I don’t need to tell you that the fourth and final generation (1986-1992) Oldsmobile Toronado was not a very popular vehicle. Between its infamous downsizing with somewhat corporate generic styling, loss of a V8, and the general decline of the personal luxury coupe’s appeal, Oldsmobile had a difficult time finding buyers for these cars. Even a significant 1990 update, which added length and more distinctive styling did little for sales, with Olds moving less than 30,000 (two-thirds of which were the performance-oriented Troféo) 1990-1992 Toronados out the door.
Finding a 1990-1992 Toronado some 25 years later is an even more difficult challenge, which is why tearing up Route 3 on my way to work this past Saturday morning, I had to whip out my phone and attempt to get some shots of this beautiful white Toronado Troféo I was passing. Thankfully, the Toro followed me off at exit 14 and proceeded traveling right at the end of the offramp, allowing me to take several better pictures while stopped.
Haven driving this car’s slightly more formal 1990 Buick Riviera sibling, I can say that while not particularly fast or dynamic handlers, they’re very comfortable cruisers, providing a solid feel from behind the wheel. The significant refresh for 1990 may not have helped Toronado sales, but it did make it a much more attractive, substantial looking car. With this styling, the 1990-1992 Toronado Troféo was easily one of the most elegant yet modern looking American cars on the market at the time.
If only I could’ve followed this Toro. Just going off a sixth sense, but I have a feeling its driver would’ve been more than happy to talk about his nicely maintained Toronado and allow me to take some half decent pictures. Although duty called and I had to go the other way, upon arriving at work, it seems the CC gods compensated me with another interesting vehicle that showed up as a trade-in. More of that to come soon.
Related Reading:
1989 Oldsmobile Toronado Troféo
I like the 86-92 Toronado and I I think the 90-92 were the best looking of them.
I will be honest with you, unless you got the 1979 Toronado with the 350 V8 which was good for 170hp, you were not going to miss the 307 V8 engine that came in the 80-85 with its mighty 140hp carbed goodness.
The 1986 Toronado offered a standard fuel injected V6 engine with 150hp (10 more then the gutless 307 V8) and by 1992 the V6 offered in the Toronado got multiport injection and 170hp.
I will take the 1992 Toro over the 1985 Toro at any day.
Even now the 90-92 models look good
I always want to question the styling of the aft end. It looks like the horizontal strip taillights were a last minute decision with a badly blended filler panel that also gave a high liftover height. Were generic Olds vertical taillights originally conceived, then replaced right before the car left the styling studio with this done in the dark change? Though the previous style had its issues. at least the rear end and taillights looked to be an intended idea.
The 86 Toronado had the same taillights but the trunk lid came down to them and the style was much better. The 1990 model year revised the taillight to wrap around and the trunk lid does not come down to the taillights, but the rear edge is at the top of filler panel. The 1990 Toronado was lengthend, so the changes are part of the restyling.
“filler panel”…invariably an indication that a design was fudged rather than thought through from the beginning and executed as a complete and pure thing. 🙁
I’ve always thought the horizontal strip taillights fit very nicely. Along with the new, rounded tail, I think it gave the car a greater level of distinction that stylists were going for. I’m honestly surprised they didn’t imitate this look on the 1991 Ninety-EIght, which featured a similar shaped rear.
Overall, the 1990 restyling greatly improves the looks of the car. But looking at the rear end head on is not quite as good I think. I also think that the extra cladding on the side of the car isn’t as nice, but does tie the front bumper to the rear bumper. The Riviera’s side cladding is better done in my opinion. The 86 Toronado looked stumpy, and this one is much better.
it may look incidental, but it’s just a sly nod to the original Toronado. Badly executed hommage, though. Because the filler panel on the ’66 is the best use of a filler panel as design statement in the history of car design. I’ve always thought it look integral to the rear lights, like the “blacked out” fad, though this was color coded to the color of the car. It’s insanely distinctive and yes, beautiful.
+1.
