The Torino

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Character
Name: The Torino, a 1975 two-door Ford Gran Torino
Occupation: car
Relationships: Starsky and the Torino are real tight. Hutch and the Torino? Not so much
Fandom: Starsky and Hutch
Other:
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Starsky and his second love, inside art from the zine Evolution, artist is Lorraine Brevig

The Torino is a 1975 two-door Ford Gran Torino with a custom paint job. It is almost its own character in Starsky & Hutch.

The car belongs to David Starsky. In canon, Starsky only refers to his car as “The Torino” a handful of times, but it is the name fans almost universally use. Hutch refers to it, among other things, as a “two-ton piece of junk” and “striped tomato.” This latter nickname is a reference to its paint job: bright red with a big white racing stripe. This flashy car, of course, is the perfect car for undercover operations!

For a similar topic, see Dean Winchester/Impala. See examples of beloved vehicles.

Fandom

One of this fandom's awards is the Torino Awards, named after the car.

Fans' Interest in the Car Itself

  • seeing red and white Torinos in the wild and reporting about them to other fans [1]
  • discussing the specs and details of Torinos themselves
  • collecting and/or pilgrimages to see some of the actual Torinos used in the filming of the show [2]
  • restoring and displaying red and white Torinos at conventions
  • Torino games at conventions, see various con reports for SHareCon
  • collecting and displaying models/toys, such as Mego and Corgi Ford Gran Torino die cast cars

The Torino as a Symbol of Starsky’s Ability to Return to the Streets

In the last episode of the show, "Sweet Revenge," Starsky is shot a number of times as he and Hutch are getting into the Torino. Both Starsky and the car sustain massive damage.

One popular subject in fanworks that imagine what happens later are stories about the Torino’s repair. These fanworks become a metaphor for Starsky's later recovery, and of Hutch's devotion to his partner. One example is "Merry, Merry”, a story by Verlaine. In it Starsky is reunited with his car. It is a by-stander fic told through their mechanic's eyes.

The Torino Origin Story

Another popular subject fans explore is when, where and how Starsky first bought the Torino.

  • Rebel Rose by Karen, Hutch meets the Torino for the first time.

Vids

Some Torino-centric Fiction and Poetry

Gallery of the Torino in Art

Unironically

The Torino in fanart sometimes portrayed unironically.

The Symbolic Torino

The Iconic Torino Stripe

Fans make visual jokes about other objects painted red and sporting a white stripe.

Fan Comments

In 2004, the SHareCon zine featured Partners in Adversity by CrowRow (Rosemary's VP name) and Flamingo that focused on the Starsky and Hutch movie with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson released that year. In the movie, after the "new" Starsky drops his Torino in the bay, the original Hutch (David Soul) sells a Torino to him over the protest of the original Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser). On VP, we decided that replacement Torino was only one of the original Starsky's cars, since he had one for every day of the week. It became our new "fanon." The story also treated the movie S&H (sometimes referred to by their first names, or as "the short one" or "the blond one") as crude interlopers on the VP scene. Other issues in the story involved the emerging popularity of LJ and the difficulty some fans had (personified by Hutch) in making the switch to the new medium. We were still using disks back then to transfer files. Remember that?[3]

External Sources

References

  1. ^ An example is in Tell Me Something I Don't Know #15 (1989): "I was crossing the parking lot [after going to the bank] when what to my wondering eyes did appear but — a Torino: red, white, and beautiful. While I stood gaping, it drove by the bank and turned off onto a side road. By the time I got my car out of the lot it was gone, though I prowled the surrounding neighborhood hopefully. [...] During the next few months I saw the car twice — once going in the opposite direction, once parked at a local shopping center... (I'd like to emphasize at this point that the very fact that I'd decided to try to establish contact with the car's owner is a testimony to the extremes to which fandom can bring one. This type of "aggressive" behavior is not typical for me!)
  2. ^ Wheels: It’s an original “Starsky and Hutch” Gran Torino, seven minute video posted to PBS in 2023
  3. ^ Introduction to Partners in Adversity by Flamingo and Rosemary C.; Wayback Machine link.