Theodore W. Pieper — RM Auctions (Riviera) and Bring a Trailer (Toronado)
Yesterday, I explained how the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado and 1966 Buick Riviera were closely related structurally and yet very different mechanically. Today, let’s conclude this comparison by taking a look at how the Toronado and Riviera compared in interior trim, space, and value.
Both the Toronado and Riviera were quite expensive, and in this fairly lofty price class (roughly $4,500 to $6,000, close to twice the average new car price at the time), most buyers in 1966 wanted the plushest interior trim available, even if it cost extra. The extra money was usually a worthwhile investment, too: You’d get much of the cost back when it was time for resale.
1966 Oldsmobile Toronado Deluxe in Ocean Mist / RM Sotheby’s
1966 Buick Riviera in Silver Green / Coyote Classics
The Toronado and Riviera were each available in two levels of trim. Oldsmobile treated the Deluxe version as a separate model, which also featured door armrests with separate front and rear handles on each door (allowing rear passengers to open the door without waiting for someone in front to do it for them). The Riviera was offered only as a single model, but fancier Custom Trim was available as an option package.
1966 Oldsmobile Toronado Deluxe with Tropic Turquoise interior and front and rear door handles / RM Sotheby’s
Both of the cars pictured here have power windows, which cost $104.00 on the Toronado and $105.25 on the Riviera. Power window lifts were common but not universal on these cars, ordered by 64.9 percent of Toronado buyers and 78.6 of Riviera buyers in 1966. As with the fancier trim, power windows were a good investment, worth around $75 extra in trade even on a three-year-old car.
1966 Buick Riviera with green vinyl Custom Trim / Coyote Classics
Although the Toronado Deluxe included fancier trim, its real signature feature was the “Strato Bench” front seat, which had individual seat backs and a fold-down center armrest. This could be ordered with a passenger-side backrest recliner ($31.60), with or without power seat adjustment ($94.79), although this car doesn’t appear to have either option, nor does it have the optional headrests.
1966 Oldsmobile Toronado Deluxe with Strato Bench in Tropic Turquoise pattern cloth and Morocceen vinyl / RM Sotheby’s
Note that the Toronado cabin floor is completely flat – the principal boon of front-wheel drive on the Toronado, and why bucket seats and a center console weren’t initially offered.
1966 Oldsmobile Toronado Deluxe with Strato Bench in Tropic Turquoise pattern cloth and Morocceen / RM Sotheby’s
Although bucket seats and a center console had been important parts of the first-generation Riviera’s identity, the 1966 Riviera now had a standard bench seat. Strato Buckets were still available, but now had to be ordered with the Custom Trim package. A Strato Bench seat like that of the Toronado was also available with the Custom Trim option, which is the combination the Coyote Classics car pictured below has. I confess that I don’t think either bench seat looks right in the Riviera — it doesn’t look BAD, really, and the green color is nice, but buckets seem far more suitable, so we’ll compare those as well.
1966 Buick Riviera with green vinyl Custom Trim Strato Bench / Coyote Classics
1966 Buick Riviera with black vinyl Custom Trim Strato Buckets and center console / Exotic Cars of Houston
A center console was now a separate Riviera option, available only with Strato Buckets.
1966 Buick Riviera GS with black vinyl Custom Trim Strato Buckets, console, and floor shifter / Theodore W. Pieper — RM Auctions
Both cars’ back seats were really shaped for two people rather than three. The Toronado could have had an edge in this area, since its floor was flat, but the heavily padded center bolster and the obtrusive position of the rear seat speaker grille didn’t make the center position very inviting for a middle passenger intending to travel more than a few blocks.
1966 Oldsmobile Toronado Deluxe with Tropic Turquoise upholstery / RM Sotheby’s
The Riviera had the same issue with the rear speaker grille, and while its rear seat padding wasn’t quite as aggressively shaped, a middle passenger was sitting over the driveshaft hump, which was seldom much fun in RWD cars.
