Oldsmobiles used to be everywhere.
Lately, it has become difficult to spot even a later model Alero out in traffic.
Demand for personal luxury coupes like this Toronado declined sharply in the ’80s.
Sometimes, I miss the regular spotting of cars like this in traffic.
My own personal preference might have been for something smaller, like a Cutlass Supreme, but…
Our featured car still has a certain regal presence in its faded, factory Medium Green Metallic finish.
Built in Lansing, Michigan, this ’77 is one of about 34,000 Toronados produced that year.
Introduced originally for ’71, this same, basic, second-generation design lasted for eight model years.
Leisurely acceleration was to be had from the 200-horsepower, 403-cubic inch Olds Rocket V8 under the hood:
Eleven seconds and change, paired with the three-speed GM Turbo Hydramatic transmission.
Their starting weight was around 4,700 pounds.
Only the front seat passengers rode in real comfort, as there wasn’t much room in back,
Relative to the overall 227.5″ length of the car.
Over at Cadillac, even the Eldorado was over three inches shorter, at 224.1″ long.
Nobody bought a Toronado to brag about it being longer than a Cadillac, but that’s beside the point.
At certain angles, especially from behind, it certainly did have some Eldorado-esque features.
Don’t get me wrong, as I do like these.
Outside of dismal, low-double-digit fuel economy, I can imagine their posh appeal when new.
Back in the ’70s, Oldsmobile had considerable, middle-class prestige.
Racking up almost 1,136,000 in sales for ’77, Olds was third in total production in the United States.
Out of domestic makes, Ford was the only non-General Motors brand in the top-five that year, at No. 2.
Unfortunately, the magic wouldn’t last, and Oldsmobile would be obsolete after 2004.
Granted, there are still a few big beauties like this Toronado still to be found on the streets.
Having written about this car before, I was glad to see it still being used and enjoyed.
Another four years have passed, and its condition appears to be static – no better and no worse than before.
May it continue to float on for years to come.
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Saturday, May 8, 2021.
1977 Toros had the one-year-only MISAR crank-triggered ignition system.
The Olds 403 was also used in the 1977-1978 GMC Motorhomes….
Great connection Chuck! I think of these and the Eldorado as being among the least space efficient passenger cars of the 1970s, yet the GMC Motorhome was very efficient compared to competitors – the Toronado’s powertrain was called the Unitized Power Package and was used by a few other motorhome producers too.
Oldsmobiles have nearly disappeared, you’re right. But the CC effect is still at work, I saw this one yesterday. I’ve shot this car before, and it is still performing its duty for someone who apparently does the maintenance at this baseball field. Still in great shape too. 1976 Olds Ninety Eight.
As for Toronados, well I’ve not seen one of those in forever!
The 98 and Toro shared most of their interior – dashboards, door panels, the basic seats. 98s (even the coupes) had more rear seat legroom, but center passengers front or back were better off in the Toronado with its flat floor.
Outside, the 98 is much easier on the eyes.
Yet the seat frame had the RWD hump.
Interesting parts sharing on windshields too.
98 shared glass and opening with lowly Bel-Air etc. sedan.
Meanwhile Toronado shared with a notch up Impala etc. hardtop.
Going from memory so possibly I have it vice versa but you get the point – small car glass in the big car.
Notice the antenna is back on the fender?
I saw this guy’s little brother last night. A sharp looking ’77 Cutlass 2 door.
Dan, it’s funny you should mention a later Colonnade Cutlass, because the last time (IIRC) I posted an acrostic back in 2019, it was on a ’76 Cutlass Supreme! Sharp cars with enduring style.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-capsule/curbside-classic-1976-oldsmobile-cutlass-supreme-an-acrostic-poem/
Very nice acrostic. The head on view in the second shot is just so… rectangular. Straight rulers only at GM styling in those days!
Thanks, Doug. The interesting thing to me about late/mid-’70s GM styling was that the basic bodies still seemed really round and organic-looking, but all of a sudden, there were lots of angular details. Rectangular headlights, and sharply squared off fenders (Buick Regal, Olds Cutlass Supreme), etc.
This Toronado seems to have a very linear face on a curvy body, and to your point, looking at it straight on, it does look like it was styled by Lego.
Wonderful literary trick! More, please!
Very nice, and a first at CC, unless my memory is even worse than I thought.
Thanks, Paul. I don’t think anyone has yet done a deep dive on the ’77, though I do remember having seen a post on a ’78. I wrote about this same car in a comparison with a same-year CDV about four years ago, but that post wasn’t exclusively about the ’77 Toronado.
Nice car, but one year too late. The ’76 could still be had with the 455, pioneering dual front airbags, and rear wheel ABS. Nicer interior trim too. Add in the high-mounted brake lamps and FWD, and you had one ahead-of-its-time car.
Even without the monster 455 big-block, it’s an interesting take on the Toronado’s advanced features throughout the later seventies since it’s unlikely that many (if any) were sold primarily because of them.
