Wednesday, February 20, 2008

I've been too busy to post this before, but ever heard of a Cobra Falcon?

1970 1/2 429 SCJ Falcons were the stripped down Fairlane which was a stripped down Torino... this was a departure of the Falcon being the compact car that was built up to December of 1969, it now was a 2 dr sedan.

Ford brochures showed that the 429 CJ and the 429 SCJ could be had in any of the intermediate sized cars, but not the station wagons.
One was in the Feb 1990 Musclecar Review, and I was going to get around to posting just how rare these are, and how you've probably never heard of them either, I never had... but the March '08 Musclecar Enthusiast has one. It's also here: http://www.ostalecki.com/ostalecki.asp?page=itemsforsale&type=273

And what do you know, one also shows up in the March '08 Muscle Car Review, and both the white on in Musclecar Enthusiast and the yellow one in Muscle Car Review are now owned by Jerry Ostaleki, and both are talked about in both articles (without mentioning that the other would be in the other magazine) probably because the magazines are owned by Primedia, and Amos publishing companies.

According to the Marti report, 90 Falcons were optioned with the 429 CJ Ram Air, according to the 1990 Musclecar Review story Ford built 126 SCJ Falcons. Anyway you look at it, they are rarer than Super Stock factory cars now, as they weren't treated very well in the musclecar drag wars of 70-71-72. The Super Stockers were, adn there are more still around. The guess of the owner of the Cobra Falcon in this months magazine is that only about a dozen exist.

For more on the Torino's, Talladegas, Cyclones, King Cobra, Twister Torino's, TorinoCobras, Falcons, and the '70 Torino sales brochure go here.. perhaps the best webiste for the Torino http://www.torinocobra.com/main1.htm

According to Ford Production Facts printed in 1988...
The 429 was available in all models of Torino, Fairlane and Falcon 1970-1971.
The Cobra was available in all models except the Falcon 1970-1971.
The SCJ was available in all except the station wagon 1970-1971.
In 1970-71 (2305) Fairlane and Torino sports-roofs (aka fastbacks) and formal-roofs (aka hardtops) were built with the non-GT option and the 429 CJ, of these 97 were 4 doors and 11 were station wagons.
In 1970-71 (811) Torino sports-roof, formal-roofs and 4 doors were equipped with the 429 SCJ according to the book all were 4 speed cars.
[So for both '70 and '71 model years combined, there were 811 other non-GT, non-Cobra Torinos built.
and for an interesting tidbit (4)429 SCJ 4-speed ram air Station wagons were commissioned for Berkley Ford in Calif.