I have long been fascinated by the 1970-71 mid-sized Ford line, especially the Torino. I was a kid when these cars were new, and saw them go through the arc of new-used-beater. On these cars it was an accelerated arc, to the point where they vanished from my locale decades ago. Even in the world of vintage cars, when was the last time you saw a non-GT/non-Cobra 1970-71 Torino at a car show or cars and coffee event? For me it has been never – until recently.
Even here at CC these cars have been ignored. I could not remember one being written up, and checked our index – would you believe that the 1970 1/2 Falcon has been featured here three times, yet no other version of the 1970-71 Fairlane or Torino has received its fifteen minutes of fame? Well, it is time to do something about that. For your consideration, a 1970 Torino with the full-on Brougham treatment. Kind of.
My first association with one of these is Mr. Bloomfield. Mr. Bloomfield was an English teacher in my Jr. High School (grades 7-9). He seemed middle-aged then, but was likely in his mid 30’s. He had an engaging personality and seemed like a pretty conservative guy, other than the goatee he wore. I was one of the nerds in the “Audio-Visual Club”, and one of our duties was to take one of the heavy reel-to-reel video tape recorders home whenever there was a television show that one of the teachers wanted to capture for playback in class. It was that teacher’s responsibility to help us load the equipment and give us a ride home.
At that age, I had figured out what almost every teacher in that school drove, so I knew that I would be getting a ride in a beige 1970 or 71 (I never really could tell the difference) Torino 4 door. It may have been a Fairlane 500, but at the time I considered all of those cars to be Torinos.
Mr. Bloomfield’s beige sedan was now on the edge of being a beater. I remember seeing the big blisters under the paint on the tops of both fenders. Mr. Bloomfield told me how the car had started to rust there, and how he and his father-in-law had sanded everything down and filled the holes with lead (yes, that was what he said) and repainted the fenders, but now the rust was coming back and he felt like he had wasted his time. This was probably about 1974 or so, so the car was only three or four years old. Sadly, this seemed normal to me, at least on these cars.
But when these cars were new, they were real beauties – for possibly the first time since the Fairlane made its debut as Ford’s new mid-sized car in 1962. Mr. Bloomfield’s beige sedan was a far cry from the bright red Torino GT convertible owned by the mother of one of my 6th grade classmates in the fall of 1971. I have never forgotten that car – the one with the long stripe that started at yellow and blended into the same red as the car. That one had been virtually new and every kid in my 6th grade class got jealous whenever we saw it pull up in front of Glenwood Park Elementary School.
Ford styling of 1969-1971 marked a brief period of transition between crisp but conservative designs of the mid 1960’s and the full-figured look of the 1970’s that many (including yours truly) consider to be Ford’s era of bloat. Out of all of Ford’s models during that time, the 1970-71 Torino might have been the prettiest of them all.
One trope of automotive history is Bunkie Knudson’s influence over Ford styling during his brief reign atop the company. Bunkie had indeed brought some GM people into Ford styling (Larry Shinoda being the most notable), but then GM influenced everyone in those years. The actual story of this car surprised me when I read it, in that the car was styled before Bunkie showed up, and in how all of the names involved were the same names I had read in connection with most other Ford designs of the 1960’s.
Through most of the 1960’s, Bill Shenk spent his days designing wheel covers and emblems for Ford vehicles. An experimental emblem mocked up from an Oreo cookie seems to have impressed his bosses and by 1967 Shenk was promoted to senior designer and assigned to the Mercury studio at the request of its head, Buzz Grisinger. In that role, he was assigned to do some sketches for the 1971 Montego. Shenk worked through several sketches that included a side character line that disappeared into the door and some Coke bottle elements in the shape – as shown in this photo found on the website of The Henry Ford. He then got word from Bob Koto that he was to work up a clay model for a “Plan B” version of the Fairlane, while Koto worked on a proposed Montego.