1966 Buick Riviera with green vinyl Custom Trim / Coyote Classics
1966 Buick Riviera with black vinyl Custom Trim / Exotic Cars of Houston
FWD and flat floors didn’t provide the Toronado with any meaningful advantage in interior space, as the dimensions show:
| Dimension | Toronado | Riviera |
|---|---|---|
| Legroom, front | 41.5 in. (41.3 in. Deluxe) | 41.3 in. |
| Headroom, front | 38.0 in. | 38.0 in. |
| Shoulder room, front | 58.8 in. | 57.4 in. |
| Legroom, rear | 35.5 in. (36.6 in. Deluxe) | 35.2 in. |
| Headroom, rear | 37.5 in. | 37.5 in. |
| Shoulder room, rear | 57.8 in. | 57.4 in. |
(These figures again are from the AMA specs, which sometimes differed slightly from the brochure data.)
Since neither car’s seats were arranged for center passenger comfort, the main advantage of the flat floor in the Toronado was to provide a little more foot room for a passenger sitting on either side. The driveshaft hump of the Riviera was low enough that it wasn’t too bad in that regard, however.
1966 Buick Riviera with black vinyl Custom Trim / Exotic Cars of Houston
Some contemporary critics, in particular Car Life (whose 1966 Toronado review Paul has previously presented), felt that the vinyl-and-nylon Toronado interior trim “appeared inappropriate for a GT sort of automobile,” complaining that it gave the impression “of seeing lace curtains and shelves of china knick-knacks in a clean, well-fitted machine shop.” I don’t suppose their editors would have been very keen on this car’s Tropic Turquoise interior either. While I happen to love this color, I can see their point: While the dashboard, minor controls, and steering wheel (particularly the nifty horn ring) said Star Trek, the seating concept and trim choices said Ninety-Eight Luxury Sedan — mixed messages, an issue that would become more pronounced in later years.
1966 Oldsmobile Toronado Deluxe with Tropic Turquoise Strato Bench / RM Sotheby’s
I have a similar reaction to the Strato Bench in the Riviera (or the standard bench, which I’ve only seen in brochure images). It would look fine in an Electra 225 or even a Wildcat, but it raised difficult questions about what kind of car the 1966 Riviera was trying to be.
1966 Buick Riviera with green vinyl Custom Trim Strato Bench seat / Coyote Classics
The buckets-and-console treatment was more in character, particularly for the Riviera Gran Sport. (Incidentally, there was no correlation between the GS package and bucket seats — you could get the latter on a non-GS car, and you could order a GS with a Strato Bench if you were so inclined.)
1966 Buick Riviera GS with black vinyl Custom Trim Strato Buckets, center console, and Custom steering wheel / Theodore W. Pieper — RM Auctions
One of the best features of the 1966 Toronado and Riviera was full instrumentation, sadly trimmed by the cost accountants after 1967. Both instrument panels also had a novel rolling-drum speedometer.
1966 Oldsmobile Toronado Deluxe / RM Sotheby’s
The Toronado speedometer went up to 130 mph, which was about right, while the Riviera drum went up to a less-realistic 140 mph.
1966 Buick Riviera / Exotic Cars of Houston
Since both the Toronado and Riviera lacked vent windows, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Fisher Body went to some trouble to provide flow-through ventilation, drawing outside air through the cowl and exhausting it through the vents below the rear window. In the Riviera, the cowl vents could be opened or closed via a pull-knob under the dash, next to the brake release, although this was deleted with air conditioning. On the Toronado, the vents were controlled with the VENT button on the normal HVAC panel. Since 74.9 percent of Riviera buyers and 73.7 of Toronado buyers ordered air conditioning, with or without automatic climate control, it may have been an academic point for many customers, although some of us still prefer flow-through ventilation to running the A/C on days when the weather is warm, but not quite hot.
Buick didn’t list luggage capacity in the official specifications, but trunk space was ungenerous in both these cars:
1966 Oldsmobile Toronado / RM Sotheby’s
The Toronado’s trunk paid the price for the sloping tail, and I’d hate to have to get at that spare. Buick put the Riviera spare in a well under the trunk floor, like most modern cars, but the consequence was a wide but rather shallow luggage space.
