The redesigned Ford Fairlane and Montego stock cars started their lives as unit-body intermediates that had been bucked on the Atlanta assembly line. They were shipped to Holman/Moody still on their assembly line pallets. Once there, each chassis was fitted with the same narrowed '65 Galaxie subframe member that their '67 predecessors had received. Cages and beefed suspension components finished the package and made ready for a double four-barrel-equipped, 427 Tunnel Port-based powertrain. In 1968 race trim, a new fastback Ford or Mercury was good for just shy of 190 mph at Daytona. Cale Yarborough, for example, put his Wood Brothers-prepped (and Holman/Moody-built) Cyclone on the pole for the Daytona 500 with a 189.222-mph hot lap, and then went on to dominate and win the race.
The first shot of the aero-wars had been fired, and Chrysler drivers had been hit right between the eyes. Though still blessed with 426 Hemi power, Dodge and Plymouth drivers found themselves at an aero-disadvantage that even an additional carburetor (which NASCAR let them have in 1968) couldn't overcome. Ford and Mercury teams would make the most of that advantage for the balance of the season. Yarborough and his similarly named (but unrelated) Mercury teammate Lee Roy Yarborough (who drove for Junior Johnson) went on a super speedway tear in 1968 that left their rivals literally sucking wind.
David Pearson's blue and gold No. 17 Torino visited victory lane 16 times in 1968 and finished in the top 5 on 36 other occasions. That performance won him the season championship and $133,064 in purses. Ford and Mercury drivers racked up a total of 23 Grand National wins and the manufacturer's title. They would enjoy even greater success in the final year of the decade.
1969Mopar engineers resolved to reverse the aero-tables on Ford during the off-season and beat team Blue Oval at its own game in 1969. The result of their super secret labors was an aero-variant of the '68 Charger body that featured a flush forward-mounted grill and a new rear window plug that moved the back glass up to a line flush with the rest of the roofline. The Dodge Boys called the car the Charger 500 for obvious reasons and pulled off the wraps at the fall Charlotte race in October 1968.
Ford racing chief Jacque Passino and Ford NASCAR boss Charlie Gray were present at the track for the unveiling. When Passino wondered aloud how Ford would counter the new Dodge threat, Gray drove him across town to Holman/Moody's airport complex where Ralph Moody had been working on an aero-warrior of his own. Moody's idea was to clean up the only bad aero-aspect of the Torino/Montego body style (the nose) by moving the grille forward and closing it off. He started with a set of Mercury Montego fenders that, due to styling differences, were several inches longer than a Ford's. He then built a special header panel to connect the Merc fenders together in front of the hood.
On the plane ride north to Dearborn, Michigan, Passino and Gray decided to call the new car the Torino Talladega after the new super speedway Bill France was building in Alabama. Knudsen quickly gave the project the corporate green light, and Ford aero-engineer, Bill Holbrook, was given the task of making the project happen.
Ford's desire to race its own hemi-headed engine had been a long standing goal, even before Bunkie Knudsen took over the reins of the Ford Motor Company. But where others had failed, Knudsen succeeded. And in 1969, Ford racers finally got to race their very own hemi engines. That engine came to be called the Boss 429. Ford paid the Holley Carb company to develop a new Ford contract carburetor just to feed the all-new hemi-head brute. The new mixer came to be called the Dominator, and, when atop the new engine, helped make in excess of 625 hp in race trim.