Here’s The Toronado GM Could Have Built Instead Of The 1986 Version No One Wanted

How would you feel if you spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing and building all-new cars that ended up selling less than half as many units as the products they were replacing? That’s an unmitigated disaster, and one that GM faced after the launch of their drastically downsized E-body luxury cars of 1986.

Critics and the public did not embrace the shrunken Cadillac Eldorado and Buick Riviera, and the Oldsmobile Toronado also took a major hit. With a sales drop of nearly 62 percent, Olds was moved a mere 16,000 of its top luxury coupe after the redesign.

You have to wonder why GM even bothered, but I see a solution that might have revitalized what was once a General Motors milestone of forward-thinking style for a mere fraction of the cost of the downsized E-bodies. Then again, maybe I’d just be making it worse. Are you ready for the Toramaro?

You Could Get Better, But Not Bigger

Hindsight being 20/20, it’s easy to see the miscalculation that created the debacle of the 1986 E-body. Its plans were in place and executed while the world around it changed quickly during the development time, and by the time the imminent miss was apparent, it was too late to alter the course. GM ended up with products for a market that had not only shifted but, in many ways, was beginning to disappear. In fact, the category of cars the E-body was designed to fill was almost becoming a punchline.

When I hear the term “malaise-era barge,” for some reason my mind almost always goes to the massive late-seventies E-body front-drive coupes with a 7-liter (425 cubic inch) drivetrain that produced 180 horsepower. Really. The Cadillac Eldorado and Oldsmobile Toronado were woefully behind the times in 1978 (Buick’s Rivera sibling had already been drastically reduced in size to just a gussied-up LeSabre coupe in 1977).

Monster E-bodies are flat-out humorous today with their sheet-metal-for-sheet-metal’s sake flamboyant style and total overhangs the size of kei cars, as this video from our friend Doug shows:

Sanity finally prevailed at GM. These aircraft carriers were downsized rather heavily for 1979, and with their release coinciding with the second gas crisis, the reduced-size luxury coupes were perfect for the times. Despite losing 20 inches in length and over 1100 pounds in weight, the Eldorado and Toronado still kept upscale, classical proportions. They had an angular, crisp, and elegant look that resonated with buyers and were unmistakably flagship products that a fiftysomething insurance agent or podiatrist of the late disco era would have been proud of owning. Buick transferred the Riviera name back to the E-body this year, too, and even offered a turbocharged V6 powered remotely-sporting “S” model. Caddy eventually made a blacked-out Touring Coupe edition of this version of the Eldorado that tried to kill Ace Rothstein; a subtle but noticeable shift to at least paying tribute to cars that had some sense of road manners.

These coupes sold rather well, and as the replacements for these well-received smaller E-bodies were being created in the early eighties, it was understood that fuel prices would continue to skyrocket, so a downsizing of the same order that the 1979 cars received was put in the works. Sadly for GM, unforeseen circumstances would prove this decision to be a poor one.

Shrunken Wheelbase, Shrunken Sales

The next generation of E-Bodies was launched in 1986 into a market that GM of 1980 thought luxury car buyers of the future would be clamoring for in the future – a future that was now a very different present.

You see, around the middle of the eighties, a few things happened that were good for car enthusiasts but not so great for the best-laid plans of some of the American Big Three. First, fuel prices did not continue to escalate; they actually dropped, and with that, the demand for ultra-small luxury cars diminished. Worse than that, the eighties were when the market finally began to shift, and the once-popular “personal luxury coupes” became viewed as impractical old people’s cars and didn’t sell nearly as well as they once did.

Into that reality came the new E-Body cars, now a full 16 inches shorter than the 1979-85 cars, and about three feet shorter than the seventies versions. That double-whammy was compounded by even more issues. First, the prices of these new luxury coupes went up around 16 percent from the year before, likely in an effort to recoup the astronomical development costs. Second, and more importantly, these cars ended up as poster children of the eighties GM “lookalike” syndrome; not only did the Cadillac not look any more lavish than the Oldsmobile, but all of them bore a great likeness to the much less expensive N-body products like the Olds Calais, Pontiac Grand Am, and Buick Regal.

