Pity the poor Toronado. It tried to be a groundbreaker in 1966, what with its front wheel drive and bold styling. Yeah, I was impressed as a twelve year old. What kid wouldn’t be? But it was a dead end, as well as a sales dud. And within a couple of years I was over it, thanks to its once-crisp styling being dulled down into brougham caricature. Sad.
And the Toronado just sort of bounced along with mediocre styling and nothing compelling mechanically for decades. It came to be the car for those older guys who remembered the thrill of an early Rocket 88 or such as they tooled their Toro down to the coffee shop. I’m not denigrating the Toronado or the guys who bought them, but seeing one of these invariably makes me feel like it was an unfulfilled car from the get-go; like a kid with a lot of promise that never amounts to much of anything.
It looks like a store-brand/generic Eldorado; like it was disguised for an insurance ad or such. The Riviera, although it could be garish, never suffered from that problem; one always knew what it was.
I have no idea what year it is. Is there any discernible difference? I mean to anyone other than a Toro-savant?
Probably some change in the texture of the vinyl half top, or something meaningful like that.
And let’s just let the sleeping dogs under the hood lie. It’s better that way.
It’s nice to know someone really cares about their Toronado.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s a handsome car, in its genre and time frame. And I appreciate what nice shape this one is in, considering it’s forced to live out its days in an outdoor apartment parking lot. But I just can’t work up any enthusiasm. I’ll leave that to some of you. I have faith in you.
Well, in contrast to the Pagoda featured earlier this morning, curiously also adorned with a towel on the steering wheel, this one’s top angles are more in harmony so that’s a bit of a comparative coup for this car. But that’s all I’ve got, like you I can’t tell the model years apart. I’m sure I’ve driven more than a few as a teenage valet driver in LA back in the day but they blended in with all the other GM’s of the era. It does seem cared for at least.
My brother-in-law, who isn’t much into cars, once owned a Toronado of this generation, which was certainly well-used at the time. He still talks about how much he loved it, and I still keep offering to find him another one. He won’t bite, but he certainly has some enthusiasm! Unfortunately, for me, it’s a distant third when compared to the others of its ilk. I really like the ’79-’85 Riviera, and the Eldorado looks pretty good too. They were as bold as the Toronado was anonymous. Still, it’s pretty cool; there’s something to like about any old car. I’d have no problem driving one around for awhile.
I think it’s a 1980-81 model. The 1980 cars got a slimmed-down grille, and for ’82 the blocky TORONADO letters on the front gave way to a smaller badge.
But I definitely get your point. A few years ago I wrote up an ’85 Toronado (here), and it was one of the few cars that I had less affection for after I researched it than before. Not that I don’t like it at all, but would definitely take a back seat to the Eldorado in my opinion. “Generically disguised for an insurance ad” is a perfect way to describe it.
And this car really is in great shape — bumper fillers and all!
As a teen in the early 80s, I never really understood why these existed – as you mention, they always looked like half-finished Eldorados, but stiff and awkward, not really pulling off the Cord front end. The face of some cars defines their personalities – this one reminded me of a muppet!
Haha, this reminds me of Curbside Classic circa 2014. And some of the DS posts. I think many new readers get a false impression CC is a site for the adoration of Detroit iron from the 60s and 70s, and on a daily basis it is easy to come to that impression. Paul is not afraid to present contrasting opinions and supporting evidence, to many of those that adored some of these beasts. And it appear quite an awakening for some.
I have to selfishly admit some of those GM fans like Carmine and Tomcat created very entertaining reading in their unfailing commitment to defend all things GM. Assured 150 comments or more with any article that exposed GM or Cadillac. I miss those battle royales 🙂
I love going back and reading the DS series not only for the articles but for the comments.
The comments section could be tremendously entertaining as a reader. If you were a regular, you generally knew everyone’s position already. But that didn’t lessen the fireworks. I know Paul has high standards for factual authenticity on his site. It must have been stressful moderating with the tidal wave of differing views. And assured strong opinions. 🙂
I sometimes sorta’ kinda’ miss the excitement, but man, did it ever suck up a lot of time and energy. i don’t miss that.
It’s a curious phenomena, how lively discourse/disagreement is hard to sustain without eventually becoming politicized. Not overtly, but it was clearly there, and ultimately that’s what ended it. Some folks just had to be with their own kind, as it got too hot in the kitchen for them.
