What Happened To The Original 'Starsky And Hutch' Car?

Starsky and Hutch, the fictional undercover cops portrayed in the 1970s TV series of the same name, thrust lead actors Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul into the limelight. But it was their mute co-star — a bright red Ford Gran Torino with a distinctive white stripe — that stole the show, starring in the high-speed, tire-screeching car chases that punctuated every storyline. This eye-catching two-door hardtop, with its five-slot mags and pumped-up rear suspension, quickly became a pop culture icon, with vehicles from the show highly sought after today.

The success of the show, which ran for 93 episodes from 1975 to 1979, inspired a string of similarly themed buddy-cop TV shows. "ChiPs" motorcycle officers Baker and Ponch, and "Miami Vice" detectives Crockett and Tubbs, quickly followed in its tire tracks — along with those car-jumping, back-roads rapscallions Bo and Luke from "The Dukes of Hazzard" in their similarly iconic 1969 Dodge Challenger, the "General Lee".

When the first series of "Starsky and Hutch" hit the airwaves on America's ABC, the phone lines of Beverly Hills producers Spelling-Goldberg ran hot, with viewers eager to know where they could purchase such a car. Smelling a sale, marketing gurus at Ford rushed to release just over 1300 limited-edition lookalikes for the 1976 model year. It is the existence of these factory replicas — along with a fleet of home-built tribute cars — that makes it difficult to authenticate any Gran Torino purportedly used in the series.

Ford supplied half a dozen or so 1974-76 Torinos for the TV series, but only three are known to have survived. Stunt cars got V8s of either 400 or 460 cubes, and for better acceleration in the signature chase scenes, a few of these were modified with lower ratio gears — and a "Do Not Exceed 50 mph" label on the dash to prevent hyper-redlining.

Speaking in a 2003 documentary, "Starsky and Hutch: Making Of Behind The Badge," series creator William Blinn revealed he originally envisioned the duo driving a green Chevy Camaro convertible, but the producers already had a deal with Ford to supply cars. "My heart broke," Blinn recalls, "until the guy showed up in the red and white Torino." The transportation crew had dressed it up like the hottest thing on wheels, he says, when it could hardly get up a steep hill. "Why that car became such a trademark for the show, I truly don't know," Blinn muses.

Glaser, who plays the brooding detective Starsky in the series, disliked the car on sight, disparagingly dubbing it "the Striped Tomato." "I vowed to destroy that car," Glaser says in the documentary. "Whenever there was an opportunity to hit something, I'd try to hit it." Despite his heroic efforts, Glaser racked up nowhere near the damage wrought by the most expensive car wrecks ever filmed, and his disdain for the Striped Tomato failed to diminish its enduring desirability, with one of the show's Torinos fetching $40,000 at auction in 2014.

Known on the set as Torino #1 and Torino #2, the "Starsky and Hutch" daily drivers had 351 Windsors and auto transmissions, with a racier engine note and manual gearshift sounds added in post. The two cars are distinguishable by their front seats, with #2 receiving the upgrade from bench to buckets. These "hero cars" were beaten on by a grueling filming schedule — jumped on, driven hard, and crashed into garbage cans — then the Torinos were finally auctioned off by Ford after the series wrapped. 

Gone but not forgotten, these Torinos passed through the hands of fans and collectors, with each eventually lovingly restored to its prime-time condition. Twenty-five years later, the success of the TV series inspired a silver-screen remake, with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson in the titular roles of Starsky and Hutch. At the British premiere, Torino #2 rolled out on the red carpet alongside original actors Paul Michael Glaser, David Soul, and Antonio Fargas — who played their streetwise confidante, Huggy Bear. 

Torino #1, meanwhile, was displayed at The Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles as recently as 2023, with parts of the car autographed by stars and crew from the series. Another car from the 1970s TV series can be seen at The Auto Collections, a garage that houses around 800 unique cars at The Imperial Palace in Las Vegas. Tribute cars, including some of the estimated 100 of the surviving 1976 Ford production-line versions, regularly appear at Carlisle Ford Nationals meets.