(first posted 12/15/2014. Updated 12/13/2020) (Former) Cohort poster Joseph Dennis keeps putting up superb finds from the streets of Chicago that I find irresistible. This is a great candid shot of a 1969 Toronado. It’s a car that many, including myself, have criticized for losing the stylistic purity of the original ’66 Toronado, what with its heavy-handed loop bumper and extended trunk that destroyed the continuity of the sweeping roof line from its top to the rear bumper. But how can one not be in awe of this beast from a very different era?
Now that we’ve gotten our love fest out of the way, let’s start…with the front end. For anyone who was around when the ’66 Toro came out, these big chrome lips were hard to take.
As hard as that model was trying to distract one’s eyes from the original front end, it just wasn’t going to happen. That was one of the boldest front ends ever, with those giant bladed fenders, hidden headlights, and Cord 810-inspired horizontal ribs. And then there was that clean, unbroken line flank that had no break at the beltline. So why all the uglification?
Update: I don’t remember if the title to this Toronado was by Joseph or me, but this time around we have to also celebrate the origins of that. Although I was mainly into more serious music in 1970 (Santana, “Bitches Brew” by Miles Davis, Procol Harum, Pink Floyd, etc.), I was not immune to the charms of pop rock that came across the AM radio at the Sunoco gas station where I worked every Saturday morning. Tommy James was getting a lot of airplay at the time, and Crystal Blue Persuasion was one of the better ones of his repertoire. Hearing it really takes me back, to a very optimistic mindset. “A new day is coming…” Well, some of it came, but I’m still mostly waiting.
Back to the original piece: Because the Toronado was a sales dud. Well, that might be a bit strong, but it was a disappointment, especially with all the huge effort at developing its front wheel drive powertrain, never mind the bold design. Whoever said that a high performance luxury coupe should have front wheel drive anyway? And not come with standard disc brakes? The Toro’s front drums were totally overwhelmed by all that weight on the front end. Meanwhile, GM kept building small cars that were deadly conventional. Yes, typical GM arrogance of the times. Which explains why I called the ’66 Toronado a Deadly Sin. Note: I never said it wasn’t dramatic, bold and very exciting for a 13 year-old’s brain. But it made no sense whatsoever; from an engineering or sales point of view. And history soon bore that out. Large, powerful luxury coupes all have RWD.
Which explains why Olds soon watered down the Toronado’s best design features, to make it look more conventional. And pretty much stopped mentioning its front wheel drive in the ads. A flat floor in a luxury coupe that typically came with bucket seats and a console just didn’t make for a very compelling sales pitch. Oh well…it seemed like a good idea at the time.
The link for Joseph Dennis’s CrazyCar site is faulty; should be:
http://www.crazycar.com/
Thanks; fixed.
Crazy Car is a cool site! but it’s not mine. I can’t take credit for it. I believe it belongs to another Chicagoan. I just have my Flickr page under my handle of “Flint Foto Factory” (a nod to my hometown).
I saw a response from Larry/CrazyCar on the rusty Olds Cutlass post, and mistook that to be you.
Anyway, I like your shots. Keep ’em coming!
Hi Phil, Joseph, Larry here.
So Phil, just how does one become one of your cohorts?
I got some shots I’m proud of and I’m willing to share anything from my site.
Here are some Toronados’ from my CC. There are probably more under Oldsmobile (I got lazy ages ago and stopped tagging as images).
http://www.crazycar.com/?tag=toronado
Larry, we have a CC Cohort Flickr page: https://www.flickr.com/groups/1648121@N23/pool/
You and anyone else is always encouraged to post your finds there. I check it almost daily, and pick shots to post at CC. The choice can be difficult, because we have so many Cohort posters.
Also, if you’re into writing up text to go along with the shots, you’re welcome to give being a CC Contributor a shot. We do both long and short posts, but they have to be coordinated a bit, so we don’t have duplication. Like no more Toronados of this generation for a month or two, at least.
If you want to discuss contributing directly at CC, contact me at curbsideclassic@gmail.com
There’s more info at the “Submissions” menu bar: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/submissions/
Thanks Paul for the cohort page. I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never signed up for Flicker but there are some great shots there.
I’m willing to try a write up, I usually just to stick to headlines and car ads, but if you could help by supplying a subject, I’ll give it a go. And I will supply my own images.