1966 Buick Riviera / Coyote Classics
Riviera and Toronado List Prices, 1966
Finally, we get to the question of price. With all its novel hardware, even a base Toronado was more expensive than the Riviera:
- Buick Riviera: $4,424
- Oldsmobile Toronado: $4,617
- Oldsmobile Toronado Deluxe: $4,812
Ordering Custom Trim on a Riviera cost $115.78 with bucket seats or $168.40 with a Strato Bench seat. Adding the GS package ($176.28) and quick-ratio steering ($121.04) would immediately close the price gap, but if you were more interested in comfort, the Riviera would be a couple hundred dollars cheaper than a comparably equipped Toronado. (The range of optional equipment was about the same on both cars, and option prices were similar.)
1966 Oldsmobile Toronado Deluxe with Tropic Turquoise Strato Bench / RM Sotheby’s
While this is harder to assess from a modern perspective, a number of contemporary reviewers felt that the Riviera had higher-quality materials and better fit and finish than the pricier Toronado. Squeaks and rattles were frequent complaints in period Toronado road tests, and more than one reviewer thought Oldsmobile had cut corners on trim and amenities to balance the higher cost of the engineering.
1966 Buick Riviera with green vinyl Custom Trim Strato Bench / Coyote Classics
By contrast, Car Life felt, “The Riviera has all the elegance and attention to detail one must expect in a $5000 car.” (I do think the lack of leather upholstery, even as an option, was an unfortunate lapse, however.)
1966 Buick Riviera GS with black vinyl Custom Trim Strato Buckets / Theodore W. Pieper — RM Auctions
All this may have contributed to the significant disparity in resale values. Although both the Toronado and Riviera could each be optioned up to $6,000 or more, after three years, the Riviera was worth over $300 more in trade than a comparably equipped Toronado Deluxe. Some of this was probably wariness about the Unitized Power Package, but the used car trade was very particular about interior trim.
| Model | Wholesale (Trade-In) | Retail Value |
|---|---|---|
| Toronado | $1,800 | $2,395 |
| Toronado Deluxe | $2,000 | $2,640 |
| Riviera | $2,300 | $2,910 |
| Riviera GS | $2,375 | $3,010 |
(Source: Kelley Blue Book, Western Edition, Sept.–Oct. 1969. Values assume radio, air conditioning, and power windows; Riviera values assume Strato Buckets or Strato Bench.)
Value for money wasn’t everything in this segment, but in strictly financial terms, the Riviera was undeniably a better deal.
Pronouncing judgment on these cars is not easy. The 1966 Riviera remains an extremely handsome car, to be sure …
1966 Buick Riviera GS / Theodore W. Pieper — RM Auctions
… but I can’t help seeing it as a step down from the extraordinary 1965 Riviera, trading the first-generation car’s crisp, distinctive lines for a pleasant but slightly rote mid-’60s GM corporate look.
1965 Buick Riviera Gran Sport / RM Sotheby’s
On the other hand, the 1966 Riviera has enough Buick design cues (like the “W” shape of the nose in plan view) to make its role in the Buick lineup easy to understand. Unlike the Oldsmobile Starfire, the Riviera wasn’t just a gaudier Wildcat or LeSabre with fancier trim, but it had a clear reciprocal relationship with other Buick models, whereas the Toronado had no obvious kinship with other Oldsmobile models.
1966 Buick Wildcat Custom hardtop in Flame Red / Bring a Trailer
I’m of two minds about the Riviera GS. The Gran Sport package (which had been introduced on the ’65 Riviera) did a lot to maintain some enthusiast credibility for the Riviera, even with buff book editors who just rolled their eyes at the contemporary Thunderbird. On the other hand, while the GS is highly desirable to the modern collector — I’d much rather have a bucket-seated GS than a standard Riviera with bench seats — I think its modern popularity risks giving a distorted image of the Riviera as an oversize Supercar rather than a luxury coupe. Only 5,718 Riviera buyers ordered the GS package in 1966, 12.6 percent of production, and I suspect a lot of those cars originally had whitewalls (a no-cost option on the GS) and wire wheel covers. The Buick chrome-plated road wheels were optional in 1966 (for $89.47), but the fat raised-white-letter tires often added to survivors like black car pictured below would probably have been too much for contemporary tastes, like wearing Keds with a Brooks Brothers suit.
