The Starsky And Hutch Gran Torino!

They say a cop is only as good as their car. If that's true, the the best officers on patrol are Starsky and Hutch. These legendary characters come from the show of the same name. But Starsky and Hutch would be nothing without their legendary car: the 1974 Ford Gran Torino.

This sleek, red and white beauty was a bad-guy-catching, street racing, and all around versatile machine (which always managed to stay shiny and new looking.) The show used several of these cars. So many in fact, that the cars in the show varied from 74's to 76's. However, this went unnoticed as the model for the Gran Torino went unchanged. The show had stunt cars, camera cars, tow cars, dolly cars, and cars used for "beauty" shots all with the signature red and white.

Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky) would often tell co-star David Soul (Hutch) just how much he hated the car when he first saw it. In his opinion, it was big, ugly and childish-looking. Secondly, he found that the idea that two undercover cops would drive around in a car with such an outlandish appearance seemed ludicrous, and lastly, he didn't like Ford products (although in a picture that was printed in an issue of the National Enquirer, Glaser is shown on the side of a California freeway with a flat-tired Ford Explorer). At the first viewing of the car with David Soul Glaser remarked that the car looked like a "striped tomato." That nickname stuck, and very soon the show's writers had worked it into the show as Hutch's derogatory name for Starsky's beloved Torino.

But despite Glaser's disdain for the car, America fell in love with it. You can see one of these "striped tomatoes" at the Hollywood Car Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada. Happy Cruisin'.

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