Renderings of a modern Ford Torino keep circulating online, and the reason has less to do with the artwork than with the original car’s unfinished story. Ford’s intermediate muscle car won a Car of the Year award, rewrote NASCAR aerodynamics, and then vanished into a badge nobody remembers. Read on for what the real Torino was, why it disappeared, and why no production revival has ever been confirmed.
Every so often a rendering of a resurrected nameplate makes the rounds, and the volume of the reaction says more about the original car than about the artwork. The Torino generates a disproportionate amount of that noise, which is strange for a car most people under fifty know primarily as a red coupe with a white stripe from a television show. It never got a farewell edition or a final special model. It simply stopped appearing in Ford’s brochures after 1976, absorbed into a name that has since been forgotten twice over. Understanding why enthusiasts keep trying to bring it back means understanding what the car actually did during the nine years it existed, because the record is considerably stranger than the reputation.
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A Nameplate Borrowed From an Italian City
Torino is the Italian name for Turin, the northern city that has served as Fiat’s home for more than a century and functions as Italy’s Detroit in every meaningful sense. Ford chose it deliberately, wanting an intermediate that sounded more sophisticated than the Fairlane badge it was launched under. The car arrived for 1968 as the upscale trim level of the Fairlane line rather than as a model in its own right. That arrangement inverted quickly. By 1970 the Torino name headlined the range and Fairlane had been demoted to a subseries beneath it, and by 1971 the Fairlane name had disappeared from Ford’s lineup entirely.
The Aero War Ford Fought and Won
The most consequential Torino was also one of the rarest. For the 1969 season Ford built the Torino Talladega, a homologation special created purely so its bodywork could be raced in NASCAR. It received an extended, drooping nose, a flush grille, rocker panels rolled to allow the car to sit lower within the rules, and a modified rear bumper repurposed as a front bumper. Roughly 750 were built, all in three colors with plain bench-seat interiors, because street appeal was irrelevant to the exercise. The result dominated superspeedway racing that season and forced Chrysler into the response that produced the Dodge Charger Daytona and Plymouth Superbird.
The Engines That Made It Serious
Through the peak years a Torino buyer could order the 390 and 428 Cobra Jet, and from 1970 the 429 Cobra Jet and 429 Super Cobra Jet. The Super Cobra Jet added a heavier-duty rotating assembly, a solid-lifter camshaft and an external oil cooler, and it was mandatory with the deepest axle ratios. Those cars are the ones that command real money today. Ford also fielded the Torino King Cobra as a proposed 1970 aero racer, though the program was cancelled and only a handful of prototypes were ever completed. The Torino Cobra, offered from 1970, was the volume performance model that most buyers actually took home.
The Award Nobody Remembers It Winning
The redesigned 1970 Torino took Motor Trend’s Car of the Year award, a distinction that has largely evaporated from the car’s public reputation. The 1970 restyle introduced the long, low SportsRoof fastback profile that remains the shape most enthusiasts picture when the name comes up, along with a new chassis and a wider track. It was a genuinely modern intermediate for its moment, and it arrived at exactly the wrong time. Within two years the combination of insurance surcharges, emissions requirements and a general retreat from performance had begun hollowing out the entire segment the car had been engineered to compete in.
How It Got Big and Soft
The 1972 redesign is where the Torino changed character completely. Ford moved it to a body-on-frame construction, grew it substantially in every dimension, and shifted the emphasis from performance to isolation and comfort. The Gran Torino that resulted was a genuinely large car with a coke-bottle body and a considerably heavier curb weight, and its engine options had been detuned to meet the era’s regulations. Sales were strong, which is the part often left out of the story. Buyers in the mid-1970s wanted quiet and plush far more than they wanted quarter-mile times, and Ford gave them exactly that.
Television Kept the Name Alive
The single largest reason the Torino name survives in popular memory has nothing to do with racing. A bright red 1975 and 1976 Gran Torino with a white vector stripe served as the hero car of a hugely popular police series, and it stamped that specific two-door onto a generation. Ford even sold a limited replica edition in response to the demand. That car is not the one enthusiasts want revived, which produces the odd situation where the most famous Torino and the most admired Torino are separated by about six years and an enormous gulf in performance.
The Quiet Ending in 1976
Production ended after the 1976 model year, and the intermediate slot was handed to the LTD II for 1977. That car was mechanically a continuation of the same platform under a different badge, which is a large part of why the Torino name never received a proper send-off. There was no final edition, no commemorative trim, no farewell advertising campaign. A nameplate that had won Car of the Year and rewritten superspeedway aerodynamics inside a single decade was simply retired through a rebadge, which is the closest thing to a reason the revival renderings keep appearing.