1966 Buick Riviera GS / Theodore W. Pieper — RM Auctions
Compared to its Riviera sibling, the Toronado was the more adventuresome design, packed with novel engineering and striking, if not always graceful, from nearly any angle:
1966 Oldsmobile Toronado Deluxe in Almond Beige / Bring a Trailer
On the other hand, the 1966 Toronado remains a connoisseur’s piece. Even when new, I suspect it made more impression on those who recognized its stylistic allusions to the FWD Cord 810/812 of the 1930s (below) and appreciated its assorted engineering features. If the phrase “coffin-nose Cord” didn’t make you perk up your ears and you weren’t inclined to examine cutaways of the TH425 transmission, the Toronado had to be judged on its practical merits, which were a mixed bag. If you were allergic to sedans, but regularly needed to carry four adults in style at high speeds over wet but basically smooth roads, the Toronado might have been the perfect car (so long as you didn’t need to stop in a hurry), but its functional advantages relative to the Riviera and other RWD cars in this class were slight.
1936 Cord 810 Westchester sedan in tan / Worldwide Auctioneers via Classic.com
Another troublesome point for Oldsmobile was that the Toronado didn’t have much relationship to the rest of the Olds line. There was no particular Oldsmobile design language that linked the Toronado to the Cutlass or Delta 88, and the rest of the line gained little from the Toronado. Seeing the Toronado in isolation, through modern eyes, it hardly matters, but I think it was one of the reasons Oldsmobile seemed at a loss for what to do with the Toronado other than water down the original concept (and then spend the next 20 years imitating the Cadillac Eldorado instead). The Toronado was too obviously a stepchild, with more resemblance to the Riviera than anything else in an Olds showroom.
1966 Oldsmobile Toronado Deluxe in Almond Beige / Bring a Trailer
I think the Toronado was more interesting than its Buick sibling, clever and eclectic, but being tied to the Riviera as it was meant the Toronado was doomed to be judged on the same terms. In that regard, the Toronado has always remained in the shadow of its cheaper, faster, lighter, more athletic brother — working much harder while never seeming to get as far.
Buick Riviera and Oldsmobile Toronado Production, 1966–1970
| Year | Toronado, base | Toronado Deluxe | Toronado chassis | Toronado, all | Riviera |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 | 6,333 | 34,630 | 40,963 | 45,348 | |
| 1967 | 1,770 | 20,020 | 21,790 | 42,799 | |
| 1968 | 26,454 | 26,454 | 49,284 | ||
| 1969 | 28,494 | 28,494 | 52,872 | ||
| 1970 | 25,433 | 42 | 25,475 | 37,336 |
Related Reading
1966 Buick Riviera Versus 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado – Closely Related, Yet So Different (Part 1) (by me)
Curbside Classic: 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado – GM’s Deadly Sin #16 – Let’s Try A Different Position For A Change (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1966 Buick Riviera – The Ultimate Bill Mitchell-Mobile? (by Paul N)
Vintage Review: 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado – Car And Driver Heads To Pikes Peak With The Newest From Olds (by GN)
Vintage Road Test: 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado – “Who’d Buy A Car Like That?” – Oldmobile’s Stylish, Innovative and Compromised GT (by Paul N)
Vintage Road & Track Review: 1966 Buick Riviera Gran Sport – Lighter and Faster Than The FWD Toronado (by Paul N)
Vintage Road and Track Review: 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado – Advanced and Regressive At The Same Time (by Paul N)
Vintage Road Test: 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado – Road Test Magazine Offers An Unfiltered Take On Oldsmobile’s Front Drive Flagship (by GN)
Curbside Classic: 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado – Personal Luxury, Oldsmobile Style (by J P Cavanaugh)
Out in Front: The Front-Wheel-Drive Oldsmobile Toronado, Part 1 (at Ate Up With Motor)
Is there any “step down” to the Toronado’s floorpan, or is the entire floor at the same level as the door sills? If so, was this because the tailpipe, muffler, etc. would interfere with a flat floor at certain points (mainly the sides, based on the undercarriage photo from yesterday’s pt.1 post) so they just raised the entire floor enough to clear the obstructions? I thought pretty much all American cars by this time had footwells lower than the door opening. I also still don’t get how GM maintained a flat floor front and back on their UPP front-drivers, but nothing close to one on most of their other 1980 and later FWD cars, including the 1986 Toronado and Riviera.