Larry, send me an email: curbsideclassic@gmail.com
Where are the headlights on the ’69?
Behind the “grilles,” which retractable. (I don’t recall offhand if they operated electrically or by vacuum — I think the former.) Behind them are a very similar-looking second set of grilles (albeit set further back) with quad sealed beams.
(Which are retractable, rather.)
Neat! I still prefer the original design, though.
People’s tastes are strange sometimes. The uglier the Toronado got, the better it sold. It never again was as beautiful as the ’66. Like you said, the ’69 isn’t bad, but it pales in comparison to the original.
Now compared to a ’77 (an example of which was, until recently, for sale a block away from my house), the ’69 is gorgeous.
The 71-72 had a kind of design cohesiveness about it, but I’m not sure it is as attractive as the first two generations. It always looked to me like Oldsmobile was burrowing through Cadillac’s trash and exclaimed “Hey look, they threw out this Eldorado body. Let’s use it.”
For the “pretty years”, people may have held off buying because of the unusual drivetrain. Once they’d been in service for a few years, and proven to be reliable, people would be more inclined to buy. By then, uglification had set in.
That’s what I’d like to think, anyway.
Great photo.
Beyond the FWD- the Toro launched with that unbroken beltline just when Vinyl Roofs became a must have. To make the vinyl roof work best you had to have a beltline. Hence the ’69 facelift. I must say although it isn’t as unique as the 66, they did a fine job reworking the rear sheetmetal for ’69. Interestingly, the ’68s have the new nose, but not the new tail. The halo vinyl roof on the ’68 just isn’t as well resolved.
Chrysler had the same problem with the fuselage cars. Vinyl roofs just didn’t really work on those cars.
same with the HQ Holden Monaro LS
From a practical standpoint, the ideal application for the Toronado’s UPP would probably have been the Vista Cruiser station wagon. A stylish wagon with FWD wet-weather traction, a completely flat floor, and no axle/differential intrusion in the load area? Now that would have been useful. Even the front weight bias would probably have been beneficial — I think the standard Vista Cruiser was very nearly 50/50 just at curb weight, which isn’t exactly desirable unless you’re planning to get silly on an autocross course.
Sadly, the reason Oldsmobile stuck the UPP in the Toronado rather than the Eighty-Eight or the Cutlass (which is what they originally wanted) was that the finance people thought that the personal luxury class would be the only one where buyers would be willing to pay the premium. A $6,000 FWD Vista Cruiser probably wouldn’t have gone over so well, although the people who did buy them might well have developed the sort of loyalty that the Grand Wagoneer inspired (and for about the same reason).
I was going to say the same thing, the reason FWD was in the Toronado and Eldorado was because they thought that would be the best place to recoup the costs.
Oldsmobile did make one 442 prototype with a Toronado FWD drivetrain in it, it still exists.
It would have been the only GM A body ever built that was worth a damn in the snow. 🙂
Of my two Cutli, ’73 and ’76, the loaded ’76 had Posi-Traction. It made a world of difference. I can recall getting stopped at a traffic light at a notorious main thoroughfare hill during a steady snow storm. When the light changed, a light foot on the gas and I took off steadily with little drama. After that experience, I never could figure out why this $50.00 option was not standard in snow country. I also had a fresh set of Goodyear Arriva All Seasons on the car, I was a loyal buyer of at least three sets of Arrivas over thee different cars.
While it should not have been, it was kind of gratifying when the FWD Saab 900 next to me could not find its footing.
I’ve owned two RWD A-bodies (76 and 77 Chevelle) and one FWD A-body (86 Pontiac 6000-STE). Of the 3, only one was worth a damn and that was the 76. the virtually identical 77 (save for the 2.56 axle ratio where the 76 had a 3.08) is absolutely worthless on ice/snow, where the 76 was just peachy, despite lacking a posi in either one. I guess the 3.08 made a big difference in getting the power down to the peg-leg.
The FWD 6000… it was good a burnouts with the heavy and torquey all-iron 2.8 six, but get the pavement slick and it was a large paperweight.
That FWD 442 is fascinating, particularly the idea of seeing one on the dragstrip with slicks on the ‘front’. Too bad there was a snowball’s chance in hell of it ever seeing production.
