 |
This Old Car digs up a 1970 Motor Trend test of the redesigned Torino Cobra 429 Super Cobra Jet — numbers fast enough to beat a 1970 Pontiac GTO 455 in period testing. Ford’s aircraft-inspired redesign added five inches of length and real performance credibility most muscle car fans have since forgotten. The data alone makes a case for reconsidering it.
Six V8 muscle cars share one thing in common: real pedigree, and a price tag that still starts with a one. While Hemi Cudas and Boss Mustangs keep climbing past six figures, these cars have been quietly overlooked — including one viewer’s own 1973 Nova, bought new for ninety-nine dollars a month. See which cars the collector market hasn’t caught up to yet, and why that window may not stay open much longer.
For 1972 Ford rebuilt the Torino from the frame up, moved it onto a full perimeter chassis, softened the ride, and killed off the Cobra that had defined the car’s performance image. The result was heavier and slower, yet it became the most famous Torino of all, thanks to Hollywood and a decade of television. Read on to find out what changed under the skin, what was left of the muscle, and why this last generation still matters.
A 1970 Ford Torino Cobra finished in Vermillion with satin black accents gets the spotlight in V8TV’s Muscle Car of the Week series, powered by a factory-rated 375-horsepower 429 Super Cobra Jet V8. Owners in the comments dispute that number, with one claiming his SCJ Torino made closer to 540 horsepower once drag-pack options were factored in. Period magazine tests reportedly placed its quarter-mile times alongside a 435-horsepower Corvette, despite the Torino rarely getting the same collector respect today. One owner’s story about the car even ends with a deer strike on a Wyoming highway at 100 mph.
The Ford Torino name gets tossed around a lot when someone dreams up a modern revival, but the original earned its stripes the hard way. In 1970, wearing a Cobra badge and packing a 429 Super Cobra Jet under the hood, it beat the field to take home Motor Trend’s Car of the Year – while quietly running mid-13-second quarter miles that surprised drag strip regulars. NASCAR success, a snake on the fender, and an engine option most buyers never even ordered: that’s the real story behind the badge. Any 2017 revival had a lot to live up to.
This 1970 Ford Torino Cobra hides a genuine 429 Super Cobra Jet under its shaker hood scoop — an engine one longtime dyno operator calls the most powerful he ever measured in his shop. Muscle Car Campy takes a close look at a survivor that commenters say routinely embarrassed 440 Mopars and 396 Chevelles back in the day. Watch the walkaround and startup in full.
A 1971 Ford Torino sitting on Gateway Classic Cars’ lot might not wear a Cobra Jet badge, but its 302 V8 and Cruise-O-Matic transmission tell a different kind of muscle car story — one about the last year before emissions rules and insurance premiums reshaped Detroit’s mid-size performance cars for good. With only 31,641 GT-trim Torinos built for 1971, and just over 3,000 Cobra hardtops among them, even the “everyday” Torino V8s are becoming harder to find in this kind of condition.
Only 3,939 Ford Torino GT convertibles were built in 1970, and this one adds a rare M-code 351 Cleveland engine, factory air conditioning, and a deluxe interior on top of that already-thin production number. Read on to find out what made the Cleveland worth chasing and why so few buyers ordered the open-air version at all.
This 1968 Ford Torino GT wears a 428 Cobra Jet engine that Ford didn’t even offer when the model year began — a mid-year option that turned an ordinary mid-size Ford into one of the era’s sleeper legends. Volo Auto Museum director Brian Grams walks through this Candy Apple Red survivor with My Car Story host Lou Costabile, tracing why so few Torinos ended up with the real thing under the hood. Watch to find out what made the wait worth it.
This burgundy 1976 Ford Torino made local headlines after being stolen from a driveway, but the real story is what it represents: the final model year Ford ever built a car under the Torino name before renaming the whole lineup LTD II for 1977. Only 193,096 were built that year. Here is what made the Torino’s last stand worth remembering.
The 1974 Torino tried to be two cars at once: a muscle car still carrying a Cobra Jet option, and a brand-new luxury model, the Gran Torino Elite, built for buyers who’d rather have a power sunroof than a four-speed. Federal bumper mandates added inches and pounds, a one-year seatbelt interlock law came and went, and the fastback body style vanished for good. Read on to find out how one model year captured the entire identity crisis facing American performance cars in 1974.
This 1970 Ford Torino Cobra carries Ford’s rare $155 Drag Pack option and a story that runs deeper than any spec sheet — passed down through Troy’s family after his father was killed in one of three identical Torinos he once owned. Read on to find out what made the Drag Pack version a genuine 13-second car, and just how few of them survive today.
Ford reshaped its mid-size muscle car for 1973 to meet new federal bumper rules, and the redesign paid off with a 52 percent jump in production over 1971. Buyers could choose between a humble inline-six and a deeper bench of V8 options than you’d guess, with the sportiest Gran Torino Sport reserved for V8 power only. The changes pushed the Torino ahead of its longtime rival, the Chevrolet Chevelle, in Fords ongoing battle for intermediate muscle car sales.
A 1972 Ford Torino Sport fastback shares the screen with Clint Eastwood in the film that would later borrow its name for the title — decades after Ford built it as one of six engine options ranging from a modest inline-six to a genuinely quick Cobra Jet 351. Consumer Guide named it a best buy the same year. Read on to find out how one mid-size Ford ended up in a Hollywood movie title.
Ford retired both the Fairlane and Falcon nameplates for 1971, folding everything into a fourteen-model Torino lineup that ranged from a plain two-door sedan to the four-speed, 285-hp Torino Cobra. EPA-mandated compression cuts quietly trimmed horsepower across nearly every engine that year, even as Ford kept offering genuine performance touches like the Ram Air shaker hood and Hurst-shifted four-speeds. Read on to find out what a magazine-tuned Cobra 429 could still do at the drag strip in 1971.