I would say that IMHO as an engineer that they should have segregated the tank from the passenger area of the car. If a tank is going to rupture (which is possible in a high speed accident) I much rather have it spew its gas somewhere else besides the passenger area of a car.

One thing I like about my car is that the 22 gallon tank is in the front trunk and it is segregated from the passenger area. Thats smart even if everyone isn't doing it.

Unfortunately the 60's was not the greatest era for auto safety so I imagine there are going to a lot of things about the older cars that can be criticised. While they can't be retrofitted, if if can be proven that ford knew that this was killing people and could easily be fixed in later models and did nothing, then I can see some liability there.

If an auto company is going to design their cars in a way that they know will kill people just to save a few bucks via lawsuits instead of building better cars, let people sue them. I rather have a system where lawsuits are filed than one where companies are immune to the repurcussions of their willful actions.

I really don't view our legal system which is superior to most every other in the world and a suit that has enough merit to go to court as a "waste of tax payers money".