The early prototypes Olds built as technological demonstrators for the UPP (prior to the Toronado’s production approval) were Eighty-Eights, and Oldsmobile’s earliest experiments involved the Y-body Cutlass (although that wasn’t the same powertrain layout as the Toronado, which hadn’t yet evolved). The folks who really championed the idea wanted FWD in some more utilitarian package, but corporate thought it was too expensive. (I think the idea of putting it in the E-body was Ed Cole’s.)
There were people that wanted to make the Toronado more of an intermediate sized sporty personal luxury coupe, with the same styling as what came out, but 8/10ths the size. but I imagine that there was a convergence of Buick wanting a 2nd gen Riviera and Cadillac doing its own personal luxury car that probably resulted in Buick and Cadillac swaying the decision to make it full size
It was about body shell amortization, mainly. The first-gen Riviera was selling decently, but the corporation really wanted to be able to spread the cost around more, so Ed Cole decreed that the second-generation E-body needed to be shared by Oldsmobile and Cadillac as well as Buick. He vetoed the idea of making the Toronado A-body-based, which both Styling and Olds would have preferred, because making further use of the A-body wasn’t a big concern, but the E-body was.
It wasn’t quite what Oldsmobile wanted and there are conflicting stories about whether Cadillac was interested at all. (Chuck Jordan said later that the FWD Eldorado, which was the culmination of some things the Cadillac studio had been playing with for a while, was primarily Bill Mitchell’s idea and that the division was at best ambivalent. Mitchell said Cadillac dealers had been screaming for something like it because they were alarmed to see Cadillac buyers buying Thunderbirds.) In any case, it was essentially a finance decision rather than a product one.
Here’s a pic of an early Toronado mule.
That 442 is the best pic of the day. Given the nature of all wheel drive sport sedans today, I wonder how hard it would have been to give this an AWD option. It could have been a game changer if it had caught on with its capabilities.
Paul, thank you so much. I discovered Curbside Classic several months ago and have been hooked ever since. I’ve canvassed this site for all my favorite cars, and have also learned so many new things. (CC led to my momentary obsession with the Leyland P76, among other fascinations.)
Crazy Car is not actually my site- that one belongs to someone else who appears to also be based in Chicago. I just have a Flickr page under my handle of “Flint Foto Factory” (a nod to my hometown). I’d be honored to contribute directly to CC – I only hope the quality of my writing would be up to snuff.
I love the original 1966 / ’67 Toronados, but the ’68 and ’69 model still really do it for me. I like the loop-bumper / hidden headlight combo. There was one parked on my block in Flint for a while back around 1980 – and even at a very young age, I knew the car was something special.
Great. Shoot me an e-mail at curbsideclassic@gmail.com and let’s discuss it further.
I didn’t know the loop bumper was not as well liked as the ’67 style. My favorite Riviera, the ’69, had the loop bumper. It worked better on the Riv without the strong wheel openings. It also looked less like lips on the Riv.
1969 will never be topped for car design. The intros that year included the new Grand Prix, Mark III, Mustang Fastback and LTD.
Styling/design will always be a matter of opinion and taste, but I’d counter that 1965 was the greatest year of design — the first Mustang, the GM B-cars with the fastbacks and coke-bottle profile, the redesigned large Ford and Mercury, and the Engel C-Body Mopars.
Agreed! ’65 all the way…if only the original Toro were a ’65, it would be perfect!
Here is a ’69 Riviera.
The Riv to me, as much as I love the Toronado, was a more successful design in this period. The ’68 and ’69 were a step down from the ’66-’67, but still attractive.
IIRC, the gist of the Deadly Sin aspect of the Toronado was that Oldsmobile’s development and use of FWD as a novelty in a large-engined, expensive, inefficient personal luxury car took it out of the running as a viable drivetrain alternative for small, efficient domestic cars.
IOW, if the Toronado had stuck with a traditional RWD layout (like the Riviera and Eldorado), maybe the GM seventies’ small car would have been something quite different from the Vega, or that the X-car (Citation) would have arrived several years sooner (and, presumably, better engineered). It’s a pretty cogent argument.
I think the “facelifts” done to both the Toronado and the Riviera for 68 did them no favors. And like a previous poster here, I too am amazed at how sometimes the uglier a particular model got….the better it sold.
