69 Cobra (Torino) Factory Appearance?

[427John]

Jay, Bob Perkins has or just sold an original Cobra like yours with less than 1000 original miles. Do a quick search and you'll see the car the way it was originally painted. There should be no black on tail light panel, hood and scoop should be factory car color. The scoop emblems were factory installed. Q code cars should not have a scoop and 428 emblems at front of front fenders. My first car was a black jade Cobra fastback and everything was painted car color, no black accents or black outs.

There would be some slight variation on options and some would depend on which plant built the car. There were 4 plants building Fairlanes in 69. I am far from an expert, but I do know these cars pretty well. Again, variations on options etc occurred all the time with Ford.

The Perkins car is a very good representation of how your car would have looked from the factory. The only black ever put on a hood of a 69 Fairlane was the Talladega.

Brian N

Brian my 69 Cyclone CJ is also a black jade car.

[FESCJ]

Merry Christmas to all!

The horn does not move on the Fairlane/Torino in 69 with Drag pack. They are fixed above and behind the headlamp bucket reinforcement brackets. Mustangs and Cougars had the drivers horn moved to the pass side.

The "ram air" air cleaner for a Fairlane/Torino/Cyclone was a virtual clone of the 68 1/2 Mustang CJ air cleaner.

Drag pack was more than deeper gears and an oil cooler. In 69 it amounted to 3.91/4.30 traction lock rear, oil cooler, lines, and oil filter adaptor, along with 428 engine mods, Lemans rods, modified crank, different harmonic balancer, external balance crank Hatchett weight, and different flywheel /flexplate. No Detroit locker in 69.

Things changed in 1970. You had Drag pack and Super Drag pack. Drag pack included 3.91 gears, Super Drag pack had 4.30 gears with Detroit locker. I had a 70 Cougar Eliminator optioned like that.

The SCJ/Drag pack fan; in 69 two fans were used. First was a 6 blade fixed pitch C90E-H, the other was the standard C9ZE-E 7 blade clutch fan common to all CJ engines. Seems they were mixed indiscriminately. If we look at Jay's broadcast sheet, looks like his car got the C90E-H.

I am not being "hardline" on this, or any other 69 Cobra starting out as a Fairlane. I was, and still would point out that regardless of how Ford marketed the car, the body style code for the Cobra fell under the Fairlane heading. The important info to Ford would have been data plate coding placing the car within a certain trim level. Learned about this Very well after working for Ford for 35 years!
All 69 Talladegas have a "63E" body style code. If we look at this, it tells us that the base car is a Cobra, again under Fairlane heading.

I have never seen a 69 Cobra with the blackout tail light panel. I suspect ( personally) that many guys saw the Mustang tail light panel blacked out, and did it to their cars? It was not part of the Cobra package and I've never seen it listed as an option or anything. But, again, Ford changed things at times.......I don't know?

The hood scoop seems to be a point of consternation? If we look at the order guide, no hood scoops were available for Fairlane/Torino as a "stand alone option". There were two ways to get a scoop; it was standard on ALL Torino GT's in 69. On the Cobra, you had to order ram air to get it. So, technically, a Q code Cobra should not have gotten a scoop. Having said all of that, Ford made changes, offered incentives and did things that were not updated in the order guide. I would be the first to suggest never say never.

I showed my wife the picture of your car Jay! I should not have done that.....she wants it! Lol

Brian

[allrightmike]

If you go with the body stripe I vote for the gold color.

[Gregwill16]

Very good information Brian.
The only thing I can add is there is a slight difference between the "Cobra" mid plate and the 68 1/2 Mustang, but not enough to matter unless going concourse. There is a beveled section on the front that extends over further on the Fairlane/Torino midplate, versus the 68 1/2 Mustang that stops at the indentions. Link below.
https://www.428cobrajet.org/id-air-cleaner-68
As far as the fan, Jay's build sheet falls in line with what has been documented on SCJ Mustangs. The H fan was used on all 69 SCJ until March of 69. Then the 3.91 SCJ cars switched over to the C9ZE clutch fan, while the 4.30 cars continued with the H fan.

[FESCJ]

Greg, great info, and yes, 428 Cj registry has a lot of good info on CJ's in general. Scott does a great job!