It’s necessary here to distinguish between the actual floorpan and the cabin floor. The floorpan dips down from the sills, and there are raised transverse sections that form the front and rear seat mounts. So, the floorpan isn’t flat. The cabin floor dips down from the sills a little — if you look at the full-size cabin shots, you can see that the area where the seat belt mount sits is a little higher than the center section. The exhaust piping is tucked inside of the frame, as shown in the attached picture from the assembly manual.
(Incidentally, you can download the Fisher assembly manual for the Toronado here: https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums/toronado-27/1966-toronado-assembly-manual-157002/)
I really liked you review of these two cars. Informative.
Anyone calling these cars land yachts’ just don’t get the history of auto design. Yes, these cars were large, unique in their designs. Look at the size of luxury autos in the 30s and 40s. Look and the immense size of some SUV’s crowding parking spaces today.
I tend to think that the reason for the Toro’s lower resale value was that it was simply a more challenging and polarizing design, unlike the Riv. This was only exacerbated by the styling changes to the Toro in subsequent years, which were clearly made to try to make it look more mainstream, especially by making its tail more conventional. That left the original Toro (1966-1968) somewhat of a stylistic orphan. It really only appealed to Tor connoisseurs within a few years whereas the Riviera was a very palatable safe choice.
One advantage of the Toronado in later life is fixing rusted out floor pans is super easy with the flat floor,
I admit to not having much seat time in bucket seats in American cars of the 1960s, but from all of the photos, they don’t really seem very “bucket” at all, and mostly look like a bench seat with the middle 20% cut out. They also prevent a fella from driving with his arm around his best gal. I understand that they look “sporty”, but beyond that, I can’t grasp the fascination with them.
Or why anyone wants huge, manspreading-preventing consoles (maybe the safety engineers?). The people got fat, so the seats became narrow.
With a car like the Riviera, it’s about identity: It cements the fact that it’s not just a Wildcat sport coupe with different exterior styling. This was a Thunderbird-fighter, and a big part of what made the Thunderbird the Thunderbird at this point was that it had this swoopy cockpit-style interior whose minor controls were arranged so you could pretend to be Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove every time you fiddled with the window lifts or the radio station. The Riviera Strato Bench just makes it feel like a big sedan, which seems to me missing the point. (The Toronado did a more convincing job of upholstering the Strato Bench so that it looked like conjoined buckets.)
As Mr Delgadillo pointed out below, Those bench seats look much more stylish with the armrest flipped down and are probably more comfortable than the buckets at that point.
Everyone’s got an opinion.
Although both cars are compelling design, I’d have to go with the Rivera as my choice. The styling suits me better as it is more conservative than the Toronado. I really like the bucket seats and the console shifter.
That said, I would never buy either due to the dangerous brakes. When queried about the pathetic brakes in their cars, GM would respond, “There is nothing wrong with the brakes. Any problems are due to the lack of skill of the driver.”
Both of these cars finally received front disk brakes the next year in 1967, albeit optional (and still not fitted to most of them).
Toronados were quite unique in the beginning, both in engineering and styling. I’m sure that they had a limited audience right from the start. I think one of the best features was the bobbed, flat rear end with rear bumper cut outs for the exhaust tips to poke out through. Very sporty. Back then, most exhaust tips were quite discreet on larger mainstream models. Now, many vintage cars have replacement exhausts, with under the bumper dual chrome tips, but that is a result of current tastes. I had a few Rivieras with both the Astro Bench, as well as buckets with console. Hands down I prefer the Astro Bench. With the arm rest folded down it looked like a set of buckets, The buckets didn’t really give any more lateral restraint, so no loss there. and the arm rest was perfect for resting your left arm on. It also prevented the driver from sliding across the seat on left turns. The seat backs looked identical to the bucket backs, and the car gave the feeling of having buckets, The column shift was no worse than the console shift, Riv drivers usually had little need to stir the gears except when starting off in the car.
