(EXPANDED FROM 6/18/2021)
In selecting the 1966 Oldmobile Toronado as its Car of the Year, Motor Trend (2005) took out its pom-poms and gushed that “never in the 14-year history of this award has the choice been so obvious and unanimous. The Toronado is symbolic of a resurgence of imaginative engineering and tasteful styling in the U.S. auto industry.”
Hips now swaying to the beat of the band, the magazine’s editors went on to shout that “here, truly, is not only the car of the year but perhaps the decade.”
Perhaps Motor Trend got a little carried away by the music. But in a narrow sense they were right. The Toronado was the first mass-produced postwar U.S. car to use front-wheel drive, which would become one of the most important technological innovations of the late-20th Century.
Oldsmobile’s new top-of-line halo coupe also pioneered what would come to be called “fuselage” styling, where the greenhouse was fully integrated into the fenders like an airplane rather than being plopped on top of them. That would become a dominant styling trend in the 1970s.
At least initially, Oldsmobile marketeers seemed to think that the car’s front-wheel drive would be a big competitive advantage. Ads emphasized that the technology resulted in better traction and flat floors. Alas, that didn’t prove to be very important to personal coupe buyers.
The trendsetter that went down without a ripple
Despite all of the initial fanfare, the Toronado ended up being an asterisk. Sales for the first-generation models were the worst of any of the premium-priced big personal coupes. Although almost 41,000 Toronados left the factory in 1966, for the rest of its five-year production cycle output hovered around 25,000 units — well below its corporate sibling, the Buick Riviera.
More significantly, front-wheel drive would not begin to spread to lower-priced General Motors cars until the ill-fated X-Body subcompacts were introduced in the 1980 model year (go here for further discussion).
Also see ‘1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme: Monument to a fading dream’
Meanwhile, the public’s cool response to the 1966 Toronado’s “expressive” styling led designers to give it an increasingly broughamtastic persona. The 1970 Toronado, which endured a desperate one-year-only reskinning, looked like a caricature of the original design. And when it came time to design the second-generation models, GM largely avoided taking risks. The 1971-78 Toronado had some of the most generic neo-classical styling of the 1970s. Yet sales improved somewhat. Funny how that works.
Did America need a front-wheel-drive ‘3+2’ coupe?
What’s particularly tragic is that the original proposal that grew into the Toronado could have been the most important car of the 1960s. In 1958 Oldsmobile engineers began to develop a front-wheel drive version of the automaker’s compact Y-Body (Freers, 2005). That car anticipated the X-Body, but it was not approved for production.
Instead, GM slapped front-wheel drive on the kind of car that would least benefit from it — a big personal coupe with a rather long (and space-wasting) snout. In a road test of a 1968 Toronado, Car and Driver noted that the car’s low and swoopy styling largely neutralized one of the most important advantages of its drivetrain — the potential for extra passenger space and luggage capacity.
Even a Motor Trend retrospective of the original Toronado put down the pom-poms long enough to acknowledge that the rear seat was such a tight squeeze that Consumer Reports called the car a “3+2” (Freers, 2005).
So “what’s left” of front-wheel drive’s advantages, Car and Driver (1968) asked? “Good directional stability with peculiar handling and a flat floor.”
Those qualities did not prove to be top priorities of big personal coupe buyers. Nor did having more trunk space. If roominess was such a big deal, why not go for a Ninety-Eight instead?
One might logically ask why GM even bothered giving the Toronado front-wheel drive. Aaron Severson (2010) noted that the car’s rear-wheel-drive sibling, the Buick Riviera, “handled as well or better, had much better brakes, cost less, and was some 250 lb (113 kg) lighter despite nearly identical exterior dimensions.”
The shipping weights I have access to suggest a bit less of a weight differential, but Severson’s overall point is well taken. The Toronado was also more expensive. In 1966 the base model listed for $4,617 while the Deluxe model went for $4,812. That was meaningfully higher than the Riviera ($4,424) and the top-end Ford Thunderbird Landau ($4,584).
Now factor in the styling, which may have been too muscular for a large personal coupe. Is it any surprise that the Riviera ended up selling better?
