Even the most astute muscle-car heads may know little to nothing about this 1970 Ford Torino King Cobra, which is currently listed on eBay with a buy-it-now price of $459,900.
-That’s because this is a one-of-two (or three) prototypes built by Ford Racing for competition in NASCAR. At that time, NASCAR required homologation; if a car was going to race, a minimum number (500 in the 1960s) of production road-going variants had to be built. This spawned some of the craziest-looking muscle cars of the late ’60s such as the 1969 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II, 1969 Ford Torino Talladega, 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona, and 1970 Plymouth SuperBird.
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These cars all shared one common trait: They were “Aero” cars. Featuring long, aerodynamic noses and spoilers, they were designed for NASCAR’s big ovals and were released in limited volume to the public in order to satisfy the 500-unit requirement. Both Ford and Chrysler saw moments of dominance in the late ’60s and 1970 as their aerodynamic cars could reach top speeds of nearly 200 mph.
-NASCAR, however, soon decided that they were too fast and unsafe, and issued new rules for the 1971 season stating that all “Aero” cars would be limited in displacement to 5.0 liters. That effectively made them obsolete in NASCAR stock racing, and the concept was largely abandoned. At around the same time, NASCAR changed the homologation rules so that 3000 street-going versions of a given stock car had to be built instead of 500.
-According to various sources, that change combined with the new “Aero” car rules, and a drastic decrease in Ford’s racing budget, snuffed out the prospects for the car you see here, the Torino King Cobra. So after having only a few prototypes built, and having never seen a stock car race, the King Cobra project was abandoned.
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Fortunately in 1971, longtime NASCAR team owner Bud Moore scooped up two of the King Cobra prototypes. Sometime later, this particular example was purchased and received a full restoration, but instead of its original Ford 460-cubic-inch engine, it was given a 429-cubic-inch V-8 to match the other prototype(s).
-The seller claims that the car is in decent condition even with 43,235 miles on the clock, and we wouldn’t expect any less considering the eye-popping asking price. That said, in the realm of classic muscle cars, this one could be considered a paradigm of rareness and will certainly make some collector happy, that is, if it sells.
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from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/1JYLm3s
via Agya