Shenk was assigned four modelers (the normal number was twelve) and that small team turned Shenk’s sketches into a full-sized mock-up of a 2-door hardtop. Shenk was also assigned a body engineer who tweaked some long-standing Ford rules for things like wheel-opening shapes and sizes. Each of these various models would be displayed in Ford’s courtyard to Lee Iacocca (VP of Product Planning) and Gene Bordinat (VP of Styling). These models were traditionally covered in an identical silver Di-Noc, but Shenk recalls that he took a risk and opted to do his model in bright red.
Shenk’s car was chosen from all of the models that day, with Shenk recalling that Iacocca had told Bordinat “Go back and tell Shenk don’t touch the car.” About that time Bob Koto lobbied Grisinger for permission to take over development of Shenk’s proposal but Grisinger refused, allowing Shenk the go-ahead to keep on refining the model for final approval. He also told Shenk that this was now the official proposal for the Ford Torino. In an article he wrote for Torinocobra.com (which can be read in its entirety here), Shenk concluded: “The 1970 Torino grew out of a combination of free-wheel styling, constrained time requirements, and accidental occurrences that would never happen again at Ford styling during the next 26 years I was there.”
Larry Shinoda in the Ford design studios, probably sometime during 1969. A prototype Torino Sportsroof is in the background. Shinoda did work on the 1969 Torino Talladega and a prototype of the Torino King Cobra, but does not appear to have contributed to the production version of the 1970-71 Torino.
In an era when the Ford Motor Company was leading the industry into traditional styling cues and luxury for the masses, it is pretty clear that the 1970 Torino was envisioned as a car to put Ford on the map in the mid-sized sport/muscle car segment that had been so popular, and that the rest of the line worked itself out from there.
Ford put a lot of effort into this line, which was (depending on the source) either all new, or a very heavy update of the 1968-69 car (which had, itself, been a heavy update of the 1966-67 version). The 1970 model was on a longer 117 inch wheelbase, and was also wider and heavier than its 1969 counterpart. Also, this was the year that Ford added a 4-door hardtop to the line to augment the sedan, 2-door hardtop, SportsRoof (fastback) and wagon models.
That “new” vs. “facelift” debate is an interesting one. The 1970 Torino won Motor Trend’s Car Of The Year award that year, which was an honor ostensibly reserved for all-new models. However, this was the model’s final two-year cycle on the old unit body platform which shared its basic suspension design with the Mustang and Falcon. However “all-new” the ’70 Torino might have been, it was certainly not as “all-new” as the car would be when it got a re-design on a full frame for 1972.
Popular Science magazine tested 6 cylinder versions of the Torino, along with Malibu, Satellite and Rebel in its April, 1970 issue. The Torino acquitted itself well in the test, with the testers noting exceptionally good brakes. Interestingly, the Torino was not as quiet as the Chevelle, perhaps not a surprise in the Torino’s final iteration as a unit construction car.
We will leave the GT and Cobra versions for another time or place, because today we come to celebrate the Torino Brougham. A car whose splash was surprisingly muted, coming from the company that had made a lot of money selling luxury at a popular price. Without including the 1970 1/2 Falcon’s 67k units, the Fairlane/Torino line was good for over 360,000 cars in 1970. But the Broughams? Only 16,911 of these 2-door hardtops (and another 14,543 4-door hardtops) made it out the door. In the waning age of the sport/muscle car, the GT/Cobra sold at roughly double the volume of the Brougham. And about that name – Both this car and the 1970 LTD shared in the honor of being Ford’s first modern day use of the term “Brougham”.
How rare are these cars now? I have been on the hunt for a Torino 4-door hardtop since I started contributing to CC over a decade ago, but have yet to come across one after all this time. But as consolation prizes go, this 2-door hardtop Brougham is pretty good. Yes, I might have preferred an example with original-style tires/wheels and that has not been treated to a poor-quality respray in a very, very non-original color. But when it comes to finding a 1970-71 Torino, we cannot afford to be picky because there are so few of them out there.