What the Toronado symbolized about the state of GM
Motor Trend (2005) noted that the Toronado was a product of an elaborate committee process. It just so happened that Oldsmobile staff such as chief engineer John B. Beltz pushed hard for front-wheel drive . . . and a premium-priced personal coupe became the path of least resistance.
The logic behind that direction was apparently twofold. First, that buyers of a personal coupe would be more open to exotic technology than plebeian family car buyers. Second, that the added costs of front-wheel drive could be more easily absorbed by a high-end halo car (Severson, 2010).
Although the Oldsmobile Division reportedly pushed for the Toronado to be placed on the mid-sized A-Body, upper management insisted that it share the E-Body with the Riviera and forthcoming Cadillac Eldorado, thereby increasing the latter platform’s economies of scale.
This all sounds perfectly rational. But it still doesn’t address the fundamental mismatch of giving a big personal coupe front-wheel drive. If top management thought that such a drivetrain was only financially viable on a higher-margin niche car, the Olds Ninety-Eight or Vista Cruiser would have been better alternatives because the packaging advantages would have been more tangible to consumers.
GM had the money but not the motivation to innovate
When the Toronado was introduced, Beltz was quoted as saying that the car was “born of a desire to create a better automobile, one with more useable room and improved roadability” (1966, p. 2). Alas, what went into production offered only meager improvements on both scores. It was much ado about little.
The Toronado thus illustrates a central paradox of an industry suffering from too little domestic competition. As the biggest U.S. automaker, GM had the deepest pockets to lead the charge on an expensive new technology such as front-wheel drive. Yet GM arguably had less motivation to change the status quo than smaller automakers looking for a competitive edge.
Why should GM have spent the extra money to give even its higher-priced family cars front-wheel drive when they were already dominating the market? As a case in point, in 1962 the Ninety-Eight and Buick Electra garnered a whopping 86 percent of the high-end premium-priced big car field.
This is not to suggest that GM was the only U.S. automaker that was hesitant to invest in innovation. The finance people at Ford fought hard to stop the original Mustang because it “might add cost to the company’s budget without necessarily guaranteeing sales” (Halberstam, 1986; p. 367). Yet the Mustang was a less risky financial proposition than the Toronado because it was merely a restyled Falcon. No new technology here.
The timidity of GM and Ford had an outsized impact because together the two automakers made up around 80 percent of the domestic market in the mid-60s. In theory, Chrysler or American Motors could have switched to front-wheel drive, but in practice it would have been an enormous — and risky — investment as long as the Big Two stuck with lower-cost, rear-wheel-drive technology.
Doesn’t GM deserve some credit for the Toronado?
All of the U.S. automakers were averse to major engineering innovations in the mid-60s, so one could argue that GM deserves at least some credit for testing out front-wheel drive on the Toronado. But how much? Car and Driver (1968) summed up the Oldmobile Division’s ambivalence about the car:
“Olds created it, pushed it out into the world and then stood back, wringing its corporate hands, waiting to see if it sank or swam. There have been times when Olds even pretended it wasn’t there. They certainly make no attempt to capitalize on its great strength, its uniqueness. In searching through the Owner’s Manual we found not one reference to fwd. That seemed curious. Front-wheel-drive has limitations but it also has advantages. Oldsmobile must have thought so or it wouldn’t have built the thing in the first place. Why should the world embrace the Toronado when even its mother has reservations?”
This is not the first — or last — time that GM half-heartedly experimented with a new kind of car, only to lose interest when things didn’t go as well as expected. For example, prior to the Toronado’s arrival, the Y-Body’s most significant engineering advances, such as an aluminum V8 and a rear transaxle, had been quietly discontinued.
Of course, GM didn’t ditch the Toronado. However, the automaker also didn’t apply the car’s drivetrain to other cars that could have generated considerably more sales. By 1969 the Ninety-Eight and Electra together topped 275,000 units. That was more than five times as high as production for the Toronado and its front-wheel-drive sibling, the Eldorado.
Contrary to Beltz’s above quote, GM was not committed to making a “better automobile.” Or at least not a family car that kept pace technologically with those made in Europe, where front-wheel drive had gone mainstream by the mid-60s. Even so, you’d think that GM management’s legendary cost consciousness would at least have spurred them to increase the Toronado drivetrain’s economies of scale given that the car “never really made money,” according to former Olds designer Stan Wilen (Freers, 2005).
