Posts Tagged: Ford Torino
Mercury wrapped the 1970 Cyclone’s nose around a gunsight-style grille built to counter Chrysler’s winged NASCAR cars, backed by a 429 Super Cobra Jet rated near 375 horsepower. The designer behind that face was fired within weeks of the car reaching dealers, and the real NASCAR homologation story is messier than the nose lets on.
Motor Trend named the 1970 Ford Torino its Car of the Year, recognizing a lineup that spanned everything from the hushed, Lincoln-quiet Brougham to the stripped-down Cobra fastback running the quarter mile in under 14 seconds. A 429 Cobra Jet-equipped Cobra could hit 60 mph in 5.8 seconds, while wagon buyers got their own dedicated towing package. Read on to find out how Ford built three completely different cars under one nameplate.
The 1970 Torino Cobra with the 429 Super Cobra Jet is the muscle car that most enthusiasts can name and almost none have driven. Ford rated it at 375 horsepower, five more than the standard Cobra Jet, but the interesting part is what those five horsepower were hiding. The SCJ was not a tuning exercise. It was a structurally different engine, and you could only get it by ordering something else entirely.
A Ford Torino GT built for Street Car Takeover’s Heavy Street-style class went into eliminations with zero test passes — and still lifted its front wheels beating a 707-hp Hellcat Charger, a Hellcat Challenger, and a Cadillac CTS-V. See how a half-century-old Ford handled three modern factory muscle cars in one quarter-mile pass.
Ford’s 1970 Torino won Motor Trend’s Car of the Year award for its comfort and styling, but hidden in the order form was a solid-lifter 429 Super Cobra Jet built to run 13-second quarter miles. Only about 1,475 buyers ever combined the Drag Pack option with the Torino Cobra trim before Ford killed the combination for 1972. Here’s the story behind one of Ford’s rarest, most overlooked muscle cars.
Ford built roughly 750 Torino Talladegas in early 1969 for one reason: NASCAR would not let a body style race without street-legal homologation copies. David Pearson turned that loophole car into a championship-caliber season, and it went on to rack up 29 Grand National wins. Here is how a plain-looking Torino became one of NASCAR’s most dominant weapons.
This two-owner 1968 Ford Torino GT carries a documented 390 four-barrel rated at 335 horsepower, backed by window stickers, the original invoice, and a title copy tracing it to day one. Ford built the Torino to go head-to-head with the Chevelle SS and GTO, and this survivor still wears the paper trail to prove it earned its place. Read on to find out what period testers clocked at the drag strip.
This 1970 Ford Torino GT, nicknamed ‘All In,’ turned heads at a Corvette-only car show despite being built by a completely different brand. Ford’s designers reshaped the Torino that year around a ‘coke-bottle’ body and built only 56,819 GTs out of 230,411 total Torinos, with just 3,939 convertibles among them. The nameplate went on to win Motor Trend’s Car of the Year. Read on to find out what makes a mid-size Ford confident enough to crash someone else’s car show.
A 1969 Yenko Camaro and a 1970 Ford Torino Super Cobra Jet squared off under strict factory-stock rules — no headers, no lightweight parts, nothing but what rolled off the assembly line. One car gave up 412 pounds and 75 horsepower on paper. The finish line told a much closer story than the spec sheet promised.
A rare 429-powered 1970 Ford Torino Cobra rolled into a vintage NMCA drag event on nothing but factory-width rubber — and dipped into the 12s anyway. Ford built barely two thousand of these with the big engine, and far fewer with the gearing to make a pass like this possible. Here’s the math behind one of the toughest quarter-miles in muscle car history.
A shop took a tired 1968 Ford Torino fastback and rebuilt it with a stroked 427, a tubbed chassis, and air suspension – and viewers are calling it one of the best Torino restomods ever. Ford’s own 428 Cobra Jet was rated so low on paper that most experts believe the real number was closer to 400 horsepower. Here’s why this overlooked Ford muscle car is finally getting its due.
Ford built the 1968 Torino GT to go head-to-head with the GTO and the Chevelle SS, and for owners who actually drove one, it delivered — right down to a 428 Cobra Jet option that could win a stoplight race outright. Yet the car never became a household name the way its rivals did. King of Classic Cars digs into why a genuinely competitive muscle car slipped out of the conversation, drawing on decades of owner stories along the way. Watch to find out what got left out of the history books.