I’m actually really happy for you don’t publish those types of intense articles so much anymore. Even if they were very high quality journalistically, cathartic, and satisfying to write, and research. They are also the kind that draw lots of hot opinions, and stress. I know you have very high standards, and very high standards for your site. But man, it must have been so stressful addressing so many difficult comments, and potty-mouthed one time posters. When you felt compelled to ensure the record was set straight. When so often you already factually addressed their views within your article. If they had only read it objectively. An outstanding collection of high quality legacy comments is the reward for your hard work!
I thought it was very professional, when deciding to make you site more viable, you chose to write on more current events. Like Tesla’s success. Even if those few that wanted to read about 70s Cadillacs grumbled, you made a brave and smart move.
Paul, one of my favorite cars of all time is the 79-85 Riviera, mainly because it was my dad’s dream car he finally bought for himself before the disastrous 86 downsizing. And I could tell you some of the differences in the years for that car. But the Toro, eh. Even at the time I couldn’t understand why it existed. Like you said, it looked like a crappy Eldo knockoff. I will say though that today, if someone gave me one in decent shape, I’d drive the heck out of it.
At least the Toronado was never saddled with the self-destructing HT4100 V8 that was inflicted on the Eldorado from 1982 to 1987.
I may be mistaken but I think the Buick and Olds shared the same engine at that point.
My recollection is that the 4100 was exclusive to Cadillac..If you wanted a V8 in the Olds or Buick you got the Olds 307. The V6 was the Buick 231. The Riviera T-type had the turbo V6 also used in the Regal
I too, like the 79-85 Riv’s especially the turbo ones with the draw thru carbureted set up. This car? Pull the UPP out and build a mid engine off road buggy.
Or a motorhome. 🙂
Well I could buy this car and transfer the neat Blue on Yellow plates to a newer car so that has earned some enthusiasm from me.
The original purpose of the Toronado was to showcase the FWD drivetrain. But GM (probably with a little help from dealers) even messed up the messaging on that, as people bought them not knowing, or quickly forgetting, which wheels drove the car — putting the tire chains on the rear wheels in the winter. In any event, once FWD became commonplace around 1980, the Toronado lost its unique shtick, and GM never figured out another reason for its existence.
After the beautiful 1966 Toronado, I don’t feel any of the successive versions came close to matching the nice combination of sportiness and luxury the initial version conveyed. They became an old guy’s car, fast.
GM really played it conservatively when they downsized the E platform for 1979. Not taking any risks for example, in releasing designs that were going to appeal to a younger demographic, or draw import buyers. This conservative redesign would come back to bite them later. They needed to release designs that were more stylish, less conservative, and more European in flavor in 1979 IMO.
At the time, the E bodies appeared like another brilliant downsizing success for GM. Loping off all of the size and weight of their previous models, while retaining their style and presence. It was in the next round of downsizing, when GM again tried to recreate this look in a much smaller package, that the results were truly ugly. And unconvincing, turning off many buyers for good.
Unfortunately, it is easy to overlook some of the smaller technology and design breakthroughs in this generation E/K platform. One example is the windshield and backlight trim. The trim is virtually non-existent. Other vehicles had clumsy, stainless trim that clipped into place or broad rubber gasket-like moldings. Subsequent major change vehicles adopted the clean trim, enabled by bonding the windshield and backlight to the body then filling the gap with a simple Mylar molding or Frenching it.
I always really liked these 1979-1985 E Bodies. They were very bold for the time; being born in 1970, I was 12-ish during the time, like Paul was for the 1966 original. These are much less groundbreaking, of course, but they were nice for that era. I really liked spotting any of these as a kid. I think the Riviera with the gently curving beltline was the best of the three.
An elderly neighbor had an Eldorado from this generation (I don’t recall what year). Dark metallic burgundy, matching leather interior, white fake convertible top. After I got my license in 1986, he would pay me to take it home, wash it, wax it, and even go fill it up and “exercise it”! Wow, I felt like a king driving that car. I still recall how solid it felt. It didn’t feel like anything GM I have ever driven since. It had almost a Mercedes W116 or W126 feel….GM got something right on these cars.
We drove past a Chevy-Olds store every Sunday on the way to church, and I remember thinking how old fashioned the Camaro looked next to the new Toronados. Different cars with different missions, yes, but from clearly different eras. The Toro just looked so sharp and fresh. The Camaro of course got a new body soon (1982?) and made the Toro look like the old fuddy duddy.
