A very sad day :(

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Sorry about your Torino, and glad you weren't seriously hurt.
I love older cars, and Falcons aren't bad, but I'm surprised I don't see more of them around, as Ford cranked out a ton of them. However, being in the midwest in a state that likes to salt the roads, I'm sure most rusted away.
My favorite car was my 66 Plymouth Valient, and I hope to find another Valient someday.
Here's a pix of "my" 74 Gran Torino Elite, which was the top of the line for the Torino lineup.

View attachment 4-12-2008-08-54-28--chromacolor.jpg
 
I am suprised the Falcon didn't get quite the popularity the Nova did in later life. When they both came out in the early 60's, the Nova was the latecomer and didn't sell as much, with the Falcon and Valiant beating both to market. Chevy went with the Corvair for it's compact car originally. The Corvair sold good, but kept them out of the market of a small, conventionally designed compact car, so the Nova came about. I had a friend with a 6 cylinder 63 Nova in high school. The car was surprisingly roomy, and would hold 5 of us for a road trip to the beach, and get 30 mpg's doing it too!

All of these cars tended to get larger as the sixties wore on and people wanted more power. I guess the Nova won out among them all because Ford didn't really promote the Falcon as a musclecar like Chevy did. The Nova got almost all the same cool stuff as it's counterpart, the Camaro did. Chrysler came out with performance versions of the Dodge Dart too, but I guess Ford was focused on throwing the performance at the Mustang versus the Falcon

Lee Iacoca has always been a mastermind of desiging winning body styles using off the shelf parts. The Mustang was his first accomplishments, but he used the same recipe again when he did the minivan in 1984. He just basically took the meager K-car and stuck the van body on it, and the rest is history! The Chrysler minivan has gone from having 85 HP to now having almost 260 hp!

Okay guys, why is everything being blamed on "christianists" around here?!?!?! This is a car thread, and yet someone else has found a way to fire a shot at Christians about something even on this topic! Sorry, but Christians are not racists, and I am offended that you think that gay rights has something to do with their decision to remove blacks from their advertising Huh?!?!?! I do more reading than posting around here nowadays, but it seems like almost every time I get on here to look around at some cool vintage appliance restorations (and other stuff too!) there is some post where someone is blaming christians, or "right wing fundamentalists" or some other similar line for an issue. I really admire the stuff you guys do, but seeing something to the nature like "The timer broke on my 1-18, I guess because it was designed by some right wing christian homophobe" just seems to stir the pot to a boil again.

Give it a rest guys!!!!! Tolerance goes both ways!!!!
 
Christianists not Christians

There is a difference.
Christianist refers to the fundamentalist, hate-filled, gay-bashing, women trashing wing-nuts who have kidnapped the Christian church and Republican party.
OK? Not an offense to real Christians.
It is interesting to note that Jesus did not have one word to say on homosexuality, but a lot about the two favorite pastimes of the fundamentalist Christian right (the Christianists), hypocrisies and being judgmental.
Now, anyone who wants to pretend that Ford does not have a racist, anti-Semite history is going to have to pretend really hard. It is a fact that Ford here in Europe changed their advertising for Poland to reflect racial prejudice which is still very present in that society. It is a fact that the German government called them on it - as did the Brits and the French and the Italians and, in the end, Brussels.
I just adore the paranoia and "we are so persecuted" mentality of a group of people who have taken it upon themselves to deny me the most fundamental of human rights. Well, I am not going back into that closest and if you don't like it, tough. The Nazis tried it once, we are on guard now.
As you said, tolerance goes both ways, but I am not discriminating against Christians, whereas there sure is a lot of discrimination against me on the part of Christianists. Instead of giving me a lecture on my refusal to bow down and be cowed by these heirs to the Nazis, why don't you try counseling your Christian brethren on tolerance?
And if you want to support Ford in their racism, fine, but that is not my definition of tolerance.
 
Mustang Designer

The designer to which the original production Mustang (as distict from the first mid-engined show car) is most often attributed to is Joseph Oros. He headed the team developing it, although other designers also worked on it.

Iacocca was a top-level Ford executive who believed in the Mustang concept as an inexpensive sporty car based on an economy car platform and supported the car's development. Without Iacocca there possibly would have been no producton Mustang, but he didn't design the car.

It's interesting to remember that Plymouth's Barracuda was introduced within two weeks of the Mustang in April '64, with Plymouth being first. So Iacocca wasn't the only Detoit exec with cheap sporty cars on his mind. However, the Barracuda looked like a Valiant aside from the new roof, while the Mustang did a much better job at diguising it's Falcon origins and outsold the Baraccuda hugely. GM was the johnny-come-lately to the ponycar scene, waiting until the fall of '66 to introduce the Camaro and Firebird.