As an example, here is the 1986 Toronado, which was listed for around $20,000 when new:

Now let’s take a look at the Olds Calais compact that would have been sitting on the same showroom floor at Gustafson’s Oldsmobile, but listing for about half the price at $9600:

Of all the ill-fated E-bodies, it would seem that the Toronado suffered the worst. After posting sales of nearly 42,000 cars of the 1979 body style in 1985, the new car dropped down to around 16,000 units for 1986 and didn’t really improve.

Olds later tried to add length at the front and back of their coupe in 1990; this change was obviously done by increasing overhang, and it worked better than you’d think it would, but this was rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Also, doesn’t “Toronado Trofeo” mean “Tornado Trophy”? Well, here’s what a Tornado Trophy looks like:

These modifications briefly helped sales, but at numbers that were still a pittance. After selling a mere 8000 Toronados in 1991 and then barely moving 1700 by the middle of 1992, Oldsmobile pulled the plug on this once-iconic product. This is rather criminal when you think of where the nameplate began.

Now THAT’s A Toronado

It’s easy to forget how revolutionary the original Toronado was when it was introduced in 1966. This big Olds coupe is best remembered for being GM’s first front-wheel-drive car, with a V8 drivetrain that would ultimately end up in not only Cadillac’s Eldorado but also the legendary GMC Motorhome.

But for all the talk about the powertrain, it’s the styling of the Toronado that made it so special. Long, low, and with a sleek fastback, it redefined what we thought a sporting luxury coupe should look like. Note that Olds was marketing this thing as a “sports” model, a direction that was completely forsaken in the seventies.

Later Toronados were essentially slightly decontented Eldorados for people who couldn’t afford or didn’t want the ostentation of a Cadillac, but these early ones were anything but that. This was an oversized GT car; a gentleman’s express for those who dreamed of Bentley Continentals and Aston DB5s instead of gilded things Elvis would buy for his backup singers.

As the Toronado celebrated its 20th anniversary in 1986, the latest model to wear the name not only missed the mark with big personal luxury car buyers but also with the people who had bought the original sporting version as well.

What if we took one of The General’s most sporting rides and refined it into something far more befitting a reborn 1966 Toronado?

The Cameldorado And The Toromaro

Personal luxury car sales might have been slipping by the late eighties, but GM’s pony cars were still going strong. Having survived the malaise era, the new-for-1982 F-body Camaro and Firebird’s striking looks and ever-increasing horsepower gave buyers the kind of styling and performance they couldn’t have even gotten from Italian exotics a decade or two earlier.

The Firebird in particular had really come of age; the GTA model combined a 350 V8 with a subdued but aggressive appearance and a rather upscale looking interior; for the later eighties it was even offered with a replacement for the giant rear glass to give it an even higher-end appearance to appeal to the tastes of the time where anything notchbacked was higher-rent than a hatchback.

This was the ultimate third-generation F-Body, but it seemed to point a direction to another kind of coupe: a sport/luxury GT. Imagine a GTA that still offered strong horsepower figures and lateral grip but turned up the refinement and gave a softer and quieter ride (or adjustable suspension). This sounds like it might have been an appealing combination for those who gravitated towards a Lincoln Mark VII LSC or a Mercedes 560SEC or SL, but what division would sell it? That kind of F-Body wouldn’t work as a Pontiac and certainly not as a Chevy, but what about an Oldsmobile?

In my alternate 1986 history, GM decides to save the gross national product of several nations that they wasted on the new E-bodies and instead simply makes modifications to an F-body coupe. I’ve already explored this a bit earlier with my Cadillac Solitaire proposal, where the financially disastrous Allante could have been replaced by a Camaro/Firebird-based coupe for the Standard of the World.

