Holy crap! Somehow, I’ve made it through a full week of a daily feature, a feat of regularity and consistency that I will happily admit is not a core strength of mine. But I did it! For every day this week, I have had an old Commodore PET computer randomly pick a page number, then I looked up that page in my copy of Craig Cheetham’s 2005 book The World’s Worst Cars, which I maintain is more accurately a book of interesting cars. I then looked at what the featured car was on that page, and did my best to try and convince you that the car shown there did not deserve this ignominy of being featured in a book called The World’s Worst Cars. Was I successful? Sure, why not? Who’s going to say otherwise? Craig Cheetham? I mean, maybe, on the off chance he even finds out I’m doing this and, somehow, gives a shit. But screw it, there’s cars to redeem! Let’s go to the computer and pick a new page!
As you may recall, the method used to select what car to redeem from the book is highly sophisticated: I write a small BASIC program into my Commodore PET to pick a random number, which references a page number, and whatever car happens to be on that page is the car I redeem.
Which page will the PET Pick? Let’s see!
Page 299 it is! Okay! Let’s see what we have on page 299:
Holy shit. Craig, are you kidding me? The Oldsmobile Toronado? One of the coolest Oldsmobiles to ever olds a mobile? What kind of absurd criteria were you using, Craig? No, no no no. This can not stand. Nope. Not on my watch.
The Oldsmobile Toronado was one of those cars that reminds you, oh yeah, when GM decides they actually want to do something cool, they can bring engineering might to the table like almost no one else. Sometimes they seem to just get tired of doing things boring and expected and out of nowhere comes a rear-engined Corvair or a rope-drive transaxle Tempest or a mid-engine Fiero or the electric EV-1 and you realize holy crap, these guys aren’t fucking around. The Toronado, one of America’s first mass-produced front-wheel drive cars since the Cord 810/812 in the 1930s, was definitely an example of this.
The Toronado started out as, of all things, a big painting. A painting of an idea for a possible personal luxury car, painted by Oldsmobile designer David North, back in 1962. It was just a bold design study, not seriously intended to be produced. But fate has a funny way of working sometimes, and it was decided that there was a need to compete with Ford’s Thunderbird (and even GM’s own Riviera) in the “personal luxury” segment, and Oldsmobile picked North’s painting as the place to start.
The car wasn’t originally supposed to be front wheel drive; but GM had been working on FWD for quite some time, and this became a perfect opportunity.
FWD gave the Toronado an interesting technical differentiator, as well as packaging advantages like a totally flat floor.
The drivetrain, essentially an Olds Rocket V8 engine combined with a transaxle, became the Unitized Power Package (UPP) and fit a whole drivetrain in an engine bay no larger than a conventional front engine/rear-drive car. That’s quite a triumph! That same UPP was used to power the GM Motorhome, too! Plus, there’s real advantages to FWD, especially when compared to the big front/rear cars of the era, like improved traction, which ads of the era definitely played up:
…and, of course, in commercials, too:
These cars were sleek and fast, with engines making close to 400 hp! What is Craig thinking? These were technologically innovative, strikingly designed, fast, comfortable – how is that worst of anything?
GM sold about 41,000 of these their first year – not huge numbers for GM, but not small numbers, either. The book suggests that GM didn’t get their investment back from the project, and while, sure, later FWD cars ended up being transverse instead of longitudinal and a fundamentally different approach, the Toronado platform also went on to underpin the Cadillac Eldorado and, let’s just keep it simple here, these cars are simply cool.
I mean, it’s the only car I can think of that ever offered – as part of its hidden headlamp setup – a way to change grille designs at the flick of a switch:
Look at that! Lights off, honeycomb grille, lights on, you have an egg-crate design. What other car has a dynamically changing grille?
Maybe the Toronado wasn’t a runaway success and didn’t get GM to switch all their cars to longitudinal FWD by 1975. It didn’t. But it also was a memorable, remarkable car that still inspires fascination today. There’s no way that’s worst anything, Craig. Jeez.
Okay, everyone, please rip out page 299 from your copy of The World’s Worst Cars. Thank you.
Beautiful cars, and the first production car with an airbag in 1973.
I genuinely love the toronado and have been on the hunt for the right one for the last few years. I watched “a series of unfortunate events” with my kids and my daughter pointed out how cool the villain car is… a facelifted first generation toronado
Watch the first season of “Manix” for the (probably) George Barris custom Toranado convertable. The cars of this series are very interesting, after season one, Chrysler was a sponsor. Lots of big Mopar iron got beat on, sure sounded great in the process.
Every time you tear a page out, you lose 3 cars to coose, not 1. You think we don’t notice that you are limiting this to 1/3 the book??
The Toronado is awesome. How is it Torch didn’t mention it’s also one of the first and best retro-style cars? It’s a deliberate and subtle homage to Gordon Buehrig‘s 1936 Cord 810 Westchester. Front-wheel drive V8, horizontal slatted grille, pop-up headlights, steel wheels with holes punched around the edge, fast back styling, and even the hint of pontoon fenders. If the Toronado seemed advanced in the 1960s, the Cord was absolutely a post card from the future in the 1930s.
