Yes, it does look familiar, and yes, it is Starsky's very own
TV Torino. But you can forget all the athletics you've seen this car performing each week on Starsky and Hutch
as the two heroes try their best to clean up L.A. There's nothing hairy about the car at all, aside from the white
paint accent; it's a box stock Ford Torino.
There are a couple of unusual things about the car, though. No. 1: It's the first TV car to have spawned replicas.
Before the Torino went out of production, you could duplicate this one through your local Ford dealer. No. 2: When
we got our hands on the car for a few days recently, we discovered, to our delight, the following message executed
in Dymo tape and stuck to the dashboard near the steering wheel: "DO NOT EXCEED 50 MPH."
No one from the Starsky and Hutch entourage
is too sure about what will happen to the car with the Torino a thing of the past. Ford would like to see Starsky
flying around in something current, but for the first part of the new season the '76 Torino will remain. However,
insiders are looking for a spectacular crash in an upcoming script. It fills a lot of footage, and it's the same
method S&H producer Aaron Spelling used to dispose of the Mod Squad's old Mercury woody when It had outlived
its usefulness. |