What a Torino Costs to Own Now
For anyone whose interest in a revival is really an interest in the original, the market is more approachable than the reputation implies. A documented 429 Super Cobra Jet car or a genuine Talladega occupies rarefied territory and trades accordingly. Below that, an ordinary Gran Torino two-door or a 351-powered 1970 SportsRoof remains one of the more affordable ways into a full-size American car of the era. Parts support is the catch. Torino-specific sheet metal and trim are reproduced far less comprehensively than Mustang or Chevelle equivalents, so a project car with corroded quarter panels can become an expensive fabrication exercise very quickly.
Why a Modern Torino Almost Certainly Is Not Coming
It is worth stating plainly that Ford has never confirmed any production plan for a modern Torino. The renderings that circulate are independent digital artwork, not leaked design studies, and treating them otherwise has caused a fair amount of confusion over the years. The commercial logic works against it as well. Ford has moved decisively toward trucks, SUVs and electrified models, and a large rear-drive two-door intermediate has no obvious place in that lineup alongside the Mustang. The Torino remains what it has been since 1976, which is a nameplate with a genuinely remarkable record and no path back onto a showroom floor.
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Don Schultz
Monica Beck Edmondson
. Stop tagging me if ya ain’t buying it fir me. Lmbo
Salvador Tirado Manzano
:O Zach Brick look!!!! it’s so pretttyyy
The body from a challenger, the hood and grill off a mustang, headlights from a Bentley and a front bumper from a camaro. Who is the idiot that designed this?
Photoshop
#yesplease
barring up…
Thomas Monaghan
Nice very very nice
Quit posting this ugly ass shit!!! No one cares about a Bentley mustang
I thought it looked more like a celica gt
Sheeeeeet Santos Ignacio
This has been floating around for three years— they aren’t making it.
Looks like a camaro!
Ford please stop it!!!
hmmm… they should send that and a 4 door version here, re-badged as a falcon
A bigger HOSS!
Stop.
I miss my “72” Gran Torino Sport.
Looks like a mutated camaro..WTF!!!
Mike McAdams
Rio Permata – your next car mate
Better looking too
Tyler Simmons it won’t let me see most of the article can you copy an paste the first 2 paragraphs an mssg them to me plz my phone bein stupid
There’s a virus attached to it that’s why
You looked already ? Dam
Yeah I opened it and it closed the app and my phone made me run antivirus
I am in love with this car! Oh Man!
It’s cool but this concept has been floating around for about 3 yrs now I doubt it will happen an if it does it probly won’t look like this
Oh no!
Camaro body jaguar front end and a Ford name plate lmao always gotta copy other car companies
Jack Caporuscio
Sweet!!!! I love this car! I usually am not super impressed with many newer cars, but this is it for me!
Michael Bartlett
Love It!!!!!!!!
Can you say click bait bullshit?
Fake post
Travis Moore
Fake
Is it me or are ALL these cars built off the same exact model. The charger, challenger, camaro all look the same from the doors back.
Looks like a Bentley Continental from that view
Santiago Pérez de la Fuente
Que belleza
WOW !!!!! I thought that was a juiced up Camaro a first.
Also way more fake than the mustang… where have I seen this article before?
cool need one
Yay :/
fuck! this is so cool
Andrew Crouch
Esta muy bueno el auditorio!!!
Es el autito lo que puse y salió lo que quiso
Davide Cassi
No
Love that
Love this car had a 1970 Torino
It’s bad
Re sketch and try again
Ouch! Now there’s a car.
Rob Vanevery Rich Van Every Gary Hays
SIC!
Elza Marvin
Looks more like a jaguar
2010,11,12,13,14,15,16,and 17 this is how long they’ve been saying that ..
This would be so bad ass if they would build it
Looks like the love-child of a Camaro and a Mustang…
Very cool for Ford , Torino back in action !
im not entirely sure how to feel about this
Not a Ford person but this is an awesome car. It’s time to bring back the classic cars. Now if GM would bring back the classic Chevelle maybe they would sell some cars.
Now your talking ??
Their suppose to bring the chevelle back the barracuda also
Virgil Booker if Pontiac had half a brain, they would have picked ANY GTO body style to use for their ” new goat”‘ instead of the G6 body! Guess that’s why they went under!
Still looks like a Chevy Camaro.
Not a tang fan but I’d buy this
Torino Rogers here is you a new ride
I don’t mind if you buy me one!
Nice!
Antonio Og
Se ve feo :(
Nombre!
Very nice
Nice. A 600hp ecoboost engine sounds great.
Looks like a modified Camaro
Connor James
Nice
Now twin turbo 5.0 or 6.2 supercharged would make it a runner
Cool!