I got to drive (briefly) a nearly new 67 Toronado and was impressed by the smooth pull (torque steer) through corners under power. At the same time, neighbors had a 66 Riviera that I thought was THE coolest looking car.
Like others here: I admire GM for building front wheel drive cars with HUGE V8 engines DECADES before any European manufacturer….but wonder why they chose personal luxury coupes to do it with.
I admire GM for building front wheel drive cars with HUGE V8 engines DECADES before any European manufacturer
Nobody in Europe EVER built such a car, for obvious reasons: It just didn’t make any sense. RWD is the way to go with powerful V8s.
Or all wheel drive.
Not exactly ‘large’ but there was the Lancia Thema 8.32
Impressive car, and large by Euro standards, but it was only a 3 litre V8. Going one size bigger, how about the non-Quattro A8 with the V8? I know there was an FWD 3.7, and maybe 4.2.
Granted, even it’s not an ideal example, but…
Though the SM was a fairly powerful, for a European car, and FWD, and even available with a manual, though the SM is an outlier, reviews from the era show that the Toronado and the Eldorado were praised for their handling, the goal of the FWD E’s wasn’t to be an all out GT car anyway.
Torque steer is something else. Torque steer occurs when one wheel has more torque than the other (or more likely better grip) and then will turn the steering wheel if you are not holding on. My 83 Buick Skyhawk would do this when one front wheel had more grip than the other. When I was working at the Marshall Space Flight Center I had to travel between the building I was in to another to get some computer results frequently. At one stop sign there was a manhole cover that was smooth and slippery that one of my front wheels would be on. So starting up the wheel on the pavement would then try to spin the steering wheel.
Audi had a FWD A8 with a 3.7 liter V8. But that’s not exactly HUGE.
Actually that’s fairly small, for a V8. Only smaller ones I can think of (not counting supercars) are Rover’s ex-Buick 3.5, Triumph’s OHC 3.0, and Daimler’s mini-hemi 2.5. Oh, wait, Mercedes used to do a 3.5 also.
Let’s not forget the well-known Ford V8-60, which was 2,227cc, or the Fiat 8V, which was 1,996cc. There are probably any number of racing V-8s that small or smaller as well.
FWD ?
No — he just meant small V-8s in general.
How could I forget this one, the Lancia Thema 8.32. FWD and with a 2.9 liter Ferrari V8.
That’s about the closest one, and it could be a bit of a handful, if I remember correctly.
BTW Rudiger, when the Toronado was introduced, it was followed the next year by a front wheel drive Eldorado. I’ve always been curious as to why the Riviera stayed REAR wheel drive for so long. Did the Riv go front wheel drive to distance itself from the up and coming Regal coupe?
Buick upper management didn’t want to the Riviera to go FWD, they thought that keeping it RWD would differentiate it from the 2 other FWD platform mates that it would have by 1967. Finally they were “forced” to accept FWD for the 1979 corporate E-body design.
I think Carmine is right. The first generation Riviera was completely different from the rest of the Buick line. This continued into the 70’s but the 74 Riviera’s revised roof made it more conventional looking. The down sized 77 Riviera was basically a Lesabre coupe. When the E body was downsized for the 79 model year, Buick wanted the Riviera to be distinct from the rest of the Buick line (in my opinion), so making it FWD probably reduced costs for the Riviera as well as making it more distinct from the rest of the Buick line.
.CC effect strikes again as I’ve just been reading about London gangster Nicky Gerard being shot in one in 1982.
I’m pretty sure I still have that photo of the ’66 Toronado with oh-so-60s girl posing in front — I taped it to the inside cover of a notebook back in middle-school days.
I was also disappointed with the facelifts of ’68 and ’69, when the car adopted the loop bumper and then the extended trunk, but from a vantage point of 45 years on, the featured ’69 in that medium blue looks great!
One plus about modern cars is that they no longer have obligatory facelifts every year. (Now if only their designs were more attractive — getting rid of the gaping maw grilles would be a good start!)
You think they had gaping maw grilles back in 2014? Bwa ha ha. You had no idea.
Was the ’66 Toro the first mass produced fuselage body design? Agree the restyle was awful. I kind of like the ’71 restyle as some kind of American Baroque sendup.
