Has anybody ever cloned a Talledega???

[Daytona R/T SE]

Just thinking    As my Daytona clone is getting to the point where it's only weeks away from going to my buddie's shop for paint...My mind begins to wander and I get to thinking about other possible future projects 

I'd like to buy a "regular" 69 Torino and clone it into a Talledega some day 

I'd like to deviate from stock a little bit and put in a bucket seat/console interior and a 4-speed

What are the differences between the Standard Torino body and the Talledega body?

Here's what I've got so far:

Front bumper is a cut and re-welded rear bumper.

The fenders are extended.

There's a new panel put in front of the hood.

The front turn signals are relocated to behind the grill-they came off of a ? kind of Ford?

Something's up with the lower rocker panels...

Anybody have pictures of the fender and other modifications without paint on them?

What's a rust-free plain Jane 302/automatic '69 Torino fastback go for these days?

Just pondering a thought I wouldn't even start messing with it until my Daytona is done....

Thoughts?

[Aero426]

The contour of the rocker panels are re-rolled to make them lower profile on the race cars.   Because of this, the The bottom of the Talladega fender does not line up with the standard Torino rocker panels.  It can be covered with the optional piece of rocker trim.

The turn signals are '69 Bronco.   The remote hood latch is a 69 Lincoln Continental.   Grille and headlight bezels are from a 69 Torino Cobra.   But the headlight bracing items behind them are unique to Talladega and Spoiler II. 

The front fenders and header panel are available in fiberglass.   Steel parts are hard to find and pricey.

I would imagine you could buy a nice small block Torino fastback for $5000-$6500.   Less money if it needed some work. 

Overall,  I would not do a clone myself.   I'd look for a real Cyclone Spoiler II.   They cost less than a Talladega because they do not have a big block.     

[Daytona R/T SE]

Thanks, Doug.  Some good info there  The idea behind making a clone would be so that I could build it my own way, like the 4-speed with a console/bucket seat interior, maybe a non stock exterior color. Possibly air conditioning. I wouldn't want to do that to a "Real" Talledega...I'd be making the fender extensions and header panel myself from steel-good to know there are fiberglass "Three dimensional patterns" Available to go by...

Been there....

Done that... 

[WingCharger]

Did my recent  Torino V. Charger 500 thread spark this?

I love  Talladegas. They are my favorite  Ford car, and one  day, I hope to clone one. (After the  Daytona of course... )

Wimbeldon White Exterior
Black Hood
Black Interior
Bucket Seats
Console
Four Speed
A/C

If you do  this, it  would definantly help me in  the future. So...DO IT!!!!!

[jonw29]

Daytona.You can go to WWW.TORINOCOBRA.COM and then to Rich Ochs technical page.He has some good pics of the front fenders.I hope this helps.Jon Wood

[Daytona R/T SE]

Daytona.You can go to WWW.TORINOCOBRA.COM and then to Rich Ochs technical page.He has some good pics of the front fenders.I hope this helps.Jon Wood

Cool    I'll check it out 

[jonw29]

There is a real one on the 'bay.

[PocketThunder]

There is a real one on the 'bay.

Hey that is about an hour north of me.   

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Cars-Trucks___1969-Ford-Talladega-Project_W0QQitemZ350123298833QQddnZCarsQ20Q26Q20TrucksQQddiZ2282QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Cars_Trucks?hash=item350123298833&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=72%3A727%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

[Daytona R/T SE]

There is a real one on the 'bay.

Man that car is crusty

[PocketThunder]

There is a real one on the 'bay.

Man that car is crusty

C'mon!  We're in Minnesota, what would you expect?     I want to take my car to get acid dipped but i'm afraid i wouldnt get anything back. 

[jonw29]

That is certainly not the sunny south.

[jonw29]

If you were to have seen my Talladega when I started,1)You would have questioned my sanity.2) You would have thought that it was rescued from farther north than Minn.

[Daytona R/T SE]

You should see my other 69 Charger...it looks like it spent 20 years packed in damp rock salt.

Or possibly buried in a "water-proof" underground vault in Oklahoma 

[Mike DC]

Talledegas/Cyclones are cool.

We Mopar guys hate to admit it, but Ford really did a slicker job on those cars than Mopar did.  They're mostly as fast as the wing cars but they're so much less cartoonish.  The wing cars are faster and much more stable but it came at a major price.

If the Mopar wing cars had been as subdued as the Fords then all the aero cars might have raced two or three seasons before NASCAR finally kicked them out.  I'll bet Ford also didn't have the crazy time trying to sell the street versions like Mopar did with the Superbirds.



And the rocker panel thing on the Fords was genius.  So much aero gain, for so little trouble, and with so little negative effect on the car's stock appearance from the stands. 

 

[hemigeno]

And the rocker panel thing on the Fords was genius.  So much aero gain, for so little trouble, and with so little negative effect on the car's stock appearance from the stands. 