Looking under the Toro’s hood you’d be surprised by how far forward the engine sits ahead of the firewall, no problem changing spark plugs, which was a frequent occurrence back then. Obviously this contributed to the Toro’s extreme front weight bias. Now with so many cars having FWD, replacement drive axles are easy and inexpensive to source, back then, you would have had to find a good shop willing and able to rebuild the Toro’s axles. This fact alone kept me from buying a Toronado or ElDorado from this period.
Exhaust gases can be hell on chrome. Maybe not in the dry West, but they rusted several of our bumpers in the humid South. I don’t blame anyone for rerouting or extending pipes, even when it looks silly.
More great work Aaron. Your attention to detail, and objectivity in your automotive assessments, is much appreciated. And compliments, Paul’s strong qualifications in the same regard. You both bring consistent balance, and open-mindedness, to your reviews.
I am perhaps one of those (few?) people that feel the Toronado would have been better presented as a mid-sized package. Or smaller at least. As originally intended. If the engineering for front wheel drive could have been achieved in a Cutlass-sized package. Kudos to GM. I think it would have been a better direction to go. But conventional rear-wheel drive, would not have been an obstacle. A smaller platform that would have made a truly advanced performance European-style luxury GT possible. Perhaps unwanted competition for the Corvette. Buts Olds could have taken more of a light weight luxury GT approach. Than a massive engine, and land barge weight over 4,000 pounds, in a PLC. Unfortunate that it was upsized to better integrate with the Riviera and Eldorado.
With my earlier Photoshop, I wanted to show Toronado styling would have worked better in a smaller package. The excess length of the production version, appears almost outlandish. Especially at the tail, and aft of the front wheels. To accommodate the long drivetrain. The first gen Toronado looks reasonable okay at static rest. In curves and twisty roads, it really does look, like the baby whale it is.
I do feel the exaggerated styling would have looked masculine on the A-Body platform. I know to some, luxury and masculinity, was still reflected in sheer size. And ability to appear imposing. A genuine European-style GT performance Toronado, better proportioned, would have probably left a better legacy. Than what it continued to evole into.
Sorry for the typos!
Hurst actually built a show car ’68 Cutlass with a Toronado drive train.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/O22moEht4tc
Fascinating! Thank you Dan.
This two parter article was great. Your deep dives are a real value added to CC. I’ve always been a fan of both these cars and I still learned some info new to me, which admittedly I probably should have known already.
E.g. I didn’t know these were considered unibody cars. I knew the Toronado had a frame that only went back to the rear suspension, but I thought it was still considered a body-on-frame car. Even more surprising is that the Riviera, which literally has its body sitting on a frame is also considered a unibody. Now that I know it is so stiff, it makes me want one even more than I already did!
The 66 Toro first really piqued my interest in high school when I read a 1985 article in Car&Driver on the then new 86 Toronado. Part of their piece was a new road test of a near zero mile Toro that GM provided from their warehouse. Their intention was probably to impress the car writers with how advanced the new car was. What I recall most was encountering for the first time the phrase “immovable object versus irresistible force” which they used to describe the 66’s feeling during acceleration. I thought that was a great turn of phrase to describe a very heavy car with a very powerful engine.
I agree that white letter tires on a Rivera look all wrong and would never have been seen in the 60s.
Again, great stuff! Thanks
Actually Aaron got it slightly wrong, about the 1960 Chrysler front subframe going back as far as the Toronado’s. It ended at the cowl, whereas the Toro’s went all the way back to the front of the rear springs. I would not call that “unitized” unless the Toro’s frame members were welded to directly bolted to the body. I’d call it semi-unitized. It looks more like a typical perimeter frame whose rear sections have been shortened. But ultimately this is a semantical issue as to these terms.
Again, semantically speaking, the Riviera was not a unibody or “unitzed”. Its body was undoubtedly stiffer than average due to sharing much with the Toronada, but it was affixed to the X Frame, which clearly means it was not a unibody car.
I didn’t say that the Chrysler subframe went back that far: The sentence begins, “Unlike Chrysler unibodies, …” Maybe I should make that clearer in the text.
For that matter, it’s not really correct to call any post-’64 American passenger car “body on frame”. All GM cars with the X frame and all Ford and GM cars with perimeter frames are more correctly called “body and frame”. GM’s X frame was a partial move towards unitized construction, as the sills had to be vastly stronger. And all perimeter frame cars have very rigid bodies, as the frames are rather flexible and largely exist to tie the front and rear subrame sections (that carry suspension loads) together.