Hilarious! And you could call them chicks or girls then and not be slapped for it!
Had to enlarge the picture. Normal girls in the trunk. Womble Olds? That made me think of, you know…
I think I’ve finally figured it out: To get a decent looking shot of a Toronado, the camera must either be at headlight level or looking down from above the car. Every shot of this Toto here looks great.
I think it’s a cool looking car, and it is a 2 door. The only thing that keeps me from wanting to own one is because it is front wheel drive.Not only does that make the front end really complex and hard to work on, but front wheel drive cars do not handle well. I am currently driving my first front wheel drive car, and it will be my last. I had a ’77 Caprice wagon that handled way better than this thing. I really have no idea why GM went with front wheel drive on the Toronado/Eldorado back when rear wheel drive would have been a lot easier and cheaper to do, and at least IMO resulted in a better car.
The FWD Eldorado did sell way better than the RWD models. The one thing I did not like about the FWD cars that I owned from the mid 90’s on is that the front overhang and air dams would scrape on the pavement no matter how careful you were. My CTS has not been a problem as yet, although I am careful on steeper driveways.
My SRX (2007) handled better than the 2002 Seville I traded in.
That’s true, although Popular Mechanics owner surveys of the time found that FWD Eldorado buyers generally didn’t know or care which end had the drive wheels. The first FWD Eldorados were very successful (and very profitable), but it was really on the strength of their styling and prestige rather than any technical point. Toronado buyers, by contrast, were more conscious of FWD.
Front wheel drive done properly produces a great handling car 9 WRC championships were won by the FWD car I drive, it put outfits like Subaru and Mitsubishi 4WDs out of the running.
Front wheel drive is very good on slippery roads, and not generally bad on dry roads. However, GM’s FWD design is good for a general purpose car, but does not make for a great sports sedan. I find that AWD is good in snow/slippery roads. Smaller cars seem better suited for FWD.
I have great affection for the first E-body Eldorado and Toronado, but I have a hard time calling them sports sedans with a straight face.
Even the STS was not much of a sports sedan until the RWD 2005 model was put into production. The new CTS is a good replacement for the RWD STS.
Sorry Bryce but the Xsara that won the world championships was a 4wd WRC car. The previous fwd Xsara Kit Car did win two tarmac rallies against the WRC cars though.
The model I have took the first 5 places at Monte Carlo on debut with FWD only that was the factory built with 2.0 turbo petrol engine Sebastian Loeb won his first WRC championship in them.
By itself, this ’69 Toronado is both good looking and unique. But, I agree that almost nobody will call it better looking than the ’66.
The Deadly Sin issue, is more mixed. Between ’66 and ’85 GM fielded between 1 and 3 large FWD luxury coupes / convertibles, some of which did well and sometimes dominated their segment. And, made GM millions on margins after the initial amortization. These cars also gave GM some FWD street cred when they popularized FWD in the U.S. with the X cars. Yes, I know how fast that fell apart, but that was a true Deadly Sin of putting out a product with a lot of quality problems. Even there, GM redeemed itself quickly with the FWD A bodies.
“That’s the Kind Of Sugar Papa Likes”… 🙂
Every Toronado between 1967 and 1985 is a lust object for me. You won’t get anywhere trying to call any of them a “Deadly Sin.”
It doesn’t hurt matters that when I was a high school junior the head cheerleader (who was a senior) drove a 1985 coffin nose model to school every day.
Agree with a number of these comments–while the original car can’t be touched for beauty, as it is probably one of the top 5 best looking cars to come out of Detroit in the 60’s–these ’68 and ’69 models are still good-looking cars in their own right. Quite good-looking, in fact. They only suffer in comparison to their breathtaking predecessors!
That first shot is excellent, by the way. The low angle on the bright blue Toro, with the angular building with muted colors behind–really like it. Though my one critcism is of the car–who puts white-letter tires on a Toronado? Really? Come on, folks, have some restraint!
Paul – Thanks – another great story. My dad’s last car was the twin of the ’68 in the poster pic, down to the the green-on-green, ’cause mom always picked the color. It returned the compliment by possibly saving her life – while she was in the living room.