About a quarter of a century ago, my sister, while briefly living in Delaware, had a used one of these that she got on the cheap.
This was a nicer choice (luxury/brougham-wise) than her usual choice in cars.
I don’t know if it was her lack of attention to maintenance, or just a bad engine (hers was equipped with the dreaded Olds Diesel), but one day, it caught on fire parked in her driveway.
What is it about poorly maintained GM cars and vehicle flambé?
As I mentioned in a discussion the other day about burn barrels, my neighbor’s W-Body Buick Regal did the same thing a few years back….
https://www.facebook.com/kingsvillevolunteers/videos/1371016643009513/
My Mustang was parked WAY too close for comfort that day….
I’ll bite, though not with tremendous gusto. Toronado sort of settled into the role of the Eldorado’s cheaper and more practical brother as of about 1971. This car was a big improvement on almost every Toro after 1966-67 and was (as I recall) probably the highest production generation of them all.
For my money it was the only decent E body of the era, except for the very early pre-HT-4100 Cadillacs. Everyone loves the Riviera, but the styling never worked for me. This was a very, very angular body with sharp edges everywhere you looked. The Buick tried to make a box less boxy with that undulating beltline and the sloped nose. Sorry, didn’t work. The Toro is at least honest. Like any good Oldsmobile (or Oldsmobile customer), what you see is what you get. It didn’t try to put on airs like the Buick or Cadillac, and would not leave you stranded in the service department waiting room. Well, unless you picked a Diesel.
So – I don’t love these but I like them more than the other E cars of that generation. They were vintage Oldsmobile through and through. Put it in a decent color scheme and it was attractive. The real deadly sin was that awful medium brown that was completely devoid of any personality whatsoever, and that was found on so many GM cars of the 80s.
Of the Eldorado/Riviera/Toronado of this era, I like the Toronado the best and always thought it was a shame that, of the three, GM chose ‘not’ to make a convertible version of the Toronado. I could never quite grasp that decision but I suppose they were afraid that the Eldorado-wannabe look of the cheaper Olds would cut too much into the Eldorado’s higher-profit market.
I’m with you, JP. The Riviera of this generation was an uncomfortable mix of clashing squared edges and soft curves. And to assume that someone who liked this body style would just pony up for an Eldorado is a mistake. The Toronado was the right mix of styling and price at this time, if you were looking for a car this size. I wasn’t, and bought a new 1980 Cutlass Supreme. Now, my friend Nicky, who was a big fellow, opted for a white Toro with red interior. He loved it.
I thoroughly agree with your design critique in the 2nd paragraph about the Riv and your defense of the Toro as being pure. And I’ll go as far as to say I like this generation Toronado a lot. I can see myself buying a clean, rust free specimen with good bumper gap fillers and a good headliner.
Count me in as a fan of this generation of Toronado. A buddy had one in the nineties as a cheap daily driver. It was an 80 or 81 with an Olds 350/4bbl.
Stout acceleration and plenty of power (for the era) plush interior, all the traditional power options, full gauge package and….. decent handling with the optional factory handling package My buddy installed decent Goodyear Eagle tires and drove it like hell. He could throw it into corners at great speed and it cornered surprisingly well for a traditional American luxury car.
He never had any mechanical trouble, it was very reliable until the rear bumper rusted off, a common E body problem in the Rust Belt.
Imho the E body FWD platform and IRS had some decent engineering baked in. The Riviera and Eldorado shared in much of this goodness, especially with something better than a NA V6 or 4.1 motor . I like all 3 versions of the E body but the bold linear Toronado style and full instrumentation make it the distinctive preference for me.
