One of the keys to happiness in the world of car collecting is flexibility. It’s easy to get bogged down in the price of things (new cars on the dealer lot, cars crossing the block at the TV auctions, houses), but with a little mental flexibility, you could be paying $8,000 or best for this ’68 Oldsmobile Toronado. It might not be the exact year or model you’ve been looking for, but it has tried-and-true Olds reliability, daring styling, and an off-the-beaten-path aura. Barn Finds reader Mike F. found it on craigslist in Westminster, Colorado, and it has all the hallmarks of a reasonably well-sorted driver.
For $8,000, you can’t expect the world, and indeed the air conditioning compressor has been supposedly rebuilt but never installed. But look at the bright side; the current owner has replaced the front brake pads, calipers, and lines, in addition to installing a new set of tires that only have about a thousand miles on them. The engine itself is Oldsmobile’s new-for-1968 455 big block, producing a standard 375 horsepower and 510 lb.-ft. of torque in the big Toronado. Car and Driver tested one with the optional 400-horsepower 455 and found that it could cover the quarter-mile in 15.7 seconds at almost 90 miles per hour – pretty stout for a 4655-pound full-sized, front-drive coupe from 1968. Top speed was an estimated 129 miles per hour, but C&D had little good to say about the brakes, so it might be best to limit yourself to freeway speeds.
In keeping with the Toronado’s dramatic styling and bold new front bumper for 1968 was one of the boldest dashboards of the period. With its “rotating drum” speedometer and wide flanking gauges, the Toronado looked like the event it was. The bench seat doesn’t look quite as out of place here as it did in the Buick Riviera (which jettisoned the neat speedometer for 1968), because the Toronado’s flat floor was one of its calling cards.
If you like what you’re seeing, the ad is worth perusing, as the seller seems refreshingly forthright about the car’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s a solid driver with its share of road rash (and an electrical draw that the new owner will have to tackle), but with a claimed 78,000 miles (and counting) on the clock and a rust-free body, in addition to its reasonable price tag, why not take a few steps off the beaten path?
Olds was usually reliable for good looking style updates but this year was a failure..love me a Toronado but this front end style makes me wince.
I don’t disagree with ThunderRob’s sentiment about the front bumper. My Mom had a ’69 with the same bumper and a slight alteration to the rear fender line. If the ’66-’67s hadn’t been so beautiful with their knife-edged styling this massive bumper might not have seemed so clumsy. Make no mistake – these were big, impressive cars and in a way that gargantuan bumper signaled to other drivers that what followed was a force to be reckoned with.
I loved driving that car especially since I wasn’t paying for the gas. It had a basso profundo exhaust note that couldn’t be beat. I’d love to have a ’60s-’70s big boat like this to show my 4-year-old grandson what kind of cars my grandfather drove.
These were quite revolutionary when introduced in 1966. The drive train was so overbuilt, it was used behind the 67 Eldorado and later the 70 eldorado with the Cadillac 500 CID engine and in the 70’s for the GMC Kingsley FWD motorhomes. Beautiful styling. No one confused this with any other car in spite of the fact that the Toronado and Riviera shared some of the same body parts. Handling was considered to be actually good even with so much weight on the front end. Brakes were marginal but at least this has discs up front vs 4 wheel drums of its earlier models. The 455 has a higher nickle content in the block than others making it a longer lasting block. All in all, a true American Classic. The 68 is my favorite as it was the first year for the 455 and in 1970 and later, the styling went from elegant sport fastback to overbloated luxo barge. Very reasonable price. A good catch for some lucky person.
“1960s optional disc brake technology in American cars did not guarantee good stopping ability. In 1970 Popular Science ran a comparison test of the Riviera, Toronado, Thunderbird, Grand Prix and Monte Carlo. All the cars except the Riviera had disc brakes yet the Riviera’s drum brakes were judged to be better than the others by a significant margin. The Buick stopped from 60 in 140 feet while the T Bird with discs required a whopping 207 feet.”
Just think, in 1968 this car had the same H.P. as a 1990 Corvette ZR1.
My dad was a businessman who was no stranger to backroom deals and the ability to call up “help” from Miami to take care of certain kinds of problems.
He’d turn up with these beautiful cars, always big 2 doors, and one of them was a gold 66 Toronado with a black interior. Man I felt like a million bucks driving that thing around at age 14.
I asked him if he could save the car for me when I turned 16 but dad wasn’t great at keeping promises. Anyway these cars came and went and one day I’d noticed the Toronado was gone.
A month later the scummiest scoundrel you’d ever know came driving up in the thing and it broke my heart. Didn’t even want to know how he got it but I know he probably didn’t pay cash for it, if you know what I mean.
The 66 will always be my favorite Toronado, and if nothing else I got to drive one around. Thanks dad!
I might be one of the few that lived the look of the 68-71 bumper on the Tornado. I loved the styling.
Just wondering. Did GM ever build a 4spd Toro?
I do not believe that there ever was a 4 speed manual developed for this or the Eldorado. For one thing, the tranny was located to the left of the engine and turned around backward. I think that later years there may have been a 4 speed automatic in the FWD unitized power train but not with the 455. Still, it remains to be one of the most powerful FWD cars ever produced. Quite a feat for engineering that was done with a slide rule!
Cool and unique and a very fair price. What’s not to love?
’68 was Olds’ first year for the W34 option ie, for just $47.39 you got a 400hp 455 with a more aggressive cam, bigger intake valves and dual exhaust through cutouts in the bumper, w/’68 being the sole year for a ram-air induction system. As well, the W-34 Toro’s T425 Turbo Hydra-Matic had a higher stall-speed converter. Just 124 of these hit the street in’68, w/2,359 in ’69 & 5,341 in 1970. However, only ’68 & ’70 had dual-notched bumpers, w/1970 the one year for a hood-mounted ‘GT’ script.
Great car by great designers.