The interior merits special mention – though this example is showing its age, it is a treat to see how nicely Ford trimmed these cars inside.
Let’s have a better look at that seat. Ford was kind enough to move one out into a soft field of weeds so that we could have a better look. This level of trim would have been credible in an LTD of the time.
Top: Brochure shot of the 1970 Torino dash. Bottom: Brochure shot of the 1969-70 (not 1970 1/2) Falcon dash.
We cannot be so forgiving of the dash panel. Was there a less impressive dashboard and instrument panel in any mid-sized car of that era? This dash, with its too-small instrument panel section looks far too much like one from the Falcon. Of course, the Fairlane/Torino shared much with the Falcon in the 1966-71 era. It would have been nice if the dash had been more in keeping with the looks of the rest of the car.
I had a conversation with the owner, who professes to be more of a Chevy guy. However, he says that he has really enjoyed this Torino since he bought it a while ago (after the respray, so that is not his fault) and it never fails to generate comment. He shared an interesting bit of data, telling me that the hidden-headlight grille on this Brougham is worth as much as the entire rest of the car. If this is true (and it would not surprise me a bit) he is to be saluted for keeping this original Brougham intact because it is a far rarer example than its sportier siblings.
We all know that the (plain) Torino had a very short life at the apex of Ford’s mid-sized hierarchy, and was displaced by the Gran Torino in 1972. Personally, I have always preferred these. I know, they were terrible, terrible rusters and often aged quite poorly. In my own limited experience (a long-ago test drive of a 69 Fairlane), they felt smaller and more lightweight than did the competition, despite the cars’ large physical size.
But whatever may have happened to the other 16,910 of these, I am glad that at least this single example has made it to 2024 without suffering too much indignity. This Torino might not have been Gran, but my day at the car show certainly was.
IMHO, the best looking of all the Torino models ever built! Extremely rare today, given the primitive anti-corrosion measures of the era, most of them returned to the iron ore from which they sprang, thanks to the copious amounts of road salt applied to the roads in Northern winters. I am truly torn when discussing the Torinos of the 1970’s, because while I really prefer the styling of these cars, I find the body-on-frame examples from 1972 on, much superior cars in the handling and ride categories. I wonder what kind of surgery would be required to fit an aftermarket frame to one of these cars? Just thinkin’.
Just another example of how the 1970-72 intermediate coupes were the styling peak before the 5 mph bumper requirement took the wind out of domestic styling for the rest of the seventies.
And I might go so far as to suggest that the Ford stylists were copying the beautiful 1968-70 Dodge Charger side-sculpturing for the 1970 Torino which, from what I’ve read, was known in the industry as ‘double-diamond’. It’s not too far of a stretch, especially since the highest trim Torinos got a Charger-like hidden-headlight grille, too.
The only thing missing is the Charger’s tunnel-back rear window. Ford chose to go with the GM style rear window, of which Chrysler would follow suit for the new 1971 Charger and Sebring Plus. In effect, all of the Big 3 had very similar intermediate coupe rear window treatments for that one year.
As much as the 1968 Charger is loved today, I don’t remember people making much of it back then. I think the world of late 1967 to 1970 gave its oohs and ahhs to the GM cars. I’m not sure anyone was copying from Chrysler back then.
Then again, I’m no expert on the Ford of this era, so who knows.
Indeed, and, as evidence, I vividly recall a comparison article of (I think) all of the 1969 intermediate sporty coupes, with the two Chrysler entrants being a Plymouth GTX and Dodge Charger. The author opined that the GTX was the better looking car, due mainly to the tunneled rear window and sail panel treatment of the Charger being ‘overwrought’.
One thing is certain: of the Big 3’s intermediates for 1968-69, everyone seemed to agree that the styling of the Ford products was bringing up the rear.
CC Effect: just found a 1970-71 Ranchero Squire – and not a garage queen, for once!
Great post about these somewhat unloved cars, JPC. Styling wise, one of Ford’s few real hits of the decade.
About mid to late 70’s these were very popular with Latinos.
