In order to keep costs down, the new car would share a body with the Riviera and a new Cadillac that was also planned for introduction at about the same time. Hidden headlamps were coming into style, and there was no question the new Olds would have them.
Designers initially favored a sloped tail end, but moved to a cropped Kamm-style that emphasized the front end. The dominant theme was a long front with an uncommon amount of overhang and thrusting fenderlines (sometimes referenced to as "meat-cleaver" front fenders), suggestive of front-wheel drive. Adds North, “John Beltz, Olds chief engineer and soon general manager, said if you can’t do a car that’s close to a Cadillac or Lincoln, don’t do it.” Olds’s Starfire, a B-body with sporty trim, like Pontiac’s Grand Prix, helped Olds get the green light to chase the developing personal luxury market. “Oldsmobile went to the corporation and said, ‘Look, we don’t have anything like that,'” North says. Cadillac rejected the Riviera when its designer, Bill Mitchell, pitched it as a new LaSalle model. But by 1962, Buick’s Riviera personal luxury car neared completion. “That car was about the size of a Camaro,” North says of his Red Flame. North didn't create it with any particular project in mind, but when Olds executives started looking in earnest for design ideas, this one apparently caught someone's attention. Toronado's original styling was inspired by a drawing titled "Flame Red Car" which was done in 1962 by David North, an Oldsmobile stylist at the time. The name couldn't be secured by Olds because of its use on jet fighters, so GM turned to a similar name- Toronado- for which it had the rights. Urban legend tells the story of designers who noticed a cleaning lady with a Tornado floor waxer. Other names that were said to have been tested for the car included: Magnum, Raven, Sidewinder, and Starfire. The Toronado name itself, was first used on a 1963 Chevrolet show car, and doesn't really have any meaning- though, if you take the word "tornado" and add an extra "o" to it, you have Toronado, so it's reasonable to think this was its origin. By mid year 1963 Cadillac and Oldsmobile had combined their efforts with a project coded XP-784. Development costs were high, but interest in front drive remained. By 1959 Cadillac had a running chassis built, but the concept was never a priority, as front wheel drive was viewed as too expensive and non-conventional for production at the time. Oldsmobile began working on a front wheel drive platform around 1958, which was about the same time that Cadillac was working on one. A month later, Motor Trend named the big front-drive personal luxury coupe its 1966 Car of the Year. Toronado's FWD was a radical engineering change that kept the 'crown' with GM’s (Oldsmobile) division. Oldsmobile designed the Toronado to compete in the personal luxury car market, which had been dominated by the Ford Thunderbird since 1958.įord had originally slated front drive for its 1961 Thunderbird, but was dropped due to cost and a lack of time to fully develop. This provided more isolation from road and engine harshness. The Toronado was also GM's first vehicle to use a subframe, which cradled the Toronado’s powertrain and torsion-bar front suspension.
Styling Under-Cover Reliability Testing and Tire Redesign Toronado Engine and Transmission Toronado Year to Year Changes Always verify all light bulb sizes, bulb voltage usage and bulb wattage before applying any information found here to your Oldsmobile Delta 88.When introduced in 1966, the Toronado was the first car built by an American manufacturer with front wheel drive since the Cord went out of production in 1937. Use of the replacement bulb size information is at your own risk. Our Oldsmobile Delta 88 light bulb guides allow you to easily replace light bulbs, replace headlight bulb, change a broken lightbulb, install a hid headlight conversion or install led light bulbs instead of spending countless hours trying to figure out which light bulb sizes in your Oldsmobile Delta 88.įeel free to use any replacement light bulb sizes that are listed on AUXITO but keep in mind that all information here is provided as is without any warranty of any kind.
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