Nope. Front-wheel drive was just another shiny thing.
NOTES:
This story was first posted on June 18, 2021 and expanded on Jan. 19, 2024. Production and market share figures were calculated from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (1993, 2006) and Flammang and Kowalke (1999). Specifications are from the above as well as Automobile Catalog (2024), Consumers Reports (1970) and Flory (2004).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 1993, 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
- Automobile Catalog; 2024. “Full detailed specifications listing and photo gallery.” Accessed Jan. 19.
- Beltz, John B.; 1966. “An Overall Look at the Toronado — A New Breed of Automobile.” General Motors Engineering Journal. First-quarter issue: pp. 2-21.
- Car and Driver; 1968. “Tested: 1968 Oldsmobile Toronado.” Published in April issue.
- Consumer Reports; 1970. “Auto Buying Guide.” April issue.
- Flory, J. “Kelly”; 2004. American Cars, 1960 to 1972. McFarland & Co.
- Freers, David; 2005. “Drive: 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado.” Motor Trend. Posted Aug. 10.
- General Motors Engineering Journal; 1966. First-quarter issue.
- Halberstam, David; 1986. The Reckoning. William Morrow & Co., New York, NY.
- Motor Trend; 2005. “From the Archives: Motor Trend Award to the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado.” Posted June 24.
- Ruzzin, Dick; 2013. “1966 Oldsmobile Toronado Development.” Dean’s Garage. Posted March 30.
- ——; 2013. Commentator in “1966 Oldsmobile Toronado Development.” Dean’s Garage. Posted 2:21 p.m., April 11.
- Severson, Aaron; 2010. “Out in Front: The Front-Wheel-Drive Oldsmobile Toronado, Part 1.” Ate Up With Motor. Posted Nov. 13.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES
- autohistorypreservationsociety.org: Oldsmobile Toronado (1971)
- oldcaradvertising.com: Oldsmobile Toronado (1966)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Buick Riviera (1966); Dodge (1972); Oldsmobile 442 (1966); Olds Ninety-Eight (1966); Olds Toronado (1966, 1967, 1968, 1970); Olds Vista Cruiser (1966); Plymouth (1962)
PHOTOGRAPHY:
- Milwaukee Art Museum Brooks Stevens Archives
Did not know Oldsmobile’s original plans were to develop a front-wheel drive version of the Y-Body, had the Cutlass featured a Tornado-line longitudinal FWD layout would that have allowed that particular version of the Y-Body to feature a similar near 2 decade production run as opposed to the existing RWD Y-Body’s 3 year production run or would the FWD layout have simply been transferred to a version of the A-Body?
Apart from the all-alloy 215 Oldsmobile V8 and loosely related Buick V6, what other engines would GM have utilized for a compact FWD Y-Body (later A-Body) beyond the Pontiac Trophy 4 and Chevrolet 153 4-cylinder engines?
Outside of GM expediently developing an early V6 version of the SBC (or V6 version of the stillborn Cadillac V12* developed in the 60s) or possibly carrying over the non-alloy 300-350 Buick V8 cannot really see the inline-6s or other larger V8s fitting, with GM selling the 215 BOP V8 and Buick V6 to Rover and AMC (though GM also offered the latter to Rover for possible use in Land Rovers).
*- Some say the 60s V12 prototype had 60-degrees others 90-degrees.
I have seen fuzzy and conflicting information about what happened to the initial XP-874 project, which focused on the Y-Body. I don’t get the impression that front-wheel drive was seriously considered for the new-for-1964 A-Body mid-sized cars. Instead, the focus appears to have shifted to full-sized cars.
A front-wheel drive F-85 is an intriguing “what if” because it could have led to family cars that were much more space efficient than traditional rear-wheel-drive mid-sized cars of the 1960s.
One could go a step further and wonder how the Corvair would have turned out if it had been FWD. It presumably would have been more expensive to build than Ford’s Falcon, but GM was big enough that it plausibly could have gotten away with charging a bit more, particularly if the car was perceived as having practical advantages such as being roomier or a better highway cruiser.
