"I was wr...wr...wro...wrrr...wrrrrooo...", Arther (Fonzie) Fonzarellie.
Fonzie couldn't say it, but I can. I was wrong. I pulled the article on the two SCJ Torino Convertibles. Neither had A/C. However, they both had a bunch of items between the two of them that were supposedly not available on the convertibles according to the article. For example: grabber blue paint and Cobra hood pins. There are also other difficult to explain differences between the two cars, like one has 429 emblems on the fenders and one does not. Both cars are supposedly fully documented are just as they came from the factory.
Then I pulled the article that you mention on the hand-built Cougar. That *could* be the same car that I read about in another article, but I'm not sure. I haven't located the other article yet. I seem to remember the car in the other article as being a gold colored car.
Then, just to confuse the matter a little more, Jerry Heasley wrote in the June, 1993 "Mustang and Fords" article on '71 big block Mustangs, "Air conditioning was offered with the 429CJ. Even Drag Pack cars could have had this option."
And, to throw more fuel on the fire, I pulled an article from the No. 5, 1985, issue of "MuscleCars", written by Scott Stevens. In this article, Mr. Stevens recounts a test drive that he did of a 1971 Torino Cobra SCJ for a magazine back in the 1971 model year. The article is complete with many pictures of the car taken in 1971 (probably actually 1970). From the photos, you can see the air conditioning setup on the car. (On a side note, this car was running poorly and still turned a 13.70/106mph time at the dragstrip! It had the 3.91 rear gear. It was running "way too lean" and the "ignition was way retarded", plus it was bogging off the line.) This car might have been "hand assembled" like the Cougar, but I doubt that, as the 429SCJ Torino had already been in production for a year, so there would be no need of hand assembly. Maybe Ford was considering offering a/c in 1971, and this was a test bed. Who knows. But, if this car was sold to the public, then there was at least one a/c equipped Torino SCJ. Plus, at least one, maybe two or more, 429SCJ Cougar sold to the public in 1971.
Posted on Apr 1, 1999, 10:18 AM from IP address 138.26.184.108