I remember in the late '60s my aunt Shirley had a very nice early Barracuda, white with a blue bucket seat interior, V8, air, and pushbutton Torqueflite. Her other car was a black '62 Studie Hawk GT with a four speed, so she used the Barracuda in traffic when she didn't want to deal with the heavy clutch in the Studie. The two cars made an elegant study in black and white when parked together.
 
Oh, yeah,

And that brings us to the Chargers, 'cudas and challengers
Hemi-hemi!
There's more raw sex in that idle than you'll find in any pony, no matter how pretty.
(And if that sound don't put a rise in your Levi's, you're dead and ain't noticed it yet.)

 
Funny thing about the hemi . . .

is that Chrysler really didn't want to sell more than a trickle of the later 426 hemi-head V8s. That engine was introduced in the mid '60s as a super-performance engine only, with the hopes of capitalizing on the enduring popularity of the old late '50s 392 hemi amongst the drag-race crowd, and also being able to use it in NASCAR. So it had to be a production engine, but it was expensive to build and Chrysler priced it accordingly. In about '70 it was a $700+ option on a Barracuda when a whole new Pinto or VW Beetle was $2000. The normal performance Chrysler V8, the hi-po 440, was about $350 extra and in the real world would run the pants off the 426 out of the showroom. I've talked to guys who used to street race back then and they all agree on this point.

The reason the hemi wasn't better in factory tune is that Chrysler didn't want to bother developing such a rare engine to be both powerful and streetable with a good idle and acceptable emissions. So they just detuned the crap out of it, and correctly figured most guys would order the very good 440. The few who did buy hemis were either rich poseurs, in which case it didn't matter, or serious racer types who knew exactly how to fix the problem. That entailed changing the manifolds, carburettor and ignition, after which the hemi became a truly fearsome beast that would out-power any other American engine, with the possible exception of some of the more exotic special-order Chevy big-blocks.

Ford had nothing to match the hemi or those hotter Chevy big-blocks until '69 when they introduced their own hemi, the Boss 429. This engine was based on the normal 429-460 big block but had a completely unique top end with hemi heads. It was only offered in the Boss 429 Mustang, never in a Torino, Mercury, or other bodystyle. Ford didn't even offer the regular 429 in the Mustang until '71 when the car got fatter as the 429 didn't fit, unlike the older, narrower 428 "FE" engine. The Boss 429 was even wider and took some real surgery to squeeze into those '69 and '70 Mustangs, which were the last years still based on the Falcon. All Boss 429s were partially hand assembled because of this, and cost a bundle.

Like Chrysler, Ford detuned the Boss 429 so it too was a dog out of the showroom compared to a regular 429 Torino GT or other serious muscle cars. Very few were built (about 3000 total) but their real target was that Chrysler 426 in NASCAR. Unfortunately for Ford, the France family was starting to get flack about safety on their faster racetracks and reacted by mandating carburettor restrictors to lower the power of the racing Chryslers and encourage teams to use less powerful engines. So, the Boss 429 was never a NASCAR force as it would have also been restricted to no more power than the regular 429 in racing trim.

The few lucky owers of Boss 429 Mustangs learned to do exactly what Chrysler hemi owners did: new manifolds, carburettors, and ignition and all of a sudden they had the hottest Mustangs ever built. However, due to the rarity of the engine and it's truncated producton life it never could overcome the dominance of the Chrysler hemi based powerplants in drag racing.

For me the most amazing Chrysler hemi powered car ever was the mid-engined Monteverdi Hai. Only two were built, supposedly because they scared Peter Monteverdi himself so badly that he was loathe to sell them to customers!
 
hydralique

Thank you! I'm not sure I agree with the "poseur" bit, but yeah, the whole point of the '60 hemi was the sound, not the tune.
At least for me.
Also, my very first kiss was over a hemi. Belonged to the kid down the street, three years older...muscles to match the car (not between the ears, tho'). Helped him with stuff he couldn't do easily alone (on the car, sheesh) and one day when we fired her up that rattattat-tat just had us hugging and that led to...well...anyway, let's just say this motor has a big place in my heart and, if I ever get lucky enough to find one, I so am not gonna "fix" a problem which, for me, ain't.
His dad beat the crap out of him when he "caught" us once. My parent's whole comment when the 'shameful' episode was told them in Technicolor and Hysterrama? "If you get him pregnant, you better make an honest man out of him."
Has a lot to do with my attitude towards people who want to put us back in the closet. Today, he is on marriage three (four? I lost track), sad and mainly drunk. But thirty years ago or so, nothing floated my boat like the smell of warm 'Cuda leather, the roof *finally* tucked away and Panther's coughing rattle just before you laid down a year's worth of rubber. Yup, a black 'cuda named Panther and now you know why it is panthera_pardus...
You know a lot about a lot - are you like 200 years old or just smart? Very impressed.
 
