A storm of a special edition
The Twister Special did not begin life as a Ford marketing exercise. It started with a property developer named Larry LoPatin, who owned a string of racetracks and wanted a run of promotional cars to help shift tickets. He approached Ford with the idea, and the design that emerged carried the kind of aggressive graphics and vivid colour that suited a speedway promotion perfectly.
Then LoPatin’s company folded before a single car shipped. Ford was left holding a design and a plan with no buyer. Rather than bin the concept, the company repurposed it for its own network, building 96 Mach 1s in the same specification and funnelling them exclusively through the Kansas City sales district, covering Kansas, Missouri and the northwest corner of Arkansas. The name stayed, and so did the storm-themed graphics.
Engine and transmission split
What makes the Twister Special genuinely unusual is not just the low build number but the mathematical neatness of it. The 96 cars were divided evenly by engine. Forty-eight received the 428 Super Cobra Jet V8, rated at 335 hp, while the other 48 got the 351 Cleveland, rated at 300 hp.
That split was then halved again by transmission. Each engine group was divided evenly between automatic and four-speed manual cars, producing four distinct combinations of 24 cars each. In effect, Ford built a perfectly balanced matrix of drivetrains, which means any surviving Twister is one of just two dozen built to that exact recipe. For buyers who wanted the biggest engine with a manual gearbox, only 24 cars ever left the line.
Grabber Orange and black
Every Twister Special wore the same livery: Grabber Orange with black accents, plus a decal on the rear quarter panel that gave the car its name. The look was unmistakable and, crucially, unrepeatable on a standard order form.
The styling package went further than paint, but it is worth being precise about what was actually unique. Locking hood pins and Shaker hood vents that poked through the bonnet were part of the Twister specification, along with the graphics and the rear quarter decal. Beyond that, the car largely followed the 1970 Mach 1 template, including features such as the grille-mounted headlights and fake fender air vents that were common to the model that year rather than Twister-specific additions. The Twister’s identity was built on its colour scheme, its decals and its drivetrain, not on a bespoke body.
Inside the Twister
The interior followed the same period performance template. A Rim Blow steering wheel, so named because squeezing the rim sounded the horn, sat ahead of the driver. Woodgrain accents and moulded door trim lifted the cabin above the base Mustang, while a centre console and black bucket seats completed the package.
Nothing about the cabin was radically different from a well-optioned Mach 1 of the era, and that is part of the appeal. The Twister was not a stripped-out homologation machine. It was a fully equipped, road-ready muscle car with a bespoke identity, sold to customers who walked into a Kansas City dealership and had no idea they were looking at something that would one day trade for six figures.
Chassis and drivetrain
Mechanically, every Twister Special came with a Traction-Lok limited-slip rear end, and the 428 cars were ordered with the Drag Pack. That package is often misunderstood: it was a cooling and drivetrain option rather than a suspension upgrade, bringing the heavy-duty cooling and strengthened internals that the Super Cobra Jet engine demanded. Power-assisted steering and brakes were fitted across the board, which made the car far more usable than its raw output figures might suggest.
Buyers of the 428 cars were getting a drivetrain built to survive hard use, not just a big number on the spec sheet.
What it’s worth today
Values have climbed steadily as awareness of the Twister has grown beyond dedicated Mustang circles. US auction results now routinely run into six figures in dollars for well-kept examples, and a 428-powered Twister Special sold at Mecum for $214,500, a result that puts it firmly in the top tier of collectible Mustangs. That figure is in US dollars and reflects the American market, where the cars were originally sold.
That price reflects the combination of low production, even distribution across drivetrains and the fact that the cars were never sold nationally.
Other rare Mustang special editions
The Twister was not the only time Ford, or its dealers, went down the limited-run route. Two examples best capture the regional-special idea:
- 1966 Anniversary Gold Edition. Built to mark Ford’s millionth Mustang sale, with roughly 50 cars reaching dealerships nationwide and only about five believed to survive.
- 1970 Sidewinder Special. Aimed at Ford’s Oklahoma sales district with a 351 V8 and a snake graphic applied by dealers at delivery. No exact tally exists, but estimates suggest around 40 cars.
Elsewhere, the 1967 Mustang Stallion was an eight-car run sold only at Mainway Ford in Toronto, split between the 271-hp 289 Hi-Po and the 320-hp 390. The 1967 She Country Special was created by Ann Goodro of Bill Goodro Ford in Denver to court female buyers, with 48 cars across four pastel colours. At the far end of the scale sits the 1980 McLaren M81, approved for limited production with 249 planned for Ford dealers; Hot Rod reported a $25,000 price in 1980, and only ten were ever sold.
Why the Twister Special still sets the benchmark
The Twister Special endures because it captures something the broader Mustang legend often glosses over: the power of the regional special. Ford did not build 96 cars to chase national sales figures. It built them to pull traffic into dealerships across Kansas, Missouri and northwest Arkansas, giving customers something they could not buy anywhere else.
That strategy produced a car that is now genuinely hard to find, evenly distributed across four drivetrain combinations, and instantly recognisable in Grabber Orange. It is a reminder that some of the most collectible machines were never meant to be collectible at all. They were meant to sell cars on a Saturday afternoon, and the fact that so few survive in original condition is exactly why the Twister Special commands the money it does today.
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