My guess is that the biggest potential problem with a FWD entry-level compact would have been the almost inevitable teething problems of the new technology. Would GM have been patient in perfecting the car or would it have scurried back to a more traditional design? The automaker’s general tendency has been to do the latter.
In theory the lighter 215 BOP (later Rover) V8, Buick V6 and whatever 4-cylinder was available should have helped to mitigate any teething issues with a FWD entry-level Oldsmobile compared to the larger Tornado.
BLMC Australia would later in 1969 instigate a project study for a front-wheel drive V8 car based upon the production Austin 1800 MKII, modified for the installation of a 4.2-litre Rover V8 with custom Borg-Warner 35 3-speed automatic transmission.
http://www.amvcnsw.com.au/austin1800/Newsletters/Newsletter02.pdf
Oldsmobile were not the only ones at GM who were investigating FWD, heard Opel were doing the same as well as Vauxhall during that period. Vauxhall with the transverse-engined XP-714 project (the engine being a downsized 1-litre version of the 1.5-1.6-litre Victor OHV unit rather than the newer lighter Viva/Kadett OHV), that was later merged with Opel’s more convention project to become the Viva HA and Kadett A respectively.
http://vauxpedianet.uk2sitebuilder.com/vauxhall-ha—viva-part-1
As the son of a G.M. project administrator and frequent prototype test vehicle logger, my father saw 1964 and 1965 F-85 sedans modified with prototype Olds V-8 engines and front-wheel drive at Milford and in Michigan testing on public roads. Tire wear and braking were initial issues. Imagine if Oldsmobile had leaped-frogged the 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix by Building the Toronado in the 116-inch wheelbase with the 425 V-8 A-body coupe with front-wheel drive. I think it should have been the Starfire !
One thing that Oldsmobile’s testing worked out was front-wheel drive packaging for future applications in the late 1970s and mid-1980s.
James, that’s really interesting. Did you get the impression that front-wheel drive was seriously considered for the 1964 A-Body Oldsmobile or that it was more routine advanced research and development?
I suspect that an A-Body Toronado might have sold much better than the E-Body. Even Pontiac saw its big sporty coupes lose altitude in the second half of the 1960s compared to its mid-sized siblings.
GM seemed to have a real problem with fixing the Toronado’s braking. Even after they added optional disc brakes, Car and Driver still complained about excessive fade.
The 1966 Toronado is my 2nd favourite post-Second World War II American car but it was, as you point out Steve, subjected to typcial American car-industry group think and turned out the way it did because of that. The ideal Toronado would have been smaller, RWD, still V8-powered, featured fully independent suspension and disc brakes all around, plus come with leather bucket seats, console, floor shift and a fully adjustable steering wheel, as standard equipment. In other words, a genuine American grand touring coupe. Would it have sold better? Would GM have built such a car? No, on both counts. American car companies and American car buyers have never understood the concept of a true GT and those aficionados that did, bought European. With so many American cars, everything came at a price… great exterior styling begets a cheap interior. Ferocious V8 torque and horsepower begets drum brakes. And so it went. Nevertheless, despite it flaws and shortcomings, I still love the ’66 Toronado.
CJ, I really like your idea of a real grand-touring Toronado — and I may be more optimistic than you about how it might have sold. Pontiac produced almost 97,000 GTOs in 1966 and another 82,000 in the generally down year of 1967. The Dodge Charger hovered around 90,000 units in both 1968 and 1969. The downsized 1969 Grand Prix surpassed 112,000 units even though it was priced a good $1,000 over a base GTO. This suggests to me that there was a market for a mid-sized personal coupe.
Of course, one could argue that I’m to some degree comparing apples and oranges because the 1969 Toronado was priced $1,000 above the Grand Prix or a high-end Charger. Fair enough, but surely an A-Body Toronado would have done better than its E-Body output of under 30,000 units, particularly if Oldsmobile had decided to place it farther downmarket.
I didn’t mention this in the article, but part of the early Toronado’s problem could have been that Beltz wanted the car to be positioned above the Thunderbird and Riviera and inching toward Cadillac territory. At least in retrospect, that seems odd for a car that initially tilted more toward sporty rather than luxurious . . . yet didn’t even have bucket seats as standard equipment. In a way the Toronado was like the AMC Marlin — it had a mix of unusual qualities that didn’t appeal to many car buyers.
