MyStarCollectorCar will jump right into the trivia game with this one: Torino is the Italian name for the city of Turin, a handle that was presumably used by Ford to market its mid-sized car as a domestic vehicle with a European flavor.
The connection between a North American car and a city in northern Italy was designed to amp up the sophistication vibe for the Ford Torino when it debuted in 1968 as a subset model in the Fairlane family.
Jim Sutherland
The Fairlane name was demoted to a sub-model in the Torino lineup in 1970 and then swallowed whole by Torino in 1971. The dog-eat-dog world of domestic cars meant Fairlane was destined to be terminated with extreme prejudice by Ford the day the first Torino left the drawing board.
It has never been an unprecedented move in the automotive industry-just ask any 1976 Valiant how it felt about the debut of the 1976 Volare, or the 1970 Falcon by the 1970 Maverick. Building cars has always been a merciless blood sport, but fortunately the Ford Torino was a very cool replacement for the Fairlane.
Even the Torino name was a good replacement for Fairlane in our opinion here at MyStarCollectorCar. Throw in the fact the car was introduced during the late 1960s, a time when even Sonny and Cher acknowledged that “Cars keep a-going faster all the time”, in their 1967 hit ‘The Beat Goes On’. Torino even sounds faster than Fairlane.
Ford was no stranger to the muscle car wars in the late 1960s, so it wanted to combine performance and luxury when it sold the Torino as a high-end Fairlane model in ’68 because mid-sized domestic cars were Ground Zero for skirmishes on the street and track.
Intermediate rivals included the Plymouth Road Runner/GTX models, as well as the Chevelle SS and Pontiac GTO, to name some of the Torino’s most famous enemies during the muscle car wars of the late Sixties.
Bear in mind Ford Torinos also came in sedan and station wagon models, but their real legacy was built with big blocks and a real bad attitude in the eyes of car guys. Mix Torino with any Cobra engine variation and Ford had a muscle car with a very fatal bite.
One could easily take a side regarding which year of Torino had the coolest style and we at MyStarCollectorCar have our own favorite in this category, specifically the 1970 Torino GT SportsRoof. The SportsRoof was Ford’s own name for the fastback roof design that was a huge part of the body style for many sporty versions of domestic cars built during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
However, the 1970 Ford Torino GT fastback was more than just a pretty C-pillar roofline because of its iconic front grille and its hideaway headlights. Ford was able to design a hidden headlight configuration that ranks among the most stylish ever created in North America. The pointed front fenders helped enhance the overall design of the ’70 Torino GT’s cool hideaway headlight grille.
Their marketing slogan was true because Ford had a better idea when it built the Torino, one that became a Hall of Fame better idea when it built the 1970 Ford Torino GT SportsRoof model.
Jim Sutherland
BY: Jim Sutherland
Jim Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer whose work has been published by many major print and online publications. The list includes Calgary Herald, The Truth About Cars, Red Deer Advocate, RPM Magazine, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Windsor Star, Vancouver Province, and Post Media Wheels Section.
- CLICK HERE to Sign Up for the Newsletter
- CLICK HERE to Like us on Facebook
- CLICK HERE to Follow us on Twitter
- CLICK HERE to Follow us on Pinterest