Instead of “World’s Worst Cars” book, “World’s Worst Car Book”.
One of these in black on black would be extremely befitting of my status and aesthetic.
Sorry Adrian, I didn’t find one in black on black but did find this one in midnight blue that is definitely a head turner . https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/listing/1966-oldsmobile-toronado-oneonta-ny-2735018
Several of these were in my neighborhood growing up.
Good lord that is magnificent.
Yes, yes you need to make this happen!
I like the blue very much, but per your request (bid now!):
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1966-oldsmobile-toronado-41/
Oh yes. That is very me.
Did you win?
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1966-oldsmobile-toronado-41/
There are a couple of first gen Toronados around here (seems like they’re actually owned by different people despite being in the same part of town) and one is in the same color as the one in the lead image, which is actually quite lovely, and one is in black which is quite striking especially with the copious but somehow restrained amounts of chrome and is indeed something to behold in person. Neither of the drivers seem even remotely adjacent to goth, though. Go figure.
I’ve got eggs and toilet paper. Who has an address?
A fellow in town has a slammed Toronado lowrider that is a serious head turner. Changed my entire opinion of its different look. Wish I had a pic to share. Dumbfounded this car is in that book.
First of all can I say I love this series, as soon as I see it posted I click on it every single time!
And also this Olds is an objectively good car, I have no idea what Craig is thinking.
Objectively insane pick
Was this in the “financial failures” section of the book? I seem to recall that section had a lot of legitimately cool cars that were just included because they lost money. Like the BMW 507 and Bugatti Royale.
I still have my copy of this book somewhere.
I will go read your article now, but I just needed, real quick, to condemn the book author’s inclusion, consideration, and merest thought of including the Toronado in a list of bad cars. 455. TH425. He never read about the twin engine one(s), apparently. Also, it’s expletive beautiful.
This car needs no apologist. It needs celebration and burnouts.
Also weren’t TH425s chain driven and able to withstand crazy power? TF
Yes. It was a derivative of the conventional THM 400 which was quite stout and that basic transmission (with a lot of upgrade internals) is still used today in a lot of drag race cars.
It was obviously a late night, drunken, beat my deadline to the publisher decision to include the first gen Toronado among the world’s worst cars. But, as things have been shaping up in this feature this week, maybe being a part of this collection isn’t so bad after all.
Dumbest entry yet.
Perhaps he meant the 4th Gen Toronado?
Because that Toronado was such a huge failure that it (along with the concurrent Riviera and Eldorado) wound up contributing massively to the demise of the entire PLC segment.
I would so much like a 67. Fixed the overheating, got tha brakes right.
One of my uncles bought a 68. It seemed like a rocket ship. His other two cars were a 63 XKE coupe he claimed he won in a card game and a Chevy truck with a big block with dual carbs. The Toronado was really something. Not as pretty as the 66-67. Or the Jag. But it was like sitting in a big quiet slingshot.
I thought “oh weird, Jason knows what he’s doing, why is he posting the picture of the wrong Toronado? I mean nobody would dare put the first-gen Toronado in a “worst cars” book. I could get it if it was that downsized ’80s one, or one of the weird ’70s ones, even if I don’t agree. But a first-gen Toronado? A stone cold classic? One of the high water marks of American car design? An innovative engineering landmark which also somehow inspired a futuristic RV? Nobody would be so ridiculous as to put that Toronado in a worst cars book.”
AND THEN THEY DID AND I WAS MAD.
Glad I’m not the only one that thought the wrong gen was pictured. I could totally see the second, boxier generation be called out in “Look how they massacred my boy” way, but this is crap.
Looks like you’ve been consuming plenty of fiber, and we’re grateful for the results.
I always liked the look then learned why. Rip those pages or don’t buy the book.
The Toronado is not a fail, but this book certainly is. How is this car in this book?
This book makes absolutely no sense, the fist gen Toronado and eight gen Eldorado are very often cited as some of the best looking and most daringly styled American cars of the ’50s, high water marks of Bill Mitchell’s tenure at the company. The Olds was also, arguably, one of the very first retro tribute cars, as Mitchell very intentionally took inspiration from the Cord 810/812 (something that was quickly watered down in annual styling tweaks).
He picks the 1st gen?! For a book produced in the 2000s, was he somehow unaware this marque went on until the ’90s (?) with plenty of worse-r options in between??
Amen, Brother Torch! and of the 5 featured this week, pretty much The Least Worst of All. Jeez, Craig indeed.
Only one real fail on the first year Toronado: front-wheel drum brakes. There was something like 2000-2500 lbs of weight on that front end and drum brakes simply were not up to the task. It was fixed for the 2nd year.
Otherwise there is *NOTHING* that makes the Toronado a “worst car”.
Well they would stop the car.
Once.
Those brakes were used in some racing class that required drum brakes, but I forget which.
Not as cool as the 8 lug Kelsey Hayes Pontiac drum brakes, but still.
My pickup has in between 2000 and 2500lbs on the front axle, and it stops just fine with (non-power!) drum brakes all around.
Semi trucks stop 80,000lb with drum brakes, and as much as 20,000lb per axle.