And, just think, if only rear ABS had been included a mere four years later on GM’s first mainstream FWD car, the 1980 X-body (which, besides its other many failings, had an alarming tendancy to lock up its rear brakes). While the rest of the Toronado’s progressive features would beome commonplace on all new cars, the inclusion of that one item, alone, might have kept the Citation from being universally reviled as one of the worst cars ever built.
“the 1980 X-body (which, besides its other many failings, had an alarming tendancy to lock up its rear brakes). ”
A family that did business with the Stealership I worked at, had gotten money from GM. This was based on Citation rear brakes–either a lawsuit or a “voluntary” settlement.
The story I heard at the dealership was that the Citation was given very aggressive rear brake shoe material in order for the tiny rear brakes to have adequate park-brake capacity. So in order to meet Federal regulations for park brake effectiveness, the service-brake performance was negatively affected–the rear shoes would lock the drums.
That could very well be the case; the story I usually hear is that GM simply omitted a brake proportioning valve to save a few pennies. If both stories are true (aggressive brake shoe material with no proportioning valve), it would definitely have had an adverse impact on rear braking.
Both stories are true. So is the one about GM, emboldened by the Reagan Administration’s anti-regulation bent, telling NHTSA Fuck off; we’re not recalling them.
Sounds like one of those ‘winning the battle but losing the war’ scenarios. GM might have gotten away with the half-assed, unsafe engineering on the X-body to maximize profit, but the long-term damage to the corporation’s reputation was incalculable. They sold an awful lot of X-bodies, and I would imagine a significant portion of those who were burned swore off GM products for at least a generation. IIRC, GM market share dropped 11% during the Roger Smith years.
I’m sorry we didn’t get a view of the high mounted brake lights, unique? in American cars until the Riviera cribbed them in ’74.
I wonder how many with the deluxe wrap-around rear window are still on the road.
“the high mounted brake lights, unique?”
And illegal in at least one state, early-on.
I’m thinking that dealerships in South Dakota had to remove the bulbs from the “high-mounted” stop lights on the Toros sold there.
I imagine that this was probably a one- or two-year deal until the Legislature could reverse their idiocy. Similar to the ’57 quad-headlamp situation.
I love those high-mounted brake lights. If that Amazon truck hadn’t been there, I could have expanded this post with a few more pictures, but everything happens (or doesn’t happen) for a reason. 🙂
Is the Toronado one of the best examples of a car that peaked at the very beginning and went a little downhill with every revision? Those Toros from the last couple of years were kind of unpleasant to look at – cars with a shape that did not really take well to the brougham-ish gingerbread that was in vogue then.
Love the acrostic!
x2 on the acrostic…
While the Toronado hasn’t always been the most attractive car throughout its entire run (though sporadically beautiful), it has always been visually interesting to me, and for that reason, I always gave it points.
I’d say its design never matched the level of identity the original had. The followups were never particularly offensive to look at, to me anyway, but they just came off like a car in a segment, nothing particularly special or identifiable to the Toronado name, just a model that’s a cheaper alternative to an Eldorado.
That’s the problem with them really, in 1967 The Eldorado and Toronado seemed like designs with equal effort put into making the two models distinctive, with the only commonality being the basic chassis and UPP, but with the 1971 and up generation they seemed to be chasing the same buyer with varying wallet thicknesses. Even if you like the Oldsmobile styling, and even if you like it better than the Eldorado(raises hand) there’s no denying which car became compromised after the previous generation, the Eldorado’s shape didn’t change that much from the 70 to the new 71. The 70s Thunderbirds have the same issue – is that the glamourous Ford that made the nameplate an icon between 1955 and 1966 or was it a discount Mark IV?
Love the piece, love the car, both showing originality…….well done Joe!
Thanks, Roger!
You will now have to find an XS with the Studebaker Starlight coupe-like wrap-around rear window to do a critique of.
And an acrostic – have fun coming up with a line beginning with X!
How about: Xerxes is the sort of guy who would drive a Toronado.
Challenge accepted, on both fronts. I kind of feel now like if I actually do find a Toronado XS, I will need to do everything in my power to come up with that word that starts with “X”. I may borrow Jason’s idea if it comes to that.
Love the acrostic 😀 The version below was popularised by a local radio show in the 1990s – the fact we didn’t have Oldsmobiles here was neither here nor there…
Old
Ladies
Driving
Slowly
Make
Others
Behind
Incredibly
Late
Everyday
Hysterical. Hahaha!!
Totaled
Out
Renault
Overturned
Nissan
And
Driver
Oblivious
I really like there are always things to learn here and not only about autos.
I did not know an acrostic existed never mind what it was. Just did a quick lookup now I’m going back to see what else I can learn!
Thanks to all who put the effort in on this site and keep our minds open and functioning.
Not much about these Toronados stuck with me, other than the third and fourth brake lights atop the trunklid… And of course the illuminated Oldsmobile emblems at the leading edge of the front fenders, since I’m a sucker for bits of flotsam that light up.
The rear window of the Toro XS was a standout feature, though I think I’ve only seen one in person. It was a much bolder statement than the rear glass used on the 1977-79 Capiche and Impala coupes, but still remains a far less cohesive design than the B bodies.
Cancer. And my name is Larry…