When my dad died in 1986, mom wanted to be driven to the funeral in the Toronado – and since dad hadn’t driven it in months, I put in a new battery, drained and filled the oil, gassed it up and drove it a bit to let it clear its throat before setting off for the ceremony. Afterwards, I parked the Olds back in the garage, and since mom never drove, there it stayed.
Nine weeks later, a cement truck pouring a driveway for a house being built above my folks’ lot broke free, rolled across the road and down a 30′ embankment, and blew their garage up like a, well, tornado had hit it. It came to rest against the passenger side of the Toro, after pushing the whole car two feet to the left, where it pinned it against the sliding door of the “breezeway,” which entered into the kitchen, which opened onto the dining room and then into the living room.
Which was where mom was sitting, in her favorite chair, reading no doubt, accompanied by a glass of rye most likely, and from where she emerged unscathed
(after she figured out what the commotion was all about), when the neighbors rushed over and explained to her what had just happened.
So I may be a little biased, but I’ve always carried the notion that dad may have had a hand in saving mom’s life – nine weeks after he died – by putting that big green Olds in the way of that galloping cement truck.
JunkyardDog,
Not that you are the only one who does this but if you are going to condemn a whole group of vehicles based on 1 example that you owned or test drove…..could you tell us what that car/truck is/was?
Condemning ALL front wheel drive cars because you got one bad one is like swearing off all Italian cars because you once owned a “bad” Fiat.
In 2001, Audi introduced an A8 with a 6 liter W12 engine. This engine, according to Wiki, was not sold in A8s in the U.S. and only 750 were sold in Europe/Asia…..at least in the 1st gen. I’m also not sure if it was FWD or Quattro.
Audis current V8s are all smaller than the V8s in the 60s Toronados, but are packing more powerful engines.
The W-12 was available only with Quattro.
I prefer the exposed-headlamp 1970 model to either the ’68 or ’69; it returned to the blade fenders, for one thing. But my favorite is the ’67 for the flush headlamp doors and the minimal safety feature that the ’66 didn’t have (i.e., the energy-absorbing steering column) as well as the much more interesting dashboard carried over from ’66.
The ’71 was hideous, in my opinion – in particular the front end – and (analogous to the ’71 Riviera) used a dash that differed from that of the standard full-size Olds only slightly, on the passenger side.
+1 on the ’70. I had a metallic green GT, and it was one of the best cars I’d owned. It had limitless power and torque, and was geared for speed.
But… it was not good on mileage. I think it got around 12mpg on a good day. But, that was when the AC compressor was controlled by the Comforton, and it ran most of the time.
My fav for looks is the ’68 – ’69 Eldo.
CC Effect strikes again: http://springfield.craigslist.org/cto/4804086894.html
A family friend had one, though I can’t recall the exact year. He said it didn’t matter if you were going 8 mph or 80 mph–it got 7 mpg.
One of the best things about the Toronado as a CC is you won’t see one ‘blinged-out’ with aftermarket wheels; they’ll all have the original steelies and wheelcovers due to the FWD. At least the ones from the sixties.
Was there ever some sort of aluminum wheel made specifically for the Toronado/Eldorado, either OEM or aftermarket?
It’s not so much the FWD as it is the extreme negative offset these have. Nobody ever offered aftermarket stuff for them AFIK.
What necessitated the severe negative wheel offset? Was it extra long/strong half-shafts or was it just the inherent width of the engine/transmission package?
I suppose you could put on a set of those Alcoa alloys that the motorhomes often have. To answer the offset question below, it applies to most all FWD cars-it reduces torque steer. The further the contact patch is outboard from the turning axis of the steering, the more leverage it has to turn the steering. The Cord and the FWD Indy cars all had wheels like that, too. The Cord’s look almost exactly like early Toronado wheels.
Let’s see; large V8, FWD, stunning bold design, impractical personal luxury coupe…….yup, Cord, right? Not every car has to make completely rational sense. A well-used ’67 Toronado I enjoyed for a few years over thirty years ago was my most memorable car ever……..and I still want another one! Either ’66 or ’67 will be fine…..!
My grandmother had a 69 in that very color, LOADED. I remember that was the first car I had ever seen with power windows, and I would just sit in the back zipping them up and down all the time (broke a regulator once, as I recall). And, my dad would always take his hands clear off the wheel to show my grandmother how straight and true it drove. Both actions drove my grandmother nuts.
