RETRO 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado
LUXURY COUPE PUT FRONT-WHEEL DRIVE BACK ON THE MAP IN AMERICA
IT’S EASY TO THINK of American cars of the 1960s as dumb land-yachts – gas-guzzlers with front-mounted V8s, rear-wheel drive and cart suspension; unimaginative reskins of the 1950s, stumbling zombie-like towards the fuel crises of the 1970s.
In fact, the 1960s were a pretty bold time, and not least at General Motors. In 1962 it had released the Oldsmobile Jetfire, a groovy, hardtop coupe whose V8 engine featured the industry’s first turbocharger.
Just a month later, GM turbocharged a variant of the Chevrolet Corvair, itself a complete turnaround from Motown convention in having a rear-mounted, aircooled, flat-six engine.
In this context, a luxury grand-touring coupe with a 7.0-litre V8 engine and front-wheel drive didn’t look so weird. In fact, from any angle the Oldsmobile Toronado of 1966 looked pretty damn gorgeous.
Oldsmobile began developing front-wheel drive in 1958, concurrent with Mini designer Alec Issigonis across the pond. America’s last FWD effort had been the Cord 810 in 1936 and, like Cord, Olds was more concerned with the configuration’s directional stability and comfort than packaging efficiency.
Taking its new 425ci (7.0-litre) big-block V8, Olds developed a longitudinal, parallel drivetrain, with the modified TH400 transmission running below the left cylinder bank. A specially developed chain took drive from the torque-converter, at the rear of the engine, to the transmission.
If the tech spec raised eyebrows, the styling dropped jaws. It originated in a 1962 sketch known as the ‘flame red car’. Designer David North stretched the proportions (to a 5400mm overall length) and, at marketing’s direction, gave a nod to the Cord 810 in the ‘sandwiched’, slatted grille. Pop-up headlights were, sadly, replaced in ’68, the model shown above.
Initially slow to sell, notably against sibling rival Buick’s rear-drive Riviera, the Toronado was soon acclaimed for its unusually firm yet comfortable suspension tune and extremely spacious cabin. The Toronado was assembled on a dedicated, slow-moving line, and build quality was several notches above mainstream GM fare.
Cadillac would base its new-for-’67 Eldorado coupe on the Toronado’s platform. The Caddie’s sudden sales success ensured that the second-generation Toronado (1971-’78) would be bigger, squarer and dumbed-down. Just over 143,000 examples of the elegant Series 1 (1966-’70) were produced.