That’s substantially different than older style true body on frame construction, where the body provided little or no structural stiffness. We have a pretty detailed post on that here:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/tech-history-vintage-article-the-perimeter-frame-body-and-frame-not-body-on-frame/
I had forgotten about the dual door handles until I saw the pics. I remember them as being one of the things about our ’66 Toro that I thought were really cool. The drum speedo was another. My dad’s complaints about the bad brakes on it were endless, and I knew the Toro wasn’t going to stick around much longer than the awful Thunderbirds that proceeded it, no matter how much he otherwised liked the car. He and my one uncle, as they always did, had some engine work done on their cars, and my uncle pegged the speedo on the Ohio Turnpike several times in his car. I was in it one of those times and it was probably the most frightening ride of my life. Thinking about how he would drop dead less than 3 years later made thinking about that ride kind of scary.
My dad’s brothers and him had all bought ’66 Toros, but my uncles’ cars were both gold, which I normally hated, but it was a lot better than the boring “Champagne Mist” our car was. My dad admitted he screwed up ordering it that color. The car that would replace the Toro was a Chrysler Imperial, in, what was called “Sovereign Gold”, which we called “bronze”, it was another miss in color choice, with a black vinyl top. The interior he did better on, black leather, the only correct choice. At least the SG was better than the ’69 Cadillac he bought, mostly as my mom’s car, in the always awful “palmetto green”, AKA Baby S#$% Green, shortened to BSG.
It appears that the Toronado’s steering wheel was black, no matter what your interior color. I had never noticed this before. Probably because it was a unique item not shared with other Olds models, and thus the need to keep costs down.
As for the Toro lacking any Oldsmobile design cues, I think the Toro had a big one – the full, open rear wheels that started with the 1965 88 models. The Toro picked it up in 1966 and the Cutlass in 1967. No other full or midsize car was using those full, round wheel cutouts in the mid 60’s, so that was (to me) a distinct Oldsmobile look. For my money, the Toronado was the only car that really looked good with them.
I forget when the regular Olds got smaller versions of the Toronado’s front fender blades.
Never been keen on the Toronado styling it looks like its melting around the wheel arches or something, and my eyes must expect to see a transmission tunnel, or in todays cars, a large console no matter which wheels are driven, and the positive offset wheels remind me of a Morris 1100 with their sticky out hub caps.
Now the Riviera with its rote ( I reckon I learn at least one new word with these articles) GM styling is everything I like in a car, inside and out. The black GS with the Strato buckets and floorshift is sublime, all that and the gorgeous Buick wheels RWD, and beefy frame underneath, Heavenly.
With that horn ring, the Toro steering wheel is def going for an aircraft yoke look. Seems a half decade out of place. If the column is twist bezel telescopic then it works well with that but otherwise the Riv’s wheel is more modern.
I can never tell if the ’70 Riv has new sheet metal beyond its hood and fender skirts, but the ’70 Toro definitely has new front and rear fenders (after slightly modified ones in ’68). Who had the pull to get that approved for a single model year of a disappointingly low volume car?
I think the low volume is the answer. I don’t know what sales target Oldsmobile had for the Toronado, but I don’t think they hit it. The engineering costs were so high that I suspect they realized they needed an extra year to pay it off. If they had ended production after 1969, the Toronado/Eldorado total would have been 183,492 cars, and I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have been enough. Running them for an extra year got them another 54,000 units on the FWD engineering package. By comparison, some extra sheet metal was probably not a big deal, like a new porch for a million-dollar house.
Great content and photos, Aaron!
I never really paid much attention to the two featured cars. These were new during my early teen years, and my testosterone fueled attention was mostly to muscle cars and semi-trucks. But the good thing is perspective. Old interiors, old dash boards, old colors, so distinctive, so much character compared with today’s cars.
I just “graduated” from a 2024 GTI. Not much interior pop and unless you like a computer screen as a dashboard, no dashboard. Guess this is the fallout from the demise of chrome and metal to the new age of plastics!