Tragically, we lost the Toronado in a house fire in the early 80s, and lost my grandmother about 5 years ago. Thanks for the throwback – those beautiful pics made my day.
In checking the CC headlines before work I wanted to say that the photo of the Toronado with Chicago in the background is fantastic. Just now made the connection to your El Camino and GP pic which I also liked a lot.
Joseph you should do a whole post with your best stuff or something though I know it’s hard to add a theme to random pics. Cool old cars in Chicago is enough for me.
Thanks, Calibrick (and everyone). Much appreciated. After the holidays, I plan on taking some time to contribute more to this amazing site. And the calendar is a fantastic idea. So many of us have made some amazing discoveries in the “wild”.
I guess I didn’t take much notice of the year-to-year design changes; from the silhouette alone I could tell what it was.
What transfixes me today is that blue color–wow! I swear every one I ever saw was dark green, brown, or the gold. Anyone know how common this color was?
Was the taller trunk lid done to increase luggage space maybe?
I never understood the logic of giving a close-cropped, usually bucket seat coupe FWD either. Why didn’t Olds and GM use the space-efficient, flat-floor layout for a sedan or wagon, where the improved space utilization would actually matter? Also, can someone explain to me why most GM FWD cars from the 1980 X bodies forward no longer had flat floors? I’m usually told “the exhaust pipe”, but ’66 and ’71 and ’79 Toros had exhaust pipes too and still had flat floors.
“Crystal Blue Persuasion” would have been such a perfect song to play at Woodstock, and it may well have been had the band only shown up. The Shondells were invited to perform at the legendary 1969 festival, getting a call from their secretary saying “yeah, listen, there’s this pig farmer in upstate New York that wants you to play in his field.” Didn’t sound very alluring, so Tommy James turned it down. “That’s how it was put to me. So we passed, and we realized what we’d missed a couple of days later”.
GM’s motto in the sixties: “Because we can”.
I love the original Toronado with a passion – I even had a ’66 at my disposal for a while in the 90s and it was a beautiful (mine was in the plum red launch color), great handling beast with utterly woeful brakes.
But, I have always wondered why GM didn’t invest the money they put into the FWD in an independent rear suspension they could have used on many more vehicles. Surely that would have kept up with the European opposition and been money better spent?
A ’67 Toronado was one of my favorite cars. When I bought it in ’77, I figured it would be a future collectable.
FWD, torsion bar front suspension, Swoopy body style (it looked like a ’68 Corvette’s bigger older brother), well engineered, it should go up in value!
Alas, in the 10 years I owned it, it never did. Big block pony cars is where the market went.
So much for my prediction.
In 1977 front wheel drive seemed esoteric (at least in America), but by 1987 FWD was associated with cheap economy cars like Dodge Omnis and Chevy Cavaliers.
In late 1964 my older brother’s best friend turned 16, which was when you could get your licence in Ontario. His family was well off, so for Christmas he was given a red 1965 Corvair Monza coupe. Later that year his dad bought himself one of the first 1966 Olds Toronados. In retrospect it seems interesting that he got the 2 most technically interesting cars that GM was making. Rear engine RWD and front engine FWD. His dad always drove a top of the line Olds and the Olds dealers also carried Chevys, so I suspect his dad went into his dealer and said I want a car for my teenage son and they sold him the Corvair. Later when he went to replace his own car they told him about their new Toronado and he bought one. It probably had nothing to do with the engineering.
weird, https://www.crazycar.com/?tag=toronado just gives me a “cannot be reached” error, “The server at http://www.crazycar.com is taking too long to respond.”
I was very impressed by the original Toronado. It sort of reminds me of the current Nissan 370 Z . With the prominent wheel openings and down sloping deck lid it looks a bit like the body was ‘shrunken” around the chassis. Here’s my favorite Olds ad. Just a man and his car. really conveys the pride of ownership. Not be non P.C. but Olds used to advertise itself as “the man’s car.”
I’m guessing they put the thick “eyeglass” bumper on it after people told dealers they wouldn’t buy it because they expected the knife blades to be crushed (and they probably often were). Remember, it was public complaints, not just government nannyism, that brought us the monstrous 5 mph bumpers. I remember how fragile the front bumper was on our ’68 Electra. Jacking the car up would deflect it.