In 1991 Metro Detroit there was a recession on, budgets were tight and Dad decided our inherited ’78 Monte Carlo was too thirsty and unreliable, so the Monte went to Mother Waddles and Dad returned from work one day with a deep burgundy 1979 Toronado….Diesel. It was the largest car we had owned up until that point, and it felt pretty luxurious to 6 year old me. It was equipped with a 8-track player, and I remember scouring the thrift shops with my dad to find tapes, in an era before internet marketplaces I believe we only managed to find 7 or 8 acceptable titles. The 350 diesel engine ran alright at first, but I remember it seemed like the glow plugs took forever to warm up on cold mornings. Over the course of a year, the car became more and more difficult to start, we always had to be sure to carry around a bottle of spray ether on trips, and it finally snapped its crankshaft while my mother was southbound on I-75. I thought this was the end of the car for sure, but within a week my father had sourced a GM Powertrain crate engine and the transplant began in earnest over weekends and evenings. It cost him a month and a slipped disc in his back but once again we had a family car. Unfortunately my father either under or over tightened one of the fuel lines fitting to the Stanadyne rotory IP so there was always a slight seepage; this wouldn’t have been to bad if the fumes from the seepage weren’t drawn into the HVAC- the interior always had the smell of a truck stop from that point on, more noticeable in the summer months of course. We took my first cross country trip in that car, covering 500 miles a day most days. I wish I could say it was fun, but between the diesel odor and the cramped quarters in the back (supplies for the trip) it was not, but most 7 year olds would agree with me I’d imagine. That car did return 25mpg on the open road, I think we even touched 28 at one point. I don’t miss the car, but it always makes for a good convo with those in the know about these.
Hard starting and weak performance on those Diesels…well, harder and weaker than “normal”…was often due to a clogged fuel filter. On my Dad’s Eldorado Diesel, they needed to be changed far more often than the manufacturer’s recommend interval, in fact on his, at less than half. They weren’t cheap, either, plus, he had a water separator ahead of the factory fuel filter, and always used nsme-brand fuel, not Rotten Ralph’s Dreck.
The look from the front turns me off immediately. People sometimes calls the 61-66 F-100 a brick driving down the road. Well a brick doesn’t have curves it has straight lines. The look of this Toronado is definitely that off a brick.
I have thought that the Toronado designers must have felt they HAD to keep some styling reminiscence of the Cord 810/812, for way too long past its sell-by date.
Looking at the four generations of Toronado, I like the early cars of the first three very much, each body features plenty of Mitchell magic (even if he was gone after ’77, the third was obviously influenced by his time at GM). And, buyers responded well to the designs. The second generation sales really spiked during the ’71-’73 years and spiked again in ’79.
Each of the first three generations were at their best in the early years, and each succumbed to a degree of added chrome and kitsch as the designs aged. The third gen likely benefited from its relative few changes, the most egregious being the ’84-’85 Toronado Caliente, a chrome and kitsch package.
The Toronado though does bear the irony of the E-body, the only GM body designation to offer both front and rear drive. From ’66 through ’79, the FWD Toronado and Cadillac Eldorado touted FWD as an avant-garde (for Americans) feature worthy of a luxury flagship car.
Then comes 1980 and the GM X cars. FWD is suddenly the practical solution for fuel efficient cars, and its attendant association with torque steer in transverse engine applications meant compromise inconsistent with a luxury car.
The E body originated in 1963 with the Buick Riviera, and FWD gripped the flagship Oldsmobile coupe in ’66, the Cadillac in ’67, and finally the Riviera succumbed in ’79.
American appreciation of European cars in the early ’80s was partially fueled by the perception of RWD as being true luxury offering the best handling. FWD Nissan Stanzas were for the proletariat toting sticky-fingered offspring.
So, the E body’s irony was that the fourth generation should have been RWD, and the Toronado torchbearer of FWD in the E body ended up leading its sistren astray.
Ultimately, Ford made the right decision for the final years of the Personal Luxury Car with the RWD MN12 and derivative FN 10 platform, keeping its trio of PLCs more relevant in the minds of most Americans.
This Toronado collector had the right idea, but really should have kept a ’79 with the 350 gasser instead of the ’84 with the Chrome and Kitsch package…..
Lots of interesting things about the E-body platform.
While it was smaller than the one it replaced, the chassis (still body on frame) was more sophisticated with a semi-trailing arm independent rear suspension instead of an oxcart dead axle (no power through it) on leaf springs.
It was probably the last platform in which each division still had its own engines, at least on introduction. Buick promoted the turbo V6, Olds had its V8 in gas or diesel, and Cadillac had its smaller V8 and later the disastrous HT4100, which couldn’t outrun a Ford Escort. Car and Driver tested an Eldorado Touring Coupe and got a 15-second 0-60 time. Pathetic.
With decent power like those original engines, though, the magazines praised all three cars as major improvements over their predecessors.
Strangely, though, only one other car was spun off the platform, the 1980 bustle-back Seville, which was seen as a step backwards despite the added level of technology compared to the Nova-based original.