Good Lord!

I'm so sorry to hear that, Justin! That is horrible--thank goodness you're safe, though!

You'll find another girl to love, as it were...though it's never easy to lose something that is, well, such a part of us...
 
Panthera,

If your hunky bud had a hemi 'Cuda convertible he should have kept it! That is now one of the most valuable muscle cars ever, with values well into six figures. Must have been a '70 or '71, as '70 was the first year the hemi was offered in the Barracuda body (because for '70 it was no longer Valiant based and the hemi would fit), and '71 was the last year for the hemi. After that emissions problems and Nascar's carburettor restrictors made it an engine with no real reason to exist.

I have memories of a black Pantera as well, though in this case it was a deTomaso with the usual Ford 351 Cleveland, only slightly breathed on. I did some very naughty things in that car, not involving nookie but rather just breaking freeway speed limits by a factor of 2. The tall gearing of the ZF five speed transaxle means Panteras aren't quite muscle cars off the line, but unlike most muscle cars they do stop and steer competantly as well. And that tall gearing makes topping 100 quite easy in third, with two gears to go . . . not too shoddy for a car introduced in '71. Panteras are actually really nice high-speed GTs, with lots of trunk space, good a/c, a decent ride, and oh so fast :).

Iacocca had a bit to play in the Pantera story too. After his success with the Mustang he pretty much had carte blanche at Ford for years until he pi**ed off Henry II in the late '70s. In the late '60s he decided that Ford needed a Corvette competitor, but ulike Chevy who grew their own, he linked up with Alejandro deTomaso in Italy - being of Italian extraction Iacocca loved anything Italian. So Ford financed the design of the Pantera, which deTomaso had already planned as a follow up to their beautiful but flawed Ford small block powered Mangusta. Unfortunately for Ford, the result was a lot more expensive than the Corvette, and then they gave it to Lincoln-Mercury dealers to sell. L-M had no clue what to do with a 44 in. tall mid-engined exotic. After a few years Ford sold the whole project back to deTomaso who continued to build them to order until the early '90s. deTomaso was one smart cookie and maganged to make lots of money off all his dealings with Ford, including flipping the coachbuilder Ghia to them. Ford kept Ghia which is why they could plaster the Ghia name on lots of tacky Granadas and Mustang IIs in the '70s.

As far as nookie and cars go, well, been there too, mostly in my college days. Both my bud Dean and I lived in dorms at Texas A & M, and extra-curricular activities between two guys in the dorms had to be planned with great care 25 years ago as I'm sure you can imagine. Sometimes it was just easier to drive out to a deserted country road, but Dean's Karmann Ghia was a little cramped. However, my old '69 Citroen ID19 wasn't, and the seats reclined too . . .
 
Matt

Wrecked it, badly. Was already drinking back then, now that <i think of it.
'71, if I recall, but could have been a '70. Any way you slice it, the car was way cool.
Ford went to hell after they lost Iaccoca. Serves them right, too.
That was a fun time.
Still dream of that first kiss sometimes. See the garage, smell the leather and feel...well, anyway, nothing matches that first kiss - in one instant I knew.
Sort of like the lines of a real Mustang, before they got pregnant. Or a pure black w/red interior Goat...
hemihemihemihic!hemihemihemi
 
Exiting!

Good luck with this! Having the 351 Windsor rather than the 351 Cleveland engine is a plus in this case, as Cleveland parts (like thermostats) have been getting hard to find for years as production of that engine was moved to Australia in about '75, while Windsor production continued here for years and years.

Is the interior in your wrecked car still good?
 
351 Windsors

Was a great engine -
Would be totally cool if you could take the interior from your old baby and save this one. Sort of like not losing everything.
Keeping my fingers crossed for you!
 
Good news

I offered the guy $800 for the blue torino, he accepted. I paid $100 deposit, and will be going back to pay the rest and pick up the car this weekend. I've also found a place to keep my old torino, so I'm going to keep it for parts.
 

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