Lately I’ve had American cars on the brain. Obviously, the Daytona Coupe touched a nerve with it’s 20 pounds of awesome in a 5 pound bag. The sharper eyed and Southern California-based among you may have noticed that we shot some of the GT40 pics in front of Ford’s West Coast HQ. Er, Ford’s ex-HQ, as they’ve leased the building to Taco Bell. And while the financial collapse and accompanying tsuris are outside of the scope of this particular blog, it soon won’t be. Like if Pontiac gets killed — no more G8 GT! If you check out our podcasts you might remember me explaining that the LA Auto Show had the stink of death about it. At one point I ran into Dan Neil of LA Times fame. He lamented the irony of a “dying industry covering a dying industry.” If you haven’t been paying attention, the newspaper biz might be in worse shape than Detroit. Anyhow, at one point Dan brought up the “thought experiment” of nationalizing GM. Regardless of how you feel about Mr. Neil’s modest proposal, you will join me in shamelessly basking in the glory days of the American Automobile industry when we didn’t have to contemplate such sad and taxing things. That’s right, a new series. We’re calling it Domestic Bliss (jump).

First car in our series — the Olds Toronado. Why not start things out right with a solo home run? You got to put yourself back in the mid 60s to (fully) appreciate this car. JFK was gone, but RFK was just starting to heat up. LBJ was reluctantly sending troops to VIetnam. Our détente with the Soviets was going smoothly while Gemini capsules were docking with Agena target vehicles. GM enjoyed over 50% of the American market and while imports were starting to arrive, they accounted for just 6% of all cars sold in 1965. That’s Germany, Japan and the others combined. And what do you do when you’re sitting on top of the (automotive) world  and a mountain of cash? Break molds, of course.

Meet the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado. One of the weirdest things about the Toronado (and there are many odd bits) is that it’s actually a retro car. No, really. You ever seen a coffin-nosed Cord 810/812? Oldsmobile stylist David North sure had when he painted a Toronado in 1962. While the Toronado’s grill is the most obvious cues, the flared fenders are also influenced by the Cord. Oldsmobile was aching to build a slick “personal luxury” coupe in the same class as Ford’s Thunderbird and Buick’s Riviera. And with North’s design, they got the green light. 

With one catch. Like the Cord 810/812, the Toronado would be front wheel drive. 

In the mid 60s cars consistently did exactly one thing — they got bigger. Even though the Toronado’s 119 inch wheel base was modest for the time period, no one inside GM (or out) every considered anything less than a big block. Trouble is, how do you make a big block front-wheel drive? Practice. Olds logged over 1.5 million miles on FWD mules. In fact, the FWD program had been began in 1958 meaning that for all intents and purposes the Toronado had 7 years of development behind it. The resulting car was drastically overbuilt. How overbuilt? GMC made a motorhome out of it. For the 1966 model year the Toronado shipped with a 425 Rocket V8 good for 385 hp and 475 lb-ft of torque. Unless you ticked option W-34. Then you got the Super Rocket good for 400 horses and 500 lb-ft. 1968 saw the introduction of the 455 Rocket option. Horsepower fell to 375  but torque was up into the “too much” range. 

The name meant nothing (made it up for a Chevy show car) and Magnum, Raven and even Scirocco were all considered. Inside was pure jet age with a very important twist. No transmission tunnel meant more space and a flat floor — i.e. more luxury! And again you got to mentally step back in time to fully appreciate how radical the Toronado was. Let me help you. There were no American front-wheel drive cars. Taking into account Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class (when electric lights first came out, the wealthy though it romantic to dine by electric light. Once even the poorest of the poor could buy a lightbulb, candle light dinners became en vogue) you can see how just how desirable Oldsmobile’s personal lux coupe was. Hell, forget all that, is. 

Sadly, the wheels started to come off the bus a bit when the Generation II debuted in 1971. And all you have to do is look at the 3rd and 4th gen Toronados to understand why the Big Three are in such big trouble.