That meant the platform was a dead end. It wasn’t going to replace the rear-drive B-bodies because it was clearly more expensive to build, especially with its unique drivetrain, and would probably still have been even in greater volume.
On the other hand, the platform that replaced it might have been more cost-effective but was otherwise a disaster. That was more due to styling and marketing than anything else, though.
Kind of a shame GM didn’t try to do more with it, but understandable in many ways as well.
Actually, Ford failed miserably with the MN12. It was over cost, over weight, and a styling disaster (flat doors with no “shoulder”; SLA front suspension yet still having a high cowl; full width looking taillamps with just a single bulb to light the outermost corner). The 1986 Taurus initiated a lot of best-in-class design/function details (e.g., tactile feel switches; sill-mounted fuel door and decklid releases)…. oh, and a technically superior SHO engine. There simply was very little reason to reinvent a whole new platform for the declining mid-specialty market.
So, why did Ford proceed with MN12? MN12 existed for two reasons… Ford did not want to invest in expanding the Taurus’s AXOD transmission capacity – and – the leadership of the team wanted to impress Ford CEO Donald Peterson. The car simply did not live up to its promise.
As for FN10, the car was technically great, but its styling was less “Butch” than the Mark VII. The Mark VII could have continued and led development of the Mustang SVO independent rear suspension. Lots of “could haves”.
You and I have a very different definition of high cowl, MN12s have a 80s Honda like low cowl with expansive visibility. The styling was directly derived from the BMW E24 and 86 Taurus, any stylistic disaster is just as present in those including the flat doors. But the taillight panels were indeed a joke, the Tbird got LEDs in the trunklid panel in 92 but the Cougar never did, despite being the “upmarket” model.
The technically superior SHO engine is a finicky expensive nightmare to own and didn’t have a strong enough automatic transaxle to back it until 1992, the SHO was as niche market as niche market got, the bulk of Tauruses used the 3.0 Vulcan or the same head gasket eating 3.8 the MN12 did.
Looks better tan that Honda Prelude wannabe monstrosity that followed in ’86.
That car just looks so toylike. Generic GM FWD two-door circa 1986. The inside was just as bad.
The silly part vinyl kipper top is a ridiculous feature as are the Kmart
fake wire wheels, it come across as junky and cheap. The bluff front does nothing for it either.
It didn’t help at the time, contributing to the Toronado’s non-descript personality, was the limited selection of wheel covers or styled wheel choices. Virtually every Toronado I recall from that era either had ugly wire wheel covers or the generic flat faced Olds wheel covers. IMO, both conservative and bland. At least the Riviera offered some attractive styled wheels through this generation. Including these nice wheels on the T Type. Though the Riviera was plagued with bland wire wheel covers too often as well.
I also found generally, the E bodies looked too similar to the G body coupes from this era.
Even money poor Chrysler found a way to put stylish road wheels on their mid-sized and big cars at the time. And they made otherwise conservative designs stand out.
You point out that Oldsmobile vice of the period – the perfectly round wheel openings and those dullard flat-faced wheelcovers. This car pulled the look off better than the Town Car, but those round wheel openings on a square car never looked good to me. Especially without some attractive wheels to show off.
I’ve often felt that manufacturers are too often too concerned about maintaining specific legacy design touches attempting to pay homage to earlier similar design elements on popular models. The round (and bulbous) wheel arches were obviously a big Olds design touch in the late 60s. They could have abandoned it here. Too often, especially by the 80s, maintaining dated design cues was a mistake IMO. See the ’92 Skylark.
I am one who thinks if the best new design means starting with fresh styling. Do it. As a kid at the time, I loved the Ferrari Pinin concept from 1980. I kind of hoped some luxury car makers would follow through with this styling approach. Ironically, it was Cadillac in 1992, who actually adopted a very similar look on the 1992 Seville. I wished Cadillac had made the 1980 Seville look this good (and advanced)!
I loved that Pinin too. Very influential. But as you said, a bit way too late in the case of the Seville.
Pininanfarina seemed to recycle the taillight design from that for the Allante
Oldsmobile DID abandon the bulbous round arches, in fact they abandoned them as far back as 1970 on the original fastback body Toro as well as the Cutlass, and completely eschewed their use for the 71-78 generation. But even still, I don’t know if I’d call the round “bulbous” wheelarches the problem with the design, I find much more fault with the convex obvious fake wire wheels within. I’d also argue those wheelarches are far less dated than the more square shaped openings on the Eldorado and other period Cadillacs. Round for better or worse proved to be the industry standard, and save for the upcoming Tesla Cybertruck and Honda Clarity I struggle to think of any car made in the last 25 years that hasn’t used round wheelarches. Do they fit with the sharp edge ruler straight lines of the rest of the body in this case? Arguably no, but they do at least add(or attempt to) add a little spice and personality to it.