And, yeah, I do really like key elements of the Toronado’s styling. The front could have used a reworking, but the rest of the car was quite well done. It reminds me a bit of the De Tomaso Mangusta.
That’s very interesting about the proposed pricing for the Toronado because I can imagine GM’s Board of Directors giving that a thumbs down for infringing on the Sloanian hierachy of the corporation’s brands. However, had the Toronado been born a true American GT coupe, it would have needed the high price tag to attract the right clientele and to justify the equipment level. Which brings me to clarifying what I meant about the “ideal” Toronado (I-Toro) not selling. I should have added, “in 1966”, which was a much different time than 1969 for personal luxury coupes. Charger and Grand Prix sales went up, as you pointed out, as the luxury quotient increased in both those brands but in 1966, American car buyers would, I believe, have shunned a “small” high-priced grand touring coupe. If such a car could sell 30,000 units a year, the profit potential would have been much higher than for the actual Toronado. Still, I worry that had I-Toro sales not met whatever projections were laid out for it, Oldsmobile would discontinue the I-Toro by first de-contenting it the way it did with the 1966 Starfire and later, the 2nd gen Aurora. And as we saw with the 2nd gen Toronado, why create something new when you can water down an old idea? I’m being a bit harsh here because I happen to really like the 1971-72 Toronado (it’s a better-looking Eldorado; I try to imagine the 71-72 Toro with hidden headlights, btw). All of this got me thinking that someone (hint-hint) should write a feature about all the post-war GM cars that were almost great (and which we love anyway) and how GM’s particular brand of group think got in the way.
I wonder if George Barris might be to something when he customized a 1967 Toronado into a roadster for the first season of Mannix? https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/curbside-tv-the-cars-of-mannix/
Having the GM E-body derived from the mid-size A-body would have been a interesting scenario to see.
I thought part of the appeal of the bench seat in the Toronado was to feature the hump-less flat floor. Center consoles between bucket seats help to camouflage the drivetrain hump. Wasn’t the bench seat also more common in the first generation Eldorado? I thought the bucket seat/center console configuration was a rare option for a similar (though more luxurious) car.
That’s a good point. In addition, my impression is that — in general — the large personal coupe market moved away from bucket seats and center consoles to variations on the bench seat in the late-60 and early-70s.
The Toronado is a fascinating case study of how GM made certain product decisions. Front-wheel-drive on a personal luxury coupe doesn’t make much sense, but potential buyers and GM executives at that time remembered the front-wheel-drive Cord. By the early 1960s, it was remembered as high-style car with an interesting feature. No doubt GM felt that a similar approach would work with the Toronado. Front-wheel-drive would help the car stand out in an increasingly crowded field. The Cadillac Eldorado was scheduled to debut the next year, and I’m sure that GM’s “intelligence” was aware that the Thunderbird was scheduled to be “upsized” for 1967 (and would receive a four-door model with Lincoln-like doors, which was Ford’s effort to make that car stand out from increased competition).
Interestingly, I’ve read that John Beltz DID press for a Toronado wagon after the coupe was introduced. Ed Cole supposedly pointed to the lackluster sales of the coupe and said, “Sell what you have first.”
A Toronado wagon? That’s an interesting idea — the world’s biggest “sport” wagon. If it had been a two-door model that would have once again undercut part of the value of front-wheel drive. But if it had four doors that would have blurred the market positioning of the Toronado — and perhaps cannibalized the Ninety-Eight, which was already not keeping up with the Buick Electra’s sales growth.
The Vista Cruiser strikes me as the best option, but then the question would be: Why not give other mid-sized Oldsmobiles front-wheel drive as well? And if they did, that would have opened up a big can of worms regarding how the mid-sized cars were positioned relative to GM’s big cars.
So I get why Cole didn’t want to upset the apple cart, but it set back the U.S. auto industry’s technological development.
