1962 Ford F-100 Pickup Uni Body on 2040-cars

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eBay Find of the Day: 1970 Ford Torino King Cobra prototype

Over the last decade or so, competition in NASCAR has led to some pretty funky looking racecars. And when the sport was still up and coming, the tight competition actually led to some interesting production cars. The Dodge Charger Daytona and Plymouth Superbird are perhaps the most well-known cars of the sport's "aero wars" era but the Ford Torino King Cobra might have been the most memorable of all, if not for some different homologation rules established in 1970. The Torino King Cobra never made it to production and never competed in NASCAR, but three examples exist including this one now for sale on eBay.
Designed as a successor for the aero-tuned Torino Talladega, the Torino King Cobra has a sleeker front end with hidden headlights and a sloped nose. As the story goes, NASCAR made a rule change in 1970 requiring 3,000 of the vehicles to be produced, which was substantially more than the 500 units required by the previous rule. One of the three prototypes ever built - and the only one built with the Boss 429 engine - is now for sale on eBay with a starting bid of $500,000. With a little more than three days left on the auction there are still no bids, but in the grand scheme of things this seems like a relatively fair price for a rare piece of automobile and racing history.

2014 Ford Fiesta ST

I'm not overly inclined to professional jealousy, as a rule. Sure, I go a bit green around the eyes when Ramsey draws the 911 GT3 trip to Weissach, Harley is tapped-in to drive a completely stunning Porsche 911 by Singer, or, you know, Drew Phillips gets to shoot a Lamborghini Veneno in the middle of a desert like some sort of sheik. I hate you guys...
Honestly though, one of the new car events that dug me the most, was when our Steven J. Ewing got to fling the Ford Fiesta ST around some hot corner of Europe. What goes around comes around, I suppose, as Mr. Ewing himself espoused an envious nature of the Focus ST trip that came before.
The good news in all this covetous intra-office behavior? All the cars mentioned, and specifically the Fiesta ST, are just wonderful to drive. I can say that with more confidence than ever now, having joined Ford for a good bit of Fiesta-flinging myself. In my case, the locale was slightly more pedestrian (Michigan not Portugal), and the car in question was the five-door version of the Fiesta ST that we get here in The States, as opposed to the three-door number they get across the pond.

Auto critic calls out Corvette, Mustang and Cherokee faithful

Most automotive purists fear change, but not without reason. Change, after all, did kill big-block V8s, along with most station wagons and manual transmissions. But change has also brought with it far more performance, safety and fuel economy - not to mention ridding the world of shag carpet interiors, bias-ply tires and those horrible motorized seatbelts of the early '90s.
By this time next year, the Chevy Corvette, Jeep Cherokee and next-generation Ford Mustang will all be on sale and will all, in some way, have angered or offended purists. To those critics, Mark Phelan of the Detroit Free Press is preemptively telling them to stop complaining - at least until they've all been driven. From the Corvette's square taillights and the Cherokee's radical nose to whatever pony car purists will harp on the 2015 Mustang for, Phelan's column points out the positives of automotive evolution and the negatives of staying the course for too long. That's fair enough, but do you think Phelan is on point, or all wet? Head on over to the Detroit Free Press to read his words, then have your say in Comments.