I always liked them too.
Wow, what a flashback! These were seemingly everywhere in the 70’s, but I have not seen one in decades.
Rust got many of them!
As one who came along at the very end of the 1972 model year, for years these always seemed like stale bread to me. Now, with much more life experience, my thoughts have evolved. It certainly dropped much of the dowdiness that permeated the predecessor Fairlane.
But I will say this…in your first picture, my eye was more drawn to the ’70 Charger (and I don’t think it’s due to color) than it was to the Torino.
I noticed how the Charger photo bombed these shots only later.
I just looked it up – there were a bit more than 46k Chargers built in 1970. I suspect that between Ford and Mercury, these things sold far better than their Mopar counterparts. Yet one of them survives in fairly high numbers while the other has all but disappeared.
The 1970 Charger was in the third and final year of that body style, which probably hurt its sales. Plus, the all-new 1970 Dodge Challenger undoubtedly stole more than a few Charger sales.
And the 1970 Challenger stoled also a bit of Barracuda sales who was mainly stolen by the Duster newly introduced in the same model year as well.
My neighbors in Bridgeport, CT had one in the, of course, original green with green vinyl roof and matching interior. The upholstery was nylon knit. The car was and still is a graceful style. Great to see one!
My parents bought a ‘70 four door sedan, I’m guessing mid-trim level because it had the black trim between the taillights but no hidden headlights. In the very popular at the time Ford gold color. It supplanted Dad’s ‘61 Chrysler, but he took over the ‘66 Ranch Wagon from my mom because the Torino was easier for her to drive. All 3 of us kids learned to drive in that car and I have to give it props for surviving that as well as 10 New England winters before finally giving up the ghost. I even attached a 10 foot UHaul to cart my junk 250 miles home from college when I graduated in ‘79. The 250 CID 6 cylinder wasn’t hearty but did its job for 160k miles.
I believe the only visual difference between the ‘70 and the ‘71 was the split grille. The Big 3.5 were finally wising up that massive annual model changes were expensive to pull off and hardly needed. We can thank VW for that lesson!
Years ago, someone brought a 1-of-2 Torino Brougham with a 429 4-speed to the Pure Stock Muscle Car Drags. I think it was red with a black vinyl top…but that might be the only one I’ve ever seen, so nice find!
Regarding GTs, I saw this nice ’71 a few weeks ago and took a bunch of pictures of it. It’s a 351 four-barrel car.
While it’s not really my cuppa green Torino, full marks for a wonderful long-form CC post with lots of other documentation/reference pictures and material with a Brougham as subject matter. It takes me back to the glory days of the mid-teens when it seemed for a while that Broughams were the only cars remembered!
I can’t say these really ever caught my eye or more correctly that I’ve noticed them, they probably got lost between the LTDs and Fairlanes etc. Still, that fading stripe looks familiar so perhaps I do have some association with one somewhere, at some time.
I do have to concur with Mr. Shafer, even if you swapped the colors I know where my eye would be drawn.
In regard to the seat, it does make you wonder about its comfort when the young lass would apparently rather sit in a field of weeds and thistles than sprawl on the luxurious bench that’s right there for the sprawling…
You’ve triggered a memory. When I was in Fort Collins last fall, you and I saw a ’70 or ’71 Torino convertible near the downtown area. It was black with the evolving colored stripe.
It obviously left such an impression it took me all day to remember having seen it.
Now that you mention it I do recall it however I thought it was white. Hmm.
Here at CC every car gets its day, and today from Jim and most of the comments above, even this one gets some love. Sorry, but not a fan. The most memorable thing about this vintage was the laser stripe, and not in a good way. I’ll take a ‘68-69 Torino over these by a mile, let alone a GM A Body.
It has been eons since I last saw one of these. They came and went very quickly, owing to the propensity to rust quickly and for being overshadowed by the 1972-76 Torino, which sold better despite a design that aged badly as a caricature of bloat and 1970s styling cliches. Still, I think the 1970-71 Torinos (and Fairlanes) were handsome cars and better looking than the contemporary GM A-bodies in 4-door and wagon form.