The problem here is GM shared bodystructures across brands as standard practice, and it would have been impossible to break the mold and do something as radical and as clean a break for Oldsmobile as that Ferrari without doing the same to Cadillac. If that were the case then the same problem of lacking identity remains unresolved.
I don’t disagree that the best new design is fresh, but it shouldn’t be flagrantly derivative either. I think that Ferrari Pinin looks great, but how could that design be any better differentiated between three divisions than GMs home grown efforts? (The correct answer is don’t, and cull the divisions, but that wasn’t going to happen in 1979). Pininfarina themselves struggle to differentiate their designs for the various automakers who use them! GM used to be masterful at using outside influences without it being obvious, but this was the close of the Mitchell era and I’m not sure the talent nor the drive to do so was there.
I implied they didn’t abandon the bulbous wheel arches here, on the ’79. Even if they are more subtle in this more modern application, my impression in 1979 was they were a styling homage to the late 60s look. Styling likes and dislikes are highly subjective, but I thought the wheel arch design on the ’79 Toro was the weakest of the three E bodies. But that’s only my preference. And overall, the exterior designs of the Eldo and Riviera looked best integrated to me. The dated and less elegant looking Toro nose especially didn’t work for me compared to the other designs. But that’s just my choice.
The three designs below for direct comparison.
Pic.
Alternately, I thought Olds designers did a brilliant job successfully applying the wheel arch circumference flaring on the ’81 Cutlass Supreme. An obvious homage to the similarly overdone flaring on late sixties Delta 88s, and others.
Well that pic is a little unfair, as both the Riviera and Eldorado appear to be professionally photographed beauty shots of brand new cars, while the Toro has a little age in someone’s lawn for what is probably a craigslist ad for it lol
I’m not defending anything about Toronado, to be perfectly honest I’m not smitten by the E body whole trio. The Eldorado is only as good as it is that it’s not as bulbous and tacky as it’s predecessor, but it’s not even in the same ballpark as the 67-70 incarnation, and while the curves of the Riviera are refreshing for the time period, the lines somehow throw off the proportions to my eye, and I’d actually go so far to say that the symmetrical round wheelarch shape actually bothers me far more on the Riv than it does on the Toro. Buick actually should have called back to their heritage with the shape of those, with a more flowing opening towards the back to match the lines.
Either way I’m not sure their homage to anything, as we both pointed out Olds used more than that design, and at the end of the day they’re round, there aren’t many shapes a wheelarch can be and that shape about as basic as they get.
Haha, I deliberately made sure you saw those cherubic Toronado wheel arches in bright sunshine. 🙂 So, you could see how rounded and chubby they are. There is more of a crisper scallop on the Riviera that saves the Buick’s wheel arch design IMO.
So many people here talking about how the outside of this car looks (I don’t care for it either). But I do love the interior of this car, and preferred it to the Eldo’s, which I preferred to the Riv’s. Exact opposite order I’d place the exteriors.
The initial ‘66 was indeed cutting edge and dramatic, although FWD offered few benefits (and several disadvantages) on a large, luxo-cruiser like that was. My fav may have been the ‘71. Those high level stop lights were cool. This generation? Not so much.
I’d say the Toronado surpassed the Riviera in design quite handedly for 1986, not that that is a high bar.
I actually think it’s a better looking car than the Eldorado, and it lacks the Cadillac baggage(or gravitas for you true believers), which is something I appreciate about midprice brands. The biggest problem I have with the design is the front end, which seemed to just be an endless retreading of the 1971 front end that somehow became the permanent face of the Toronado until 1986. The fashions and demographics did it no favors either, every single car from this time period would look better without the landau top option, wire wheel covers and most importantly colors other than tan, gold, beige or brown.
Google turns up few examples but this one is pretty alluring. Apparently C4 Corvette wheels fit, who knew?
Come to think of it, the rear three-quarter view of the ’79 Toronado reminds me a bit of what the ’80 Seville might have looked like with a proper notchback roofline. The taillights and placement are similar, anyway.
