I don’t get it. How can she be in such a bad mood when she’s standing next to a 1966 Toronado?
Maybe she lost the keys, or it doesn’t start, but I’d have a hard time doing anything but smile in the presence of a what is almost certainly the greatest car to ever bear the Oldsmobile badge.
This was the era when General Motors was at the top of their game, and the Toronado was a perfect example of their work at the time. It would have been put on a pedestal based on its appearance alone, a sinister looking fastback with a fuselage shape and concealed headlights, with a lack of superfluous trim that would have been unthinkable at Olds a decade before.
Styling was’t the only noteworthy thing about Olds’ amazing coupe. Its massive front-wheel drive system, which mounts the transmission under the engine and connects the two via a wide chain, is itself enough to give the Toronado landmark status. Put the aesthetics together with those mechanicals and you have a masterpiece.
The question really is, what the hell is she wearing?
The horizontal stripes on her skirt that get all checkerboardy at the top make the Pasha upholstery in a Porsche 928 seem tame. The intersecting graphics are so jarring with the clean shape of the car. Unfortunately, that is precisely also what’s happening on the dashboard of the ’66 Toronado. Take a look at this:
Good Lord, what am I looking at? The “drum” speedometer looks like an old bathroom scale, and if you exceed 130 miles an hour it appears the drum will just keep going around again and force you to do math (“let’s see…130 plus 25 is …”). You really don’t want to be doing that in an all-drum-brake equipped car traveling at over 190 feet per second. The other gauges and controls are in different shapes and surrounded in shiny stuff to the point that you have to stop and adjust for a few moments to even tell your eyes where to look.
Maybe at night, with just the instruments illuminated, it would be much easier to read these things. I’d certainly like to try it out, but I’m too terrified to see if our stripe-clad lady here would let that happen. Aren’t you?
Is that her skirt, or a semi matching handbag?
Maybe she’s at a dealer or shop saying “you guys REALLY need to put better brakes on this thing”. As the 66 only had drums on the front.
She just saw the ad for the Opel next to the swimming pool and is about to say, “WTF***!!!”
Reminds of the Flying Nun outfit (ignoring the graphics)…. I had a ’76 Eldorado at one time, which has the same drive train and you needed 3/4″ drive stuff to work on that suspension…
“You are not taking a picture of me wearing this!“
This car is in Forza Horizon 5. And for some reason down in the D and C classes, it’s like cheat code. Within the last month, they had a weekly C class championship restricted to FWD cars. I took that big boat out there with a bunch of Integras and CRXes and didn’t have to struggle to win (playing against highly skilled computer avatars).
I agree, the ’66 Olds is the greatest of those old barges from the previous millennium.
My favorite car! The doors were so long that it had handles for the rear passengers. Twist the center of the steering wheel and it unlocks so you can slide it closer. The flat floor made it comfortable for six and at least five had their own ashtray. It was glorious, upper-middle class excess!
Damn, I thought the 1970 two door Range Rover “invented” the extra inside door openers. Thanks.
Runway model 101: rule #7a – never smile.
She had hair like Jeannie Shrimpton back in 1965..
Legs that never ended, as well.
She just found out that after GM spent all that money on the TH425, they cheaped out on the rear suspension and installed a single leaf suspended solid beam unit.
One of these appears prominently in the neat little under the radar movie Anon as the ride of Clive Owen’s disaffected detective.
It’s an Andrew Niccol (Gattaca) movie about a future where augmented reality is beamed directly into our heads, so as you look at the world, everything has an overlay telling you facts about it. So he in fact drives this model.
Is this really a problem? According to Wikipedia, the top speed of the Toronado was only 135 mph. Also, who’s taking their FWD personal luxury car to the track?
You mean other than Mike Spangler?
https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/amv-prod-cad-assets/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2013-LeMons-Legends-Toronado-626×426.jpg
Consider me educated, sir.
Okay, but be warned that, as a geologist, my personal standard of what counts as educated is not high.
Geologist-fast is also not usually measured in MPH.
I suppose that does explain my approach to racing:
https://www.murileemartin.com/UG/LWA12/LWA12-UG-140.jpg
Let’s see… 66 model… 65 photoshoot…
She’s fine. It’s a mod outfit and perfect for the times and positively tame for some of the fashion stuff of the day.
As for the car, I had the good fortune of driving one of these in my youth. My dad had a 69 (my favorite year), the family had vacations, and I had a job so I stayed home. It really is a great cruiser.
It’s definitely a reaction to the most unflattering dress ever to appear in a car ad. It’s like dazzle camouflage for beauty.
A friend’s dad bought one new in 1966. We were a couple years shy of legal driving age and just overwhelmed by the exterior styling, instrumentation, and most of all, the performance of the 425 V8. And it got great traction in the snow on bias ply tires when the norm in the Midwest was to install snow tires on RWD cars. The Toronado’s styling is still beautiful today.
As far as the woman’s attire, I would occasionally respond to my sons questions about growing up in the 60s and 70s by saying “It was a different time”.
I have always said that if your parents begin a story with the words. “Well, it was the ’70s…”, they are about to disclose things about themselves that you never, ever wanted to know and that will populate your nightmares for the rest of your life.
The corollary is that if your grandparents are telling the story, they get to be the cool grandparents, and it’s even better if your parents are in the room with your and forced to listen.
Absolutely! I’ve been in both situations, and once my sons got into their twenties, I came clean.
“Where do you think you’re going mister? Out cruising in your Toronado? I don’t think so – get back in that house and unclog that bathroom sink like you said you would!”
I love it when these cars put some of the auxiliaries like the climate controls or the radio on the left side of the driver. Nothing says ‘F U’ to the passenger better than this.
The driver is the captain!
I said wot?
They put the camouflage on her instead of the car. She must have some weird angles they needed to hide
She was actually the ’68 Cutlass.
“What do you mean ‘I’m a checkered flag’ that makes no sense. The Toronado doesn’t race anywhere!”
They did okay at Pikes Peak.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/motorsports/1966-pikes-peak-hillclimb/
To be honest, this car is so beautiful that I didn’t even notice the woman.
Take your phone and point the camera at her dress. You’ll be stunned when you find out that this was the worlds first public appearance of a QR code!
Data processing specialist W.T. Fug invented this concept in the mid 60s. He truly was a foresighted man.
She’s in her dazzle scheme, making it harder for the Hun to accurately calculate her heading for the torpedo shot.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage
I’m guessing each GM car had a predetermined chrome budget, and when they couldn’t use enough of it on the outside, it ended up in the dash.
“If we don’t use it all up they’ll reduce next year’s allotment!”
She’s a terrible paper doll come to life.
She’s mad because horizontal stripes do not flatter the figure.
You’d be mad, too, if you had to wear your husband’s boxer shorts on your head.