Hi, and no it's not a typo, I'm delving into as much of the history of Ford Cobra's in 69 and 70, the ones that utilised the Torino body....bare with me...
Apparently, these Cobra's, and this only applies to the 69 and early build 70 Cobra's that used the Torino body, were not Torino's, they were, as far as Ford was concerned, Cobras.
I'm hoping someone may be able to clarify or hopefully come up with a Ford media release that sheds some light on this?
It does get a mention in several obscure areas on the interwebs and in one book I've read where it straight out states these cars are
not Torino's, they are 'Cobras'. If you happen to watch Dennis Collins vidoes on Youtube, his latest one where he's auctioning off 200+ cars, he also mentions they were not Torino's. Sure he could be wrong but it does highlight that confusion reigns.
The change to Torino on the actual cars appears to come in around Dec 1969 when the 70 model cars started to be referred to as 'Torino Cobras'. This could have taken place for any number of reasons, convenience and to avoid confusion but most likely because everyone was referring to them as Torino's anyway.
Early build 70 Cobra's so far, don't appear to have Torino badges on them, only 'FORD', which further adds to the mystery, later build cars started to have the 'Torino' script......so maybe the factory just ran out of Torino badges in mid 69?
It's all very jumbled and confusing with some advertising not mentioning the word Torino and some does, so no one appeared to really know what to call them and, in the end, to save confusion, Torino won out.
Anyway, an interesting footnote in Fords history, were the early build 70 Torino's the last Ford Factory cars to be Cobra's and only Cobra's.....
(Fetches popcorn)