I cannot look at one of these without remembering a CPA of my acquaintance who traded in a rwd 83-84-ish Ninety Eight Regency on one of these. An all white Trofeo, the virtual twin to this car. He said that he wanted something sporty. I guess if you were a diehard Oldsmobile guy, this was sporty. Like everyone else now, he has been on a steady diet of Toyotas and Lexi ever since.
“Sporty” for the pre World War II generation was any convertible, and probably even coupes. Sports cars were not made in the US before WWII I think (but then there were so many car in production before the Depression I am probably wrong).
I think this generation of Toro gets a bad rap. The looks were modern, the dash interface was a quarter century ahead of it’s time and the 3.8 was economical and got more powerful and smoother all the time. The quality was also high and it was only anti GM biases that submarined them with bad reviews at C/D and the like. How dare GM make a car that is not European inspired. That and the fact that the ever more dominant import buyer could not be bothered to give them a serious look.
My neighbor had a red one, they normally had Lincoln town cars, they bought it new, it was a real beauty & always loved the way it sounded going down the street.
Count me in as a huge fan of the 90-92 Toros, these were some of the best styled cars back then, and I though they were worthy successors to the original. They were the best looking out of the E-bodies, better than the Buick Riviera, and worlds ahead of the Cadillac Eldorado.
Although I’m guessing these had suffered from GM build quality, (or lack thereof), as they are impossible to find now. I was actually looking for one of these as my first car and a couple managed to pop up on my local craigslist (surprising for San Diego) but they always slipped through my fingers. Probably for the best, since I could’ve gotten a total lemon that just fell apart, and I wasn’t to keen about driving around with the VIC in the dashboard.
Shame, I still wish to buy one though, if for no other reason than because I’m a bit of an oddball.
Quite the opposite, actually. GM build quality on pretty much anything with a 3800 or 305 meant that they kept going and going until they slipped into cockroach standards. Combine that with a model that sold poorly when it was new, and you won’t see many of these today. Too old to roam the roads under a fourth owner, too new to be collectible.
I had an ’89 Riviera, of which I was the last of the four or five owners. I was in a real bad way at that point in time, and a friend of mine sold it to me for $400. It had 194,000 miles, and by then it had been beaten down, picked up, and beaten back down. The engine and transmission were silky smooth after 16 years of hard Michigan driving, and the body had very little rust despite our love of road salt. Trouble was, by the time I got it, a lot of maintenance had been neglected. It had been smashed by my friend’s sister, who blew a stop sign and t-boned a Mountaineer.
So, when the fuel pump failed at 207,000 miles, I had a car that needed as much in repair as I had paid for it just to make it run again. But, it also had tires so bald the steel belts were showing, steering so loose the car would change lanes on its own, a horn that no longer worked, a touchscreen that no longer displayed the picture, air suspension that had died, blinkers that didn’t work, and rear brakes that had rusted to the point of failure. Accident plus lack of maintenance meant that a car that was sci-fi when it was new went to the junkyard.
Once in a blue moon, I’ll still see a Trofeo of this era. It’s about a 50/50 chance whether it’s mint or a cockroach. They’re beautiful cars even now, though. I loved the ride of my Riviera, and while it wasn’t a barn-burner, it was plenty powerful enough to enjoy driving. If I found an 89-93 Riv or a Trofeo in good shape (and I had the garage space), I’d have a real hard time walking away.
Personally, I never really liked these because the 79-85 Eldorado/Riviera/Toronado loom so large in my mind as the “last” of the real Broughamtastic personal luxo-cruiser coupes. The last Eldorado from the 90s as well as the last Riviera were rather pretty too. But unfortunately this era of Toronado just gets a big “meh” from me, even though its really a pretty nice car. In my mind it looks too much like those front wheel drive Cutlass Supreme coupes that came out in the early 90s.
It must be really hard to follow up a car that made such a statement when it was new. I remember being amazed by the original Toro when I saw one in a Corgi ad on the back of a comic book. The GM-generic character of later models probably stems from the increasing lack of divisional autonomy.