The fan, I think you are correct , Having said that, I think there are many discrepancies. I suspect Ford intended all SCJ car's to have the 6 blade C90E-H fan. But, would appear that in many instances that the C9ZE-E fan was substituted. Probably had to do with supplier issues........and the reality that the C9ZE-E clutch fan was appropriate.

Remember folks, Ford never shut down "ANY" assembly line unless a disaster occurred. Shutting down the line in any plant cost huge dollars. They would "alternate" things as necessary. For example, a 69 Cobra needed brown, pink, gold front springs which were color coded for assembly line workers. Maybe at the time a certain car came down the line, only 390 GT springs were available, can you guess what Ford would have done. Dollar/economically driven. My point, fans and many components were not installed until the car hit the line. Some sub assy's were complete, but not everything. A fan concern would have been a low priority.

Now, I suspect in most cases they did strive hard for every car to have exact correct components as ordered. But, probably not realistic. Quality control was not at the "high end" in 69 or many subsequent years.

Again, just hoping to help.

Brian
..

[Joe-JDC]

Unfortunately, there are real discrepancies in builds, even my Marti report has at least one factor wrong on my Shelby.  The rear gears on their sheet does not match the car, nor door plate.  I know, because I bought the car new, still have it along with the rear differential tag.  Joe-JDC

[FESCJ]

Joe, I am agreeing with you! Every day brought something new to each assy plant. As I said before, never say never. There was a standard, displaced by reality!

Merry Christmas!

[Gregwill16]

Definitely agree guys. What we know now is just a "in most cases" point of view. My 68 1/2 has 3 anomalies itself that the "experts" will say are not correct for the car. No one size fits all with these old cars.

[427John]

Very good information Brian.
The only thing I can add is there is a slight difference between the "Cobra" mid plate and the 68 1/2 Mustang, but not enough to matter unless going concourse. There is a beveled section on the front that extends over further on the Fairlane/Torino midplate, versus the 68 1/2 Mustang that stops at the indentions. Link below.
https://www.428cobrajet.org/id-air-cleaner-68
As far as the fan, Jay's build sheet falls in line with what has been documented on SCJ Mustangs. The H fan was used on all 69 SCJ until March of 69. Then the 3.91 SCJ cars switched over to the C9ZE clutch fan, while the 4.30 cars continued with the H fan.

There supposedly were 3 variations used in 68.5 2 with the larger bevel and late ones used one basically identical to 69's,I think the earliest variation lacked some bead rolling that later ones had.Thats what I meant by the SCJ fan the fixed fan,I realize some used the clutch fan but I always think of it as the CJ fan.

[cjshaker]

Royce and Hawkrod would be having a fit right about now...lol

I got tired of arguing with them and just gave up. My dad worked at the Lima engine plant for 30 years, and the same "anomalies" happened there as well. Sometimes there were running changes when parts dried up or were not available. Sometimes for a day, sometimes weeks, maybe just a few hours even, but it happened. That's the difference between 'theory'/'intent', and actual reality. Just don't mention W code Mustangs 

[427John]

Merry Christmas to all!

The horn does not move on the Fairlane/Torino in 69 with Drag pack. They are fixed above and behind the headlamp bucket reinforcement brackets. Mustangs and Cougars had the drivers horn moved to the pass side.

The "ram air" air cleaner for a Fairlane/Torino/Cyclone was a virtual clone of the 68 1/2 Mustang CJ air cleaner.

Drag pack was more than deeper gears and an oil cooler. In 69 it amounted to 3.91/4.30 traction lock rear, oil cooler, lines, and oil filter adaptor, along with 428 engine mods, Lemans rods, modified crank, different harmonic balancer, external balance crank Hatchett weight, and different flywheel /flexplate. No Detroit locker in 69.

Things changed in 1970. You had Drag pack and Super Drag pack. Drag pack included 3.91 gears, Super Drag pack had 4.30 gears with Detroit locker. I had a 70 Cougar Eliminator optioned like that.

The SCJ/Drag pack fan; in 69 two fans were used. First was a 6 blade fixed pitch C90E-H, the other was the standard C9ZE-E 7 blade clutch fan common to all CJ engines. Seems they were mixed indiscriminately. If we look at Jay's broadcast sheet, looks like his car got the C90E-H.