Ugly
Bentley copy cat
Christian Criss
What you think I like it
I like it ,styled like the older one’s
yeah not real big on those headlights
I WANT
They’re not really going to build this
I would buy that
This picture has been floating around the internet for the last 2 or 3 years…urban legend/myth…not going to happen.
Love the look
Nice.But it looks like a Mustang and a Camaro had a kid.Might be bad ass!
NOT GOING TO HAPPEN EVER. Clickbait.
UGLY!
They need to just make the originals of any muscle car.
Love it
Love it !
Bill Rodewald. You need one!
I have not seen this car before. Sure looks sharp. :). Thx for sharing Gary.
Please Ford make this!!!
I FREAKIN’ LOV’ IT!
Matt Foxworthy
Why does it look like a Camaro from the windshield back?
Kevin Truttmann this fake ass photo is still circulating. Kill it and kill meeeeee.
Mother fuckers with photoshop need to stop this garbage.
Huh, I just saw it in passing I generally avoid the click bait like that so I didn’t even look, lol
Was my first car
O man is that a really sweet looking ride I would bye one in a second
FORD build it and they/FORD Fans will by.We want more then the Mustang.
Seems a Bentley!
Jocelyn Elise Shawn Dufour
Looks a lot like a Mustang but still love it!
No !!!
Dig that without the red!
If a mustang knocked up a camaro…..
Nick Merrill
Sal Graziano
Except the Mustang is a pony car not a muscle car
Not a Ford fan, but I like this.
Rob Squicciarini
Gross.
Kelly Gower McCurdy
Terry Lippard, this is interesting!
More like…
This is AWESOME !!!!!
Thumbs up! At least Ford is trying. GM and others are becoming the no fun league
Interesting
Beautiful and badass.
Joel Walker
Wow!
The front end looks alot like a 71′ Torino GT, awesome looking car.
Car companies need to look at the old school classics. For the most part, no two cars looked the same. This looks too much like a Camaro. Go back to the drawing board.
Hmm looks like a Camaro
Dodge Charger like lol
I can dig it! Is that a Cobra I see in the grille?
Looks more like a Camaro!
Tanner Franklin is this kewl or what!!!
not a fan could have bettter body for ford not a copy of a chevy
looks like they where going for camaro look.
I had a 72 with 351 Cleveland with the first set of GT 40 heads. 8 sec. quarter mile.
Love it!
Dick Ewing
Sharron Hughes
Sexy as! ??
Thought you might like that one
Yehh…just prefer all black with no red lol
I can see myself dry humping one already
Lmao ?????
Aaron Davola,,Rudy would take beaver out on dates in this beast
And a cobra badge
exciting
This actually reminds me more of the 72 chevelle other than the the hood scoop. Either way this is nice.
Now we are talking!!!
Me likey that car
Try Hideaway headlights
I like that 10 times better than the original
Giorgos Kakogiannis
lancia μονο
Will Camacho
Wicked
Looks awesome
Umar Alvi
If only, Falcon Coupe 2018 retro model.
Rickie here ya go !
She pretty! Looks a bit like the new Camaro. Thanks John.
Nice Looking
I doudt if we will see something like this from Ford, but I like the idea. I always liked the old pony cars, but I preffered the mid sized muscle cars of the 60’s & 70’s. They were more comfortable roomy and easier to live with daily. Back then they tended to be built a little better too. I don’t really see todays Challenger and Mustang to really be in the same class. The Challenger reminds me more of the old mid sized cars. Dodge needs to keep the Challenger as is size wise while bringing a smaller car to go head to head with the Mustang and Camaro and I would like to see Ford build a new Torino similar to this.
Calvin Kent
I’m not a ford fan, but this is awesome!!!
Looks like a CAMARO
Don’t look like a Torino to me. Looks like a new pos.
Aj Skiggs
They’ve been showing that for years. Ain’t coming back ?
Nice like to have one
this car is just what im looking for !!! very nice lines and very nice body !!! A+
Ain’t a ford fan but pretty good looking car
Looks good for a Ford!
You have my attention….. but will it actually come to market?
A Mustang streched
YUCH!!!
Super car
Looks like a Camaro and Mustang got together and had a Torino
And probably heavier and slower than the Mustang
Sweet
Looks like a Camaro , they just stuck the Torino name on.
Had a 68 GT390
I have yet to see one on the street this post has been up for two years
Diego Alvarez Diego Samano
If they make this as a two door I would be interested!
My brother had a Torino cobra with a 428 c.i. and a dual quad carb setup. Wonder what it would be worth now m
That’s pretty cool looking..
I love it!
Elle ressemble trop a la Camaro…