You could always count on Red Foreman to chose the best option
Steve, in answer to your question about the 1964-1965 Oldsmobile A-boy “mules”, my father said at the time that Oldsmobile was examining all options from the 330 cu.-in. V-8 to the 425 big block Rockets, both original and the 1965 thin-wall blocks. My father said his Oldsmobile contacts told him that four-wheel disc brakes would be standard in 1966, but the bean counters must have over-ruled. The 1967 Cadillac Eldorados came with drum brakes all around, standard, but front discs were optional !
I believe that Oldsmobile began the front-wheel-drive program around 1959 to examine all of the issues of producing a modern front-wheel-drive 88 / 98-size car with a large, heavy Rocket V-8 and a HydraMatic. The 14th Floor okay was likely more of a production “proof-of-concept” rather than conditioned on any sales target. What is truly fascinating about the Toronado was that the concept or the lessons learned from the car did not translate into smaller vehicles within G.M. until 1979. A genuine opportunity lost to the automobile industry.
Some fundamental questions in all this:
1. Since, at least initially, the fwd drivetrain was going to cost more, wouldn’t it make more sense to introduce it in a model that had an ability to have a higher price?
2. With that answer then one gets to how it is more logical to target the large engine powertrain. This scales the transaxle for the large motor’s size and torque capability which is going to be an overkill for a small block engine.
3. Is it better to find out if there is a market acceptance where the public values this different solution rather than jumping into a “bread & butter” market segment? Especially since this may come with additional product cost that results in a higher MSRP.
3A. If the decision is to use fwd on a mainstream model, but not across the board with all brands using that platform, what will that do to the assembly line?
4. When one thinks back to 1966-1970 this was a time of performance and drag racing. This is not where fwd is not a good solution when one is looking at the mainstream platform.
In looking at the original 1966 and 1967 Toronado, one might consider how it provided the platforma and transaxle for the Eldo. Could the Cadillac have been the one that made the money to justify this?
Found this with some additional details.https://www.outrightolds.com/olds-model-guide/oldsmobile-toronado
Interesting that it says that bucket seats were a no cost option on the 1966 Deluxe models.
Buick turned down using the fwd for the Riviera.
It seems to indicate that the Toronado was made on an assembly line that was unique to it.
I’ve always had reservations about the style of these Toronados. Oh they were impressive beasts, for sure, but there are some details that just don’t quite work.
Like those huge flares on the fenders. They’re way bigger than they need to be, and dominate the styling to the point of taking the eye away from the seamless integration of body and roof. Why would you downplay that in 1966? Was it thought too advanced for the market? Coupled with the perfectly circular wheel arches this adds so much visual weight that it not only de-emphasizes the roof but almost seems to visually anchor the car to the ground and make it look static. I thought the ’70 wheel arch treatment was much more subtly and nicely handled, though we lost that fuselage roof treatment. I don’t suppose that was deliberate since Chrysler were spruiking their fuselage C-bodies?
From side-on, the door-to-fender cutline appears to be almost a straight vertical line, as does the door-to-quarter-panel. Ideally you’d want some curvature here, to avoid the design looking too plain and too static. On a long, low car like this, you want to avoid verticals.
I must say though, kudos to the Fisher Body engineers for producing three related cars which have nothing visually in common, while one of them managed to have a totally different powertrain layout! The floorpan must have been quite a sight to behold, to be able to mount such totally different chassis. I am amazed that the Riviera and Toronado managed to share a body; they look like they have nothing visible in common.
The Tornado indeed arrived decontented. It made zero sense for such a heavy, powerful car, not to come with 4-wheel power assisted disc brakes as standard. One only needs to take a look at the concurrent Thunderbird to see what an upscale, intimate PLC cockpit should look like. Ford may have used conventional drivetrains for the T-Bird & later, the Continental Mk III but there was no skimping on the luxury inside and also no pretense about carrying 6-passengers. There were no base models with decontented interior trimmings. Oldsmobile did not even offer leather upholstery as an option. Additionally, Ford offered disc brakes, radial tires (Michelins on the Mk III) and an early version of anti-skid brakes (Mk III only, I believe). So, while GM tried to wow consumers with high-tech, it penny-pinched in the areas that mattered most to PLC buyers. Did anyone care the Toronado had a flat floor? It was not a family car. Ford piled on the plush while adding high value luxury features. I love the Toro for its stand out styling but lament that GM never allowed it to morph into a true American grand touring coupe.