Agree that this car is better looking than its immediate predecessor… but it should have looked like this in 1985. By the early 1990s, this segment included excellent entrants like the Lexus SC and Acura Legend Coupe, rendering this car quite obsolete in my view.
The most memorable of my few sightings of the Oldsmobile Trofeo was in the parking garage of the San Francisco International Airport. It was sitting on cinder blocks. All four wheels were gone
Great catch. My wife and I used to play game whose name was (no joke) “Spot the 1990 through 1992 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo.” No points were ever scored.
Build quality . . . this was the car built in the infamous Hamtramck plant, which controversially razed an entire neighbourhood, over the residents’ objections. Then it was so automated that nothing worked and the robots painted themselves and smashed the windshields. C/D had an ’86 Riviera for a long term test that broke so much Buick came and got the car back before the test was complete.
I think the biggest problems for these cars is the ’86 E-body was so inferior to a nice Regal/Cutlass in power, plushness, and overall comfort, plus styling, and then Cougars and Thunderbirds were more appealing as well once GM killed the G-Body. The LeBaron was much better styled than this car, although the mechanicals were stale. Plus the Legend coupe came along. Even the LeSabre and Eighty Eight coupes were more appealing and had more presence, more comfort, and more style.
Hamtracmck, sigh*
When LeSabre and Park Avenue were built in Flint, the details were much better crafted, not so there. But it was still a major improvement over the previous Dodge Main though. I still pass there occasionally, and I still came across the people worked in Dodge Main making complements on my car though.
The ’86 Toronado left me cold, but it was in large part due to the “sawed-off” styling that looked way too much like a 2-door Calais (the resemblance was even more obvious than the Riviera/Skylark). So the ’90 restyle actually worked quite well for me, though IMHO it works better in darker colors. I still remember the faux-Calypso music for the Trofeo ads, too.
Definitely nice to see one that has been kept in good shape. While obviously a child of the late 80’s, I think it has aged relatively well. It’s a shame this was the end of the line for the Toronado though; the 1st-gen Aurora was definitely impressive but it would have been nice to see a ’93 Toronado. Tough competition in luxury coupes that year though (Eldorado new for ’92, Riviera, Mark VIII, and Legend coupe new for ’93, Lexus SC300 still strong after ’91 launch, plus the evergreen W124 coupe’s mid-cycle refresh for ’93.)
I stumbled on this sight looking at information on these cars. I’m not partial to just American Cars. I’ve had a couple of “Asian” brand vehicles as well. Anyways, I’m debating if I should buy one of these. We’ve had an ’87 Cutlass Ciera GT 2dr with the 3.8L V6 in the past. That car had the digital dash, leather buckets, FE3 suspension, etc.
Anyways, I’m still thinking on one of these cars. Price are allover but, there isn’t much of a market for them at this time. Anyways, it’s late here and just rambling thoughts through my head.
I purchased a 1992 Toronado a couple of months ago. I was initially just browsing for a inexpensive car to drive to work (120 mile round trip) when I came across this for sale. The paint is in amazing condition, included many service records and ONLY HAD 72,000 miles. I had to jump on it and it’s a perfect highway cruiser. Everything works although the buttons for the VIC can be iffy. I’ve only had to change the O2 sensor since I bought it. I plan on giving it to my son in November when he turns 16.
I’m a owner of 1992 Trofeo which I factory ordered
Coming from 1985 Toronado
I think the 90-92 Toronado we’re amazing cars and still are I don’t know why they weren’t popular I’ll tell I remember dealers didn’t push them and they weren’t promoted very well
If you ask me a owner of a Toronado for the passed 30+ years I think it would have done much better if they made it faster like the grand national concept personal luxury plus some fun powder
They went after the cadillac imagine smooth and comfortable at the same price people just bought caddy’s
They needed to go after the younge guys
I bought it at the age of 20 because I feel in love with the stylish looks and all the great toys
Navigation cellphone and heated windshield
That was something out of a James Bond movie