I was in elementary school when these were new, but my personal experience extended to three of these. The one I had the most experience with was friend’s mother’s 1970 Fairlane 500 2-door hardtop, which was handsome when new and memorable for being much more nicely trimmed than Mom’s base 1971 Coronet wagon. The second car was another friend’s father company car, a Torino Brougham 4-door (I cannot remember whether it was a hardtop or sedan), which seemed very luxurious, but was quickly replaced by an LTD for whatever reason. The last was a Torino Squire wagon with the fake wood sides owned by neighbor, notable for rusting out within a year; I remember the disgusted owner telling my dad he would never own another Ford again.
Your memories remind us again of how common these were once. Someone a decade younger than you or me would never believe it, based on how few of these are left.
JP, will we be getting a “truckin” update soon?
Dave
Kudos to this vintage Torino/Fairlane – especially compared to its successor. The ’72, upon introduction, reminded me of a front-loading washing machine. It still does to this day.
One of my classmates in “H/S” had a “72”. Started using it as his car about “78-9”. Lord that car was rusted !
Huge holes in both fenders behind the rear wheel wells.
Underneath the “passenger side, front door, around the trunk lid…
Doubt that car passed any more “PA inspections” after senior year..
As young marrieds in ’71 we needed our first “together” car so we looked at a ’70 coupe Torino, a ’65 Mustang 2+2, and a ’67 Volvo 122S. We ended up with the Volvo, and absolutely no regrets there, we drove it for 10 years. Must say, though, do like these ’70/71 Fairlanes/Torinos, even the 4 door sedan is quite handsome, and I’d much prefer seeing a sedan over coupe and muscle versions at shows, but how many, if any, nice 4 door sedans still exist… probably near zero.
Great find! What a rare survivor.
But I can’t believe that anyone could suggest that the ’70 Torino/Fairlane was “all new”. Far from it. Underneath that new curvaceous exterior skin (and new roof lines) the key inner body elements, doors and hard points are the same as from the ’66-’69. This is utterly obvious in the station wagon (and Ranchero) which were identical as the ’66-’69 versions except for the new front end sheet metal. The new front end of the ’70 was just all exterior skin and supporting hardware.
Also, sitting in these (which I did quite a bit when I was a car jockey in 1970-1971) made it obvious that these were the same. the (pretty sad) dash was new, but one could instantly feel all the same dimensions and hard points. And they drove the same as the previous ones.
On of my GF’s parents bought a ’70 wagon, and I thought the combination of that swoopy front end grafted on to that ’66-style body was really pathetic, and hammered home the point of how these were created. But admittedly, the coupe and Sportsroof were pretty sweet restyles, and worked quite well.
It’s nice to hear about a relatively unknown stylist getting the chance to execute his ideas like that. I never knew the back story on how this clever restyle hapened.
I figured that you would have spent a good bit of time in these (whether voluntarily or otherwise.) I am amazed at how ambitious Ford was with these in this generation’s last stand. The wheelbase stretch (like the 69 LTD) and the new 4 door hardtop suggests that some people expected this model to have a longer life span on this platform. And yes, that wagon was nothing but compromises.
Don’t take that 1″ wheelbase “stretch” too literally. Ford (and Chrysler) had been playing that game for years. All it took was to move the rear axle back on its rear springs by 0.51″ and presto! A 117″ wheelbase! We’ve debunked these nominal wheelbase stretches several times before.
Before it was Grand… it was Green! I love the car just as it is. The second to last 3/4 shot with those Vector/ET/Rocket turbine mags is priceless. What a memory of the 70’s! My ’67 Riv came with those style mags, they were ten inches wide with super wide tires. I wish I had a pic, looked Boss!