As a teen when these were introduced, I was a big fan of the 1979-85 E-body Riviera (I’ve almost always preferred the looks of a Buick over the equivalent Olds) and to a lesser extent, the Eldorado, but could never warm to the Toronado. The best thing this Toronado had going for it is that it was immeasurably better than the generations that preceded and succeeded it. “Old man’s car” about sums it up, in my opinion.
I think the problem lies in the overwhelming success of the Cutlass from 1968 until the mid-eighties, which were beautiful, competent cars, especially when equipped with the right options and powertrains. Oldsmobile could do no wrong catering to the middle to upper-middle range of the market and was very surefooted in the way they went after this highly aspirational group. In essence, the Cutlass defined Oldsmobile for most people and the Toronado seemed to be a real reach by comparison.
In contrast, the Toronado was designed to be a top of the line car for Olds and was priced out of reach for most of Olds’ bread-and-butter customers but also too close to not only Buick’s Riviera (which it almost completely overlapped), but also the Eldorado. Even those who might prefer an Olds (or Buick) to the flashy and ostentatious Cadillac balked at paying the Cadillac price for the Toro. And then there was that styling, which did not appeal to the rising young professionals and white-collar workers who had fueled Cutlass sales for so long.
After the high of the 1966-’67 Toronado’s bold styling and aggressive sporty luxury, thereafter it was all anticlimactic. Massive, cheap-looking, knock-off Eldorados in the 1970’s that returned the greatest sales years, revealed the poor taste of the American consumer. These ‘box-roofs’ were almost a relief after a decade but so bland and anonymous they hardly were worth note.
I always associate these with contractor Carl here who always drove Oldsmobiles, generally 98’s but had a white one of these, at the same time his wife Delores had an over-decorated Continental Mark VI coupe. Both lead very pretentious lives, the prefect cars to do so.
I remember these with the brake lights mounted up underneath the rear windows atop the trunk. That GM couldn’t be bothered to make more out of these is very GM arrogance sounding.
Here, we made a car, we threw a bit of styling at it and stuck an Oldsmobile name on it so it’s really special. The engine? It might or might not be an Oldsmobile or something engine, maybe a Chev or something else, whatever the hell was on the end of the line that we found laying around. Who the hell cares? It’s a GM product! Body by Fisher is what we used to say. Not your father’s Oldsmobile or whatever. Everyone will buy it! And if they don’t? We don’t care anyway!
Car and Driver did a three way comparison between the new ’79 E bodies. The Cadillac was powered by a fuel injected 350 Olds V8 used in the first gen Seville. The Buick featured the turbo V6, and the Olds had their 350 V8 with carburetor. They preferred the Olds the best. The styling was more restrained, the suspension was a bit tighter, and the V8 had ample power. And to top it off, the price was lower. The Buick’s turbo and suspension tuning seemed more like a gimmick to them. The Eldo was much improved over the previous behemoths, and they agreed that it did look like a real Cadillac, for those that wanted one. It’s like the difference between the GMC Denali and the Escalade. The same steak without all the trimmings.
Oldsmobile had always been GM’s high tech division. They debuted their OHV V8 the same year that Cadillac did in 1949, but they had the first Hydramatic transmission even before Cadillac. Hard to believe now, but the Olds division was analogous to the early Acura. High tech, forward looking “smart performance” vehicles for the confident, successful consumer. The Toronado debuted FWD because Olds developed the power train and they got to lead with it. It was high tech, more for image than actual benefit, though those in the snow belt came to appreciate it.
I remember seeing an early Toronado on the dealer’s lot and it was impressive. It was long and low with those huge flared wheel openings, smooth fuselage roof “c” panels and short almost Kamm rear end. It looked like a futuristic, rocket jet fighter, remember the X15? The first gen Corvette Sting Ray was only a few years into it’s run, the Toronado was a similar car that was more practical for the successful adult who had to carry a few kids with them, at least sometimes. But the Toro had the cred along with the swag. The Olds Rocket was still in ascent.
Turn the page ahead several years and the direction of the Toro became muddled. Olds settled for also ran status as an Eldo impersonator. The FWD became ubiquitous and actually began to be seen as a penalty, too econo box like. By the time of the 1979 refresh the car was no longer unique but it was still a smart choice. For the right person. That profile picture in the post really reminds me of a first gen Mustang. Maybe that was what buyers thought. The original was really the best, though it’s hard to stay true to your roots.