1969 Ford Torino Talladega review from North America

The gas gage is unreliable - hey, it's nearly 40 years old...

This is a very rare muscle car that ushered in the "aero wars" in racing (especially in NASCAR). It is one of only 754 total units (1 of only 743 production models) that were built by Ford specifically to homologate Ford's race cars in 1969. At that time, the cars that appeared in NASCAR had to start life as real cars, and a minimum of 500 had to be built and sold to the public by a manufacturer before they would be approved for racing. This is the car that dominated the super-speedways in 1969, and led Chrysler to build the Daytona - too little, too late. It continued to do extremely well in 1970 when Bill France finally pulled the plug on the specially built aero cars from that ere.

This car has tons of torque from the 428 CJ. This car handles like most cars from the 60s, which is poor by today's standards, but, very good for 1969 technology. It also has great top end. From the factory, they were rated for a top speed of 135+. However, that was a very conservative rating for these cars. The styling of these cars makes them appear to be flying, even when they are parked.

It is really nice to have a rare muscle car from the late sixties that not only looks really fast, it is. It is a real head turner and a head scratcher for most, as these cars were so rare that very few people actually saw one when they were new, except on Sunday afternoons. These cars were all built during a six week period in January and February of 1969 at Ford's Atlanta plant, using parts that were designed and fabricated by the Holman-Moody Racing Team to help Ford with their latest Going Thing, during their Total Performance years. This car will absolutely scream when that big 4 barrel kicks in.

These cars so dominated the high speed tracks on Sundays that NASCAR actually rewrote the rules to virtually outlaw them and the others that followed in their wake.