The Rarest Ford Torino Ever Made

Summary

• The rarest Ford Torino ever made is not a Ford Gran Torino, but the 1970 Ford Torino Twister Special, released in a limited run of 90 units.
• The Torino Twister Special was exclusive to Midwestern Ford dealers in 1970, with only 30 out of the 90 units equipped with a 4-speed manual transmission.
• The Ford Torino Twister Special was a powerhouse featuring a 7.0-Liter 429 Cobra Jet V8 engine, making it a unique and rare piece of American automotive history.

When it comes to the rarest production Ford Torino ever built, most people guess wrong. They think it’s the Gran Torino that Starsky and Hutch made famous, or maybe some other well-known muscle car variant. But the truth is more surprising.

The rarest Torino actually rolled off the assembly line in 1970, two years before Ford even introduced the Gran Torino nameplate. Only 90 examples were ever made, making it one of the most elusive American muscle cars of the era. This ultra-rare machine was called the 1970 Ford Torino Twister Special, and unless you were shopping for a Ford in the Midwest during the peak muscle car years, you probably never heard of it. The story behind this forgotten piece of American automotive history explains why it’s become such a prized find for collectors today.

HotCars has sourced data and history for this article from material published by Ford, as well as auction listings found on Mecum and Bring a Trailer. Additional sources include the M2 Machines Wiki,

A Look At The 1970 Ford Torino Twister Special

Here’s What Made the 1970 Ford Torino Twister So Special

• The 1970 Ford Torino Twister Special was exclusive to a handful of Midwestern Ford dealers.
• 1970 was the one and only model year for the Ford Torino Twister Special.
• Only 30 of the 90 Torino Twister Specials came with a 4-speed manual transmission.

The Twister Specials Were Part of a Halo Sales Tactic

The 1970 Ford Torino Twister Special was created alongside a Mustang Twister Special, which we’ve covered in the past, and sold exclusively in the Midwest.

The car was built for the Kansas City ordering district. Some reports suggest that the car was exclusive to dealers in and around Kansas City, Kansas, but the district served other cities and states as far away as Arkansas. Exact locations may be impossible to track down, but we do know for certain that they made 90 of these, and they were intended as promotional pieces, or “halo” cars, more so than actual sales models.

Ford’s big idea was that you would hear about this Ford Torino Cobra down at the local dealership that delivers 370 horsepower and can do zero-to-sixty in just six seconds, and you’d say “this, I gotta see.”

The Ford Torino Twister Special Was A Powerhouse

Note that the specs listed here are based on the mass-market versions of the 1970 Ford Torino (an awesome car in its own right) and numbers listed in auctions. The truth is that the Twister Special hasn’t been extensively tested, given its scarcity, but it likely showed some improvements over even the very best-equipped Ford Torinos, given that the Twister was outfitted with a Rochester four-barrel carb, and a 3.50 Traction-Lok differential.

Driving a Torino Twister Special was described as a “unique” experience. The car didn’t have any power brakes or power steering, so getting behind the wheel felt a bit like, well, throwing a harness on a twister and trying to ride it like a horse. It literally drove like a tornado.

The Ford Torino Twister Special Looked Really Cool, Too

Besides the fact that the Twister Special drove like no other Torino, it looked like no other Torino, either. The Twister Special came standard with a rear spoiler and a lip spoiler, a cartoony Twister Special logo sticker on the back right and left panels (think Tazz to the Plymouth Road Runner’s cartoon Road Runner), with the usual Cobra branding on the doors and the rear, it had a louvered rear window, and it was painted in a flashy Calypso Coral red.

Here’s Why The 1970 Ford Torino Twister Special Is Still So Rare

At present, only 29 of the 90 Ford Torino Twister Specials are accounted for, making it one of the rarest production muscle cars in the world at less than a third of the total production run.

You no doubt have your usual reasons why these cars don’t pop up on auction sites all that often. Muscle car owners in the 1970s loved to drive fast down dirt roads, they put a lot of wear and tear on their engines, and the fact that any V8 produced from 1965 to 1975 is still with us today is a miracle.

But the Torino Twister Special, as something of a gimmicky promotional car, had very low resale value for the early decades of its life. While their neighbors were buying brand new Ford Torino GTs and then Torino Sports, and then the Ford Elites that replaced the whole lineup, Twister Special owners were getting zero offers on their super-rare muscle cars.

This meant that owners had no reason not to customize them to the point where they weren’t worth selling off, and they had no reason not to scrap it for parts once the transmission was shot and their buddy’s sedan needed a new alternator.

As for how much the Twister Special cost new? We don’t know. The exact MSRP isn’t listed in any readily available Ford material, and the auction listings won’t say. A brand new 1970 Torino Cobra would cost you $3,270 to start with, so all we can really estimate is more than that.

Mecum Estimates A Sale Price Of Up To $180,000 For An Original Automatic Ford Torino Twister Special

These things don’t hit the market frequently enough to connect the dots, crunch the numbers, and give you an average sale price. But a listing posted on Mecum as part of the Indy 2024 Lot S325 estimated something in the range of $160,000 to $180,000. As they say, a car is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, but the scarcity of this piece of Ford’s history is impossible to deny.

Even Toy Models of the Ford Torino Twister Special are Hard to Find

As of the time of this writing, searching for replicas and reproductions of the Ford Torino Twister Special turns up zilch. M2 Machines produced a 1/64 scale toy model of the Mustang Twister Special as part of their Auto-Drivers line, and they produced a 1970 Ford Torino Cobra Custom that a skilled hand could modify to look just like a Twister Special. But the Ford Torino Twister Special remains so hard to find at present that it won’t even turn up in diecast form on a list of rare and expensive Hot Wheels toys.

There Are Still 61 Ford Torino Twister Special Barn Finds Out There to be Made

If there’s one cool thing about 61 of the 90 Ford Torino Twister Specials seeming to have disappeared off the face of the Earth, it’s that there are still some awesome barn finds to be made for 2024. You might never get the chance to hunt for buried pirate gold, but there are thousands of cars like the Torino Twister Special out there just waiting for someone to dust them off and bring them roaring back to life.

If you’ve got an uncle who used to tear it up at the quarter mile, a grandpa who sold cars in Minnesota for a few years back in the day, or a grandma with a wild streak, be a good niece, nephew, or grandkid, help them clean out their garages, sheds, and backyards. Who knows what you might find, and how much they’d be willing to cut you in for.

Sources: Ford, Mecum, Bring a Trailer, M2 Machines Wiki, Silodrome.

Alexander Axel