely need new hoses, belts, a tuneup, oil change, suspension parts, possibly exhaust parts, and any vacuum lines that are under the hood, weather stripping around windows and doors, fuel filter, and don't be surprised if you need a new fuel pump or carburetor in a short amount of time. These things deteriorate over time due to aging. If the car had all of it's fluids drained, and was in a climate- controlled garage, that would seriously slow down the aging process. However, a Pinto wasn't designed to be "that car" so that is not likely to be the case.