You look at the car above, and you see a generic 1970s midsized automobile. A typical American behemoth with a giant exterior and a surprisingly small interior. But let me try something.
Now you know what it is. It’s a Ford Torino. The car that Starsky and Hutch used to solve many crimes in Bay City. And the car that 40 years later would be Clint Eastwood’s most prized possession as he told fiercely gangsters to get off his lawn while holding a rifle.
The Ford Torino is probably the weirdest popular culture icon. For most of its life, it was perhaps the least interesting automobile you could buy. Imagine if in 2044, they made a movie about an old man with a mint condition classic called Accord EX-L. But let’s learn about this bland car that somehow became cool.
In 1962, Ford brought out a car called the Fairlane. For an American public that was used to one standard size of cars and had been bewildered by the arrival of compacts in 1960, Ford just made things even more confusing. It slotted between the full sized Galaxie and the compact Falcon. It was the first midsized car, or intermediate as they were called then.
For 1968, the Fairlane was redesigned and in the spirit of the nameplate treadmill, a new top-of-the-line model was added while the Fairlane was decontented and pushed down. The new name was Torino, named after the Italian city that’s home of Fiat. Ford had considered using that name 4 years earlier, but Lee Iacocca said that it seemed too exotic and foreign for customers “West of the Hudson River”, so the name they chose was Mustang. But apparently, tastes had changed dramatically in 4 years.
For 1970, Ford’s intermediates were redesigned, in 1971, the Fairlane name disappeared.
For 1972, the Torino was thoroughly redesigned. It was longer, lower, and wider as usual. It also ditched the old unibody construction for the traditional body-on-frame to provide more of that “big car feel”. Styling was much more voluptuous and expressive that year, with an even more pronounced coke bottle shape. The one downside was severely hampered rear visibility owing to the thick c pillars. 1972 also saw the launch of the famous Gran Torino trim.
The one that Clint Eastwood owned was the Sportsroof, distinguished by its fastback roofline that made it look rakish. But it was the exception amongst Torinos.
By 1974, the Torino was absolutely massive having added 4 inches due to the 5 mph bumpers. This made the Torino longer than the full sized 1965 Ford Galaxie! With vinyl roof and opera windows, the top of the line Brougham was the Broughamiest Brougham that ever Broughamed. Appropriately, that year saw the end of the Sportsroof.
Starsky and Hutch was a detective show starring the hard edged David Michael Starsky (played by Paul Glaser) and the softer more intellectual Kenneth “Hutch” Hutchinson (played by David Soul). The show was unique by how close the two characters were emotionally, which was unusual in the toxic masculinity-soaked world of the 1970s. A few Hollywood bigwigs went so far as to speculate that they were gay. The show lasted for 4 seasons from 1975 to 1979 and spawned a movie in 2004 starring Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller.
It was originally planned to have Starsky drive a Camaro, but Ford had a product placement deal with Spelling-Goldberg (they also made Charlie’s Angels). When they looked at the motor pool, they picked out two red Ford Torinos equipped with the 5.8 liter V8. They also included a custom painted stripe. Glaser when he first saw the car remarked that it looked like a “striped tomato”. It was used in one episode and the nickname stuck.
It should be clear by now that the perception of the Torino from its famous roles could not be more different from reality. The Torino was a blandly reliable transportation device. It was meant to get middle America comfortably to work, school, and Grandma’s house. It was little different from all the other midsized cars of its day, just like today’s Toyota Camry or Nissan Altima.
Personally, I would’ve had Starsky and Hutch drive the Ford Elite. It was based on the Torino, but got unique sheetmetal that made it a better competitor to the Chevrolet Monte Carlo. If you want a car that will make your stars look cool, why not use a car that was designed to be cool in the first place?
But all this screentime could not cover up a basic problem with the Torino; its sales were on a steady decline. The energy crisis was most to blame, wiping out demand for the giant full sized and intermediate cars. And so, 1976 was the Torino’s last year…
… sort of. For 1977, Ford gave the Torino new squared-off styling and renamed it LTD II. Coupe models could be had with a paintjob reminiscent of Starsky’s. Ford’s strategy for the crisis in big car sales was to stick its head in the sand. While GM was downsizing all of its full sized cars, Ford believed buyers would be repelled by this radical move and decided to stay the course for that year. They would offer the traditional full sized LTD and for those who wanted something smaller there was the LTD II. Ford got it completely wrong and could only watch helplessly as GM’s slimfast cars surged past in sales.
But there at least was one clever move in this. They chose to rename the Elite as Thunderbird. And the new name allowed Ford to nearly catch the Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme in the extremely lucrative personal luxury coupe market.
But for 1980, even Ford had to get with the times and the LTD II was dropped off and it was curtains for the Torino platform.
But still, the icon of the Torino lives on. It just shows you what good product placement can do.