This 1969 Ford Torino GT Had One Owner Since New; He Gave a Middle Finger To Keep It

The intro to this story is not in any way, shape, or form intended as an insulting or derogatory description of an episode in a Ford guy’s life. Quite the contrary, it accurately represents cold, hard facts. It all started in 1969 when Robert Quast bought a new car for himself and his new wife – they’d had been married for just six months.

Like any harmonious couple, the decision was consensual – the man only requested a fastback, black bucket seats, and a console. (Ladies, if any piston addicts living next to you have demands above this level, feel free to curse him to drive an electric car for the rest of eternity). Oh, and it would have been nice to be a FoMoCo product – Bob Quast was a dedicated fan of the Blue Oval since he bought his first car in 1958.

The Quasts agreed on a Ford Torino GT, optioned to the liking of both spouses – the Sportsroof line (remember, Ford didn’t use the term ‘fastback’), the bucket seats, and the entire console proudly housing the shift lever fulfilled his (very short and easily satisfiable) list of preferences.

The happy couple then set themselves on a path that would have led them to live the American Dream, but then little ones came, and Bob’s plans with his Torino fell short of the family budget. The dreaded statement finally landed one day: ‘We can’t afford the Ford anymore.’

That was 1975, and life appeared to have plotted against Mr. Quast and his beloved Torino GT, which was now under the merciless axe of parenthood. But an accident changed all that in a split second – and the Ford is fine and well with its original owner 54 years after rolling off the line.

One day, a truck tire went ‘kaboom’ and cut half of his middle finger clean off – and the irony is devastatingly eternal. As a workman’s compensation, Robert Quast received $1,800 for giving a literal phalange (the phonetical innuendo is in the Ford’s favor). The man used the money to buy a second car to park the Torino in his garage.

‘My finger, my money, my decision’ is what he reportedly had to say to his less-than-pleased wife when she argued that the Torino had to go. The couple compromised and bought a second Torino (now, that’s make and model commitments, ladies and gentlemen!)

The 1969 Ford Torino GT sat in storage for the next two decades, away from the weather and the roads. Although Bob Quast periodically started the motor to run it as a means against piston seizure, he didn’t add one inch to the 30,000 miles (roughly 48,000 metric clicks) the odometer recorded on that fatidic day in 1975.

Fast forward twenty years, and guess what goes through the mind of a young gearhead named Tim Quast? (No, it’s not a coincidence; Tim is one of the two 1970s reasons the Torino was almost sacrificed). I’m not going to give it away in full, but think of a particular orange Charger with a Confederate flag on it wreaking havoc in Hazzard County.

However, Quast senior put his foot down and decided it was time to restore his Ford. A fresh coat of Indian Fire paint returned the shine that had faded for twenty years. The engine didn’t need much convincing to get back to active duty. The 351 cubic inches (5.8 liters) of the Windsor V8 only required some essential maintenance to spin the rear wheels once more.

The man redid the brakes for driving safety, and that was about it. The interior is in the exact shape it left the factory – since the second Torino was punished for being a grocery getter and a back-seat trampoline for the offspring, this survivor can now brag with complete originality.

The Ford Torino Grand Touring model was by far the most popular – 61,319 were assembled for the model year, over three times more than the notch-back hardtop (17,951 units). The rarest would be the convertible, with only 2,552 automobiles. The GT was a more athletic cousin of the Ford Fairlane 500. They had all of the former’s bells and whistles, a heavy-duty suspension, wide oval fiberglass-belted white-sidewall tires, and hood scoop turn signals.

Under the fiberglass hood, straight beneath the non-functional scoop, a four-throat carburetor extracts 290 horses from those 351 cubes. The air grabber was an aesthetic add-on on most models, short of the big-block Cobra Jet-powered models.

Incidentally, the four-barrel Windsor V8 was a less asked-for option for the Torino GTs. The standard equipment was a 302-CID (4.9-liter) V8, while the 390s and 428s balanced the big-block end of the motor spectrum. The two- and four-barrel variants of the 351 V8 and the 390 were the only engines that could be paired to all three transmission lines offered by Ford in the Torino.

This particular example shown in the video below – Robert Quast’s very own 1969 survivor with 53,200 miles showing on the clock as of this last July (85,600 km) – has the SelectShift Cruise-O-Matic three-speed tranny. The other two choices were manuals, a three- and a four-speed. The 385 lb-ft of torque was enough to pull a trailer – not just metaphorically: see the Ford Rotunda Ball hitch firmly attached to the back of this fabulous one-owner Torino.