ladder bar vs 4-link back then....

Well when it comes to torque induced diagonal/rotational body roll over loading, the ladder bar suspension by design has always had zero/almost zero body-roll during the launch when installed/adjusted correctly. This is because as a whole the housing/ladder bar assembly (it's self) acts as if it was in effect a very large anti-roll assembly. 4-links on the other hand are much more prone to body-roll because of all the spherical rod-ends they use, and the fact that it's top/bottom bars never physically intersect each other at the front (like a ladder bar does).

 

Most all of the early P/S cars (like the Pintos) probably used the ladder bar setup because LB's had been around drag racing forever & a ton of people had experience with them. And even after 4-links had started to become more popular in P/S a few years later, a few guys still went with the ladder bar on their new cars (like one-off Bill Jenkins's '80-ish camaro with the long Lenco spacer/extender "tube" case).

 

The short wb Pinto's having ladder bars pretty much explains why they had such a large "nose-down/ass-up stance. The short wheelbase pretty much dictated that the driver had to sit over the front ladder bar mount instead of in front of it like you can on a longer wb car.