I am not being "hardline" on this, or any other 69 Cobra starting out as a Fairlane. I was, and still would point out that regardless of how Ford marketed the car, the body style code for the Cobra fell under the Fairlane heading. The important info to Ford would have been data plate coding placing the car within a certain trim level. Learned about this Very well after working for Ford for 35 years!
All 69 Talladegas have a "63E" body style code. If we look at this, it tells us that the base car is a Cobra, again under Fairlane heading.

I have never seen a 69 Cobra with the blackout tail light panel. I suspect ( personally) that many guys saw the Mustang tail light panel blacked out, and did it to their cars? It was not part of the Cobra package and I've never seen it listed as an option or anything. But, again, Ford changed things at times.......I don't know?

The hood scoop seems to be a point of consternation? If we look at the order guide, no hood scoops were available for Fairlane/Torino as a "stand alone option". There were two ways to get a scoop; it was standard on ALL Torino GT's in 69. On the Cobra, you had to order ram air to get it. So, technically, a Q code Cobra should not have gotten a scoop. Having said all of that, Ford made changes, offered incentives and did things that were not updated in the order guide. I would be the first to suggest never say never.

I showed my wife the picture of your car Jay! I should not have done that.....she wants it! Lol

Brian

Most of the things you listed as the drag pak are actually part of the SCJ engine package which predates the drag pak,ordering the drag pak automatically ordered the SCJ engine package which included the oil cooler,and engine mods,the only things unique to the drag pak are things I stated in my first post.My bad on the horn thing sometimes all this stuff starts to blurr together.As far as the hood scoop goes that could have added as dealer installed too,back then there was a ton of that going on so if someone refers to the term as delivered you have to have them specify as delivered to the dealer or the customer.That could explain why some hood scoops had the cutouts under the scoop and some didn't.From what I understand some dealers like Galpin Ford would install any thing Ford offered in their parts and accessory and muscle parts catalogs.

[FESCJ]

427John, yes, lot's of variations on options, factory installed, owner installed, etc. Painting the car differently to suit an individual. Hell, Macco paint job in the mid 70's was around $100 bucks.
 Drag Pack existed before it become a "stand alone" option. If you ordered 3.91/4.30 gears in a Mustang, Torino, Cyclone with a 428 engine, it really was Drag pack. And, it changed 428 CJ engine status to 428SCJ. The only reason that Drag pack became an option is that Ford finally realized what they were giving away. Prior to the option, you ordered higher ratio rear axle and traction lock......about $70 bucks. After 2/20/69 Drag pack as an option was $155. Decent amount of dollars in 69.

You folks all realize how 69 Shelby's were initially built, don't you? Crazy stuff.

Brian N

[427John]

427John, yes, lot's of variations on options, factory installed, owner installed, etc. Painting the car differently to suit an individual. Hell, Macco paint job in the mid 70's was around $100 bucks.
 Drag Pack existed before it become a "stand alone" option. If you ordered 3.91/4.30 gears in a Mustang, Torino, Cyclone with a 428 engine, it really was Drag pack. And, it changed 428 CJ engine status to 428SCJ. The only reason that Drag pack became an option is that Ford finally realized what they were giving away. Prior to the option, you ordered higher ratio rear axle and traction lock......about $70 bucks. After 2/20/69 Drag pack as an option was $155. Decent amount of dollars in 69.

You folks all realize how 69 Shelby's were initially built, don't you? Crazy stuff.

Brian N

I was always under the impression that the SCJ was an engine package that included the oil cooler and internal mods,just like the Boss 302 and Boss 429,that if you ordered that engine it came with those,are you saying that if you ordered those engines that Drag Pack was also required or was it included?

[Gregwill16]

I always understood it just like Brian mentioned. If you requested the 3.91 or 4.30 gear you got the SCJ upgrades. In February of 69 they gave it a name and started charging for it.

[427Fastback]

It is my understanding that the "Drag Pack" and SCJ are the same thing.Cant have one with out the other.If you ordered 3.91 or 4.30 rear ratio you were automaticly upgraded to the SCJ engine with the oil cooler...
To me saying you have a 428SCJ drag pack car is repeating yourself..