Excellent from start to finish, JP. This had me reappraising my opinion of these 1970 & ’71 Torinos, and like some others have mentioned, these are really beautiful cars. Graceful, swoopy, and sporty without being overdone at all. The rust thing must have been serious, as I don’t remember having seen but a handful of these when I was growing up.
I love that the designer had Iacocca’s approval to just go with what he had without “touching” it – that must have been such validation.
Really enjoyed this one!
Thanks, Joe. Even aside from the rust (and I think these were among the worst of anything not built in Italy) I am amazed at how few of these have survived.
Well told tale. That hidden light front is a work of genius – sunxet brochure shot is enough to get me to sign the dotted…
And the red convertible is a stunner
I know, those low-light photos are like neglige shots but for cars. 🙂
These were nice refreshes for the older 1966-1969 Fairlanes. But my personal experience with them is rust. Lots of rust. I am not surprised to hear of their rarity. It was as though the entire floorplan disintegrated within five years.
I thought that considering the average size of cars back then, that this was the best size to have. They were wide enough for six in a pinch, yet handy enough around town to handle anywhere. Mine had a 302 V8 and it moved when you used the accelerator.
The interior wasn’t bad, but it still cracked up and it was pretty non-descript. I ended up with the car because my older brother bought it, and then gave it to me when he found a purple first year “Valiant” Duster that was quite a performance machine. I got the “plain jane” ride, which was better than no ride.
I remember it got 15 miles per gallon.
I suppose the reason these sold as well as they did was because if you were a Ford or Mercury man, this is what was offered as an intermediate size and if you couldn’t or didn’t want the bigger Fords or Mercurys, it was there at an affordable price. It wasn’t a bad looking car, but there’s no way I would have ever had one had it not been given to me. My brother sold it out from under me when I left for university and didn’t need wheels.
Great story!
My grandmother’s neighbors had a 1970 Brougham four-door sedan – medium metallic blue with a black vinyl roof and the deluxe wheel covers. It was a sharp car. I remember the owner washed it every Saturday (except during the winter months). They must have had a good experience with it, because it was replaced around 1976 with a brand-new Granada Ghia sedan.
A high-school classmate’s family had a white 1970 Squire. They still owned it as of 1976, and it was in decent condition. It was ultimately replaced by a chocolate brown and white VW Bus!
Those two Torinos, at least, were not plagued by premature rust.
The Sportsroof and coupe versions pop up regularly at car shows around here. I remember as boy being impressed by the “laser stripe” on the performance versions, and still think those stripes look good today.
One minor correction: Buzz Grisinger’s last name is spelled with only one “S”. See his obituary from 2002:
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/detroitnews/name/arnott-grisinger-obituary?id=38876722
Ah, thanks for that – fixed!
My father had a 1970 Fairlane 500 wagon for over 11 years and about 250,000 miles on its 302 and 3 speed manual. I remember bad rust on the tailgate and it needing a new gearshift but the 302 was still strong. Having previously owned English Fords and a 1962 Falcon, he thought it was a tremendously fast car. I just remember my teenage self being embarrassed we had such an old car.
I always liked this generation of the Torino. In mid 1972, I went to my local Ford dealer looking for one of these models, and guess what? All they had was the next gen ’72 model, and I ended up with Gran Sport model.
Not bad, but I still think the ’70/’71 is the nicer design.
Neighbor was a bookkeeper for the local “Ford dealer” in my hometown. Worked there about “30” years I believe.
She had a new “Ford” every two and a half, three years.
Her “70 Torino” looked just like the “Fairlane 500”, sedan picture near top of the article.
For some reason, when she retired in late “73”, she got a ((almost same color)) green “Maverick fordoor”.Claimed it fit better into the garage.
Was her last car; when she passed away in “93”, the car had “16k” on the odometer.
Even though being a lifelong Mopar fan, I really do like the 1970/1971 Torino design.
My favorite was the 1970 Type N/W, a regional special sold in Washington, Oregon, and California. 601 were to be produced, but only 395 were actually built. Still-they were a somewhat common sighting when I was growing up here in Washington in the 1970s,