Original vintage 1960s Ford advertisement for the company's Torino Talladega muscle car.
Dimensions: 10.25 inches wide by 13.5 inches high.
The Ford Torino Talladega is a muscle car produced by Ford for a scant few weeks in 1969. It was named for the Talladega Superspeedway, which opened the same year. The Talladega was a special, more aerodynamic version of the Torino / Fairlane produced specifically to make Ford even more competitive in NASCAR racing, and it was sold to the public only because homologation rules required a certain minimum number of cars (500 in 1969) be produced and made available.
All production Talladegas were equipped with the new 428 Cobra Jet, which, while very powerful and reliable, was intended as a street engine for Ford's muscle cars as it developed high torque at low RPMs, rather than being a high-revving race engine.
The Torino Talladega did exactly what Ford hoped it would do on the racing circuit: it won 29 Grand National races during the 1969 and 1970 NASCAR seasons - far more than any other model. Further, it won the 1969 NASCAR Manufacturer's Championship with David Pearson winning the Driver's Championship, and it won the 1969 ARCA Manufacturer's Championship with Benny Parsons winning that Driver's Championship. Chrysler's initial competitor was the Dodge Charger 500, which proved to be aerodynamically inferior to the Talladega, in particular on NASCAR's super speedways (tracks of a mile or more in length).
1969 was Ford's last year of factory involvement in racing of any kind for several years. Following Congressional hearings in which they were questioned about the R&D costs of racing vs. improving fuel economy and safety, Ford completely abandoned all of their racing programs, starting with the 1970 season.
Subsequently, most of the NASCAR and ARCA race teams that were running Fords continued to run their 1969 Talladegas in 1970 without any factory support, when it became apparent that their Talladegas were aerodynamically superior to the 1970 Torinos Ford had intended to be the Talladega's replacement.
After the 1970 season, NASCAR effectively banned the "aero cars" by restricting all of these "production" cars to having to compete with engines no larger than 305 cubic inches of displacement, and the competitive history of the Talladega (and its aerodynamically developed rivals) was essentially over.
Today, the Torino Talladega is considered a collectible car. A special purpose-built vehicle with a strong racing history, it had major links to the NASCAR teams of 1969 that achieved great success during the Aero Wars. The few examples that still exist today, do so in very limited numbers. Until recently, their values had not risen nearly as high as the Mopar "aero cars" in spite of their rarity and their track successes during the Aero Wars years. Some experts have assumed that this was due to the sheer outrageousness of the Dodge Charger Daytona and the Plymouth Superbird, with their bolted on huge rear wings and nose cones.
The winged Aero Warriors graced the nation's speedways from September 1969 until September 1972, when major sanctioning body rule changes ended their reign. Their legacy is one of success, having won over 45 percent of the NASCAR races they competed in, as well as scoring a total of eleven victories in ARCA and USAC.