What kind of Toronado is this? The Torero? The Matador? Such animal stares… so sultry, so enigmatic, so non PC. This is not your father’s Oldsmobile, not even your grandfather’s; this is a Youngmobile!
Vintage Ad: 1969 Oldsmobile Toronado – For Great Car Lovers
– Posted on September 27, 2022
Taking this one page out of context kind of misses the point. The 1969 Olds brochure theme was based on old movies. Each car line had a similar set of photos that were take-offs of stereotypical movie scenes. Even the cover of the brochure was a stylized movie marquee.
Possibly, although since this was a magazine ad, it didn’t appear in context with Oldsmobile’s movie-themed brochure. I wonder how many magazine readers of the day knew about the Olds brochure, or noticed enough other Olds ads to recognize that this was a theme.
It literally says Oldsmobile recreates a scene from the classic movies. at the top of the ad.
Most of the television commercials used that theme, as well. At any rate, Oldsmobile had a very good year in 1969, so if there was customer confusion regarding the ad campaign, it didn’t negatively affect sales.
Classic movies? Apparently, even if it was your Father’s Oldsmobile, it still worked out in The Age of Aquarius.
As I recall, virtually every Oldsmobile print ad that year was based on that silent movie theme. A quick look online shows close to a dozen different ones.
The little shelf under the sail panel looks better than the original when there’s a vinyl roof. I don’t think I’ve seen one of this vintage without vinyl. It does look more like an straightened-out Riviera, however.
When I used to pickup old magazines as a teen, at garage sales, etc., I saw many of these ‘Youngmobile’ ads. Olds spent a lot on print ads at the time. I used to wonder if these ads were full sets in a studio. It looked like they went to the expense of a canvas backdrop, and a large blown-up B&W mural-sized print, besides the actors in period costumes. A few years later, this would have been compiled photographically, and then digitally. No full scale sets.
I know setting type used to be a chore, on the old typesetting machines. The single line from a new paragraph at the bottom of the first column, would typically not go to final, in a few years. By the late 1970s and 1980s, this could be easily fixed in a few seconds, just massaging the paragraph spacing, word spacing, kerning, etc. Or just writing copy to fit.
“Men admire its command of the road. Women, its obedience”…
I know gender stereotyping was rampant in the 1950s and 60s advertising, but even back then I’m guessing if you polled 100 women asking what they’re looking for in a new car, “obedience” wouldn’t rank very high.
This was, in 1969, a 50 year old movie.
So, it would be as though Subaru set up an ad for the Woodstock generation.
“The 2022 Subaru is what some oldsters would have called back in the day – “groovy”.
These ads were cringy and any Woodstock ad today would be cringy as well.
I remember thinking that these ads were weird in 1969 and I still think that. But then there was a lot of weirdness in 1969.
I never really liked any of the 1969-70 Oldsmobiles (or I liked them less than all of the previous ones). I found them to be fat, bloated designs. Neighbors across the street had either a 69 or 70 Delta 88 4 door hardtop, and I got to see it going in and out of their driveway for several years. I never minded seeing the navy blue 66 Impala 4 door hardtop they owned before it or even the 74 Delta 88 they owned later, but I never liked that 69-70.
It seemed in 1969 that none of the adults wanted to grow up. Dad let his hair grow over his ears and got bushy sideburns, Mom started wearing loud neon print dresses with white boots, and everything had to be groovy and hip. It was very disorienting.
I always thought that the 1967-68 Delmont/Delta 88 hardtop coupes were simply too big to pull off the fastback roofline. They didn’t look “right” to me.
The 1969 and 1970 hardtop coupes gave up any pretense of sportiness, which was more appropriate for their intended mission. The full-size Oldsmobiles made this transition more smoothly than their corporate cousins at Pontiac and Chevrolet did.
By 1967, the full-size cars were what your parents bought…the Cutlass (or even better, 442) was what you hoped your dad would buy.
How can one see that ad and not hear in their mind that other famous car commercial…the one spoken by the man “who knows his own needs…” and a car that “on the highway, best answers my demands.”
Obedience, indeed.
Clearly Oldsmobile was about 10 years ahead of its time.
(It’s definitely worth checking https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-tv/cc-tv-the-chrysler-commercials-of-ricardo-montalban/ and various subsequent articles for more of the story about that…just in case you now need to wash KAHNNNN!!!! out of your mind)
https://youtu.be/tfKHBB4vt4c?t=33
Nice find. It reminds me again how pure the 66 model was – and how Olds uglied it up each succeeding year. Putting a vinyl roof on this car is like putting Catherine Deneuve.in a pair of bib overalls…
The dance moves implied by the image belong more properly to the Corvair, not the Toronado.