Ford Torino SCJ 429 Is An Over-Powered And Under The Radar Muscle Classic

Ranking the greatest muscle cars is like compiling lists of most beautiful cars or greatest rock albums: the results will always annoy almost everybody whose favorite didn’t come top, and plenty of excellent candidates always get overlooked.

The 1970 Ford Torino GT is a case in point. This model struggles to muscle its way into any ‘greatest muscle car’ list yet I think it’s one of the best looking cars of the period, and it definitely wasn’t short of performance. Ford redesigned the Torino for the new decade, giving it coke bottle styling and, on the Sportsroof fastback, an almost horizontal rear screen that was crying out for you to tick the black window slats option.

Those slats looked just like the ones on Lamborghini’s Miura, and was it a coincidence that the fastback styling and hexagon pattern in the rear light cluster was more than a little reminiscent of the 1968 Lamborghini Marzal Concept car? Almost certainly not.

Top dog in the Torino’s performance line for 1970 was the 429 SCJ (Super Cobra Jet), an example of which is getting ready to cross the block at Barrett Jackson’s January 2022 Scottsdale sale. An un-optioned GT came with a lowly 220-hp 302 cu-in. (5-liter) V8, but when equipped with the 429 (7-liter) and the Drag Pack option that mandated either 3.9:1 gears or the even shorter 4.30:1 ratio fitted to this car (which must make freeway driving absolute hell), power jumped to 375 hp.

Related: The 500+ HP L88-Code Corvette Was 1968’s Scariest C3

Motor Trend took an SCJ with the 3.9:1 rear end to 60 mph in just 5.8 seconds and down the quarter in 13.99 seconds, which was pretty hot for a 4000 lb car half a century ago.

Now fully restored and repainted in the original Calypso Coral color and a Deluxe Marti Report showing it’s the only Torino GT SCJ built with this mechanical spec and paint combo, and one of just 241 SCJ 429s built in 1970, it comes with a terrifying $200,000 of receipts according to this Barrett-Jackson listing. But if Hagerty’s price guide is anything to go buy it will sell for less than half that amount.

If you fancy a handsome, rare, and hugely powerful chunk of muscle that’s undeservedly under the radar, this Torino could be just what you’ve been looking for.