Chrysler had their own version of the rocker panel thing in 1968 (before the Talladega & Cyclone hit the track) - it was just done on the race version of the '68 Charger and not the street version.  Cotton Owens and his crew took a race Charger and lowered the unibody around the frame stubs by 2" without modifying the rockers.  IIRC, I think they even had to fab up a custom shortened intake manifold that allowed the engine air cleaner assembly to fit under the hood - since the engine could not be lowered due to the oil pan depth.  It looked stock (until you checked into things a little further), but allowed the car to be lower to the racing surface without failing NASCAR's minimum track clearance standards. 

If they'd have offered that lowered package in a street version, NASCAR would have probably had a hard time preventing it from being used on the track.  More than likely, the structural surgery they'd have had to do on a street version of a lowered car would have meant submitting it as a separate model to the Feds for safety testing requirements.  Not worth the economic investment they'd have had to make, so it didn't go any further than the track. 

I think the 2" lowered '68 Charger ran at the Firecracker 400 race at Daytona, but Doug probably knows the exact details way better than I do.  That was its last official race though, as NASCAR caught the changes during inspection and essentially outlawed it from then on.  Chrysler used that particular lowered car for mule/testing duty with the 1969 aero program though, so the car wasn't totally useless after that.

[Ghoste]

As far as sales, I don't think the Ford aero cars exactly flew off the showroom floors either.  Ford put all their marketing push behind the Mustang and did little for the intermediates.  At least with the "cartoon" Mopar you could get bucket seats, a console, a four speed, a couple of engine options, more color choices.  I like the aero Fords okay but as far as "admitting" they are slicker, sorry but plain jane is more like it.  I guess the cartoon car is just more my cup of tea. 

[BPTRacing]

As far as sales, I don't think the Ford aero cars exactly flew off the showroom floors either.  Ford put all their marketing push behind the Mustang and did little for the intermediates.  At least with the "cartoon" Mopar you could get bucket seats, a console, a four speed, a couple of engine options, more color choices.  I like the aero Fords okay but as far as "admitting" they are slicker, sorry but plain jane is more like it.  I guess the cartoon car is just more my cup of tea. 

I Agree - and

Da-da-da Dat's all FOLK'S

[Aero426]

There were not that many FoMoCo aero cars to sell -  750 of the Fords and 500 of the Mercs.    Personally, I think the whole "they sat on lots" stories are built around a few select instances and the stories become larger than life as time goes on.   

Of the 2500 Mopar aero cars, how many do you think were left unsold by January 1971?   

[69_500]

Of the 2,500 Mopar Aero cars I'd say that probably around 10% were still unsold in January of 1971. With most of those being Superbirds, just my wild estimate.

[Magnumcharger]

 

[Mike DC]

Well, in general I just think the Fords (as well as Mopar's original 69 C500) were subdued enough to be NASCAR-feasible.  The Mopar wing cars weren't.

Mopar had to have realized that NASCAR was gonna kick the Daytona off the track as soon as it could find a justification.  Maybe they wanted to develop it anyway just on principle, but they were crazy if they though Bill France was going to let the wings reign for any real length of time. 

------------------------------------------------   


And the wing cars are, well, umm . . . goofy looking.  I love them, but they're still goofy looking when you don't know the story behind the bolt-ons.  That wing is really so badass because it WAS 100% functional.  But if you don't know that, it looks like the worst of the ricers' wing ideas.

Just ask anyone who saw "Joe Dirt" without knowing about the factory roots of the wing & nosecone.  The producers picked that car for the job because most of the uninformed audience would think it looked like somebody had an accident with a JC Whitney catalog. 

[BPTRacing]

  The producers picked that car for the job because most of the uninformed audience would think looked like somebody had an accident with a JC Whitney catalog. 

Thank you 

[Ghoste]

That, or David Spade being a big Mopar fan wanted a cool Mopar in one of his movies again and suggested something really desirable and awe inspiring like a Daytona but then realizing that Joe Dirt is Joe Dirt, they would have to make the car look like a wreck.

[Mike DC]

Yeah, I heard Spade picked the car himself. 



Who knows?  I'm not so sure Spade couldn't have known it was a desirable car.  Maybe he's justs a fan of Daytonas for real. 

But at the same time, the car worked for its job in the movie because it comes off as goofy.  Most of the audience didn't understand that a shiny-looking Daytona is worth the price of a house. 

[69_500]

I believe that Spade is actually quite the Mopar fan. Just go back through the movies he has done over the years, and it seems that he is always riding around in a Mopar from the 60's to 70's.

[Ghoste]

I understand he's a regular at Spring Fling in Cali.  He has or had a Road Runner for sure and I believe some others.  Since Spade co-wrote the script and his pal Snadler was an executive producer it wouldn't have been hard for him to get Mopars in there.  In any case, now we're wandering way off track since debating whether or not a Daytona looks cartoonish is a purely subjective opinion.  You think they look goofy and I don't.  We both win.
So, has anybody cloned a Talladega?