Using this same approach, we could make an Oldsmobile F-body Toronado. The fenders and hood would be similar if not identical to the taller-fronted Camaro, but we’d add a nose similar to what Olds put onto the E-body Toronado, albeit a little lower in profile. This grille with retractable headlight covers would fit that brand language of Olds at the time, and grey lower rocker trim would follow the lower part of the car. The biggest visible changes would be the B-pillar area, where, depending on how much money GM wanted to spend, they could either add false rear quarter windows or actually cut into the sheet metal to make openings. Next, a notchback-style hatch would replace the Camaro/Firebird’s all-glass unit. “Lacey spoke” alloys complete the Oldsification.

Here’s the animation of the change from Chevy to an Olds:

In back, you can see the notchbacked hatch that would still allow for rear seat headroom, and the rear now has a band-style taillight as was introduced on the ’86 E-body. It’s a look that sort of echoes the low, horizontal light units on the back of the ’66 car.

As another option, a different roofline could have been available to replicate the “Toronado XS” model from 1978 that featured a hot-wire-bent rear window that wrapped around the back of the car with sharp bends in the corners. This bending process from PPG was also used on the 1977-79 Chevy Caprice and Impala coupes and was reportedly a real pain to do since the rate of non-conforming parts was alarmingly high. The F-body Toronado might have offered such a look as well and could have done it pretty easily since it would have just involved switching out the hatchback. I don’t hate the appearance, but it looks a bit too much like a Firebird/Camaro now.

Inside, the high-end GTA version of the Firebird had a rather tricked-out dash with digital gauges and fancy seats. Oh, and buttons. Lots of buttons:

For the Cadillac Solitaire, I’d modified it with different digital gauges and a touch screen, as on the Buick Riviera:

For the Olds Toronado version, I would skip the TV set and instead go with the digital readouts and still the many, many buttons approach that this GM division was known for at the time. The upside-down “U” shaped shifter sits just behind the cassette deck.

A touchscreen would likely have followed in a year or two, and I’m seeing an option for a “Touring” Toronado with analog gauges and a sportier three-spoke wheel instead.

Mechanically, we’d have had the same 5.7-liter tuned-port injection 235-horsepower V8 from the Pontiac GTA and the four-speed automatic. That drivetrain is good for zero to sixty times in the mid-six-second range – faster than a Jaguar XJS or standard-issue BMW 6-Series. Not that those buyers would have cross-shopped a Toronado, but you’d have had the credibility to put it into the ad copy.

The Olds-specific tricks that would have brought the Toronado more upscale than the Chevy and Pontiac F bodies might have been in the suspension. First, I’d want to eliminate the dreaded “Oh crap, here comes the rear axle again” situation by developing an independent rear suspension such as the one Heidts currently makes for third-gen F bodies. The setup costs a whopping five grand, but that’s in 2025 money for the hand-fabricated unit. I would imagine if GM were to design it for mass production and make it in real quantities, it wouldn’t be nearly as expensive. Besides, we’ve already determined that the Olds version of the F body would be considerably more money than the Camaro and Firebird anyway. Seriously, imagine the ultimate CamaroBird where you didn’t live in fear of the back end hitting that one pothole on your favorite exit ramp and the whole back end of your Trans Am shifting violently towards the gully.

Additionally, maybe the coil springs would have been replaced with an air suspension or, at the very least,t fully adjustable shock absorbers to give drivers the choice of a ride that could rattle the optional T-tops loose or more of an Oldsmobile-style driving experience at the touch of buttons on the dash. The money GM wasted on the E-body redux might have been better invested in an early active suspension system that could tighten up based on things like wheel angle and G-force detection. Come on, this was GM; they could still do almost anything they set their mind to. If the first 1966 Toronado was known for innovation, then the ’86 should have had similar whiz-bang tech tricks up its sleeve.

The IROC Goes Yacht Rock

I’ll be the first to admit that an F-body is a totally different kind of car than what the E-body Toronado was; a rear-drive sports coupe with limited back seat space is a far cry from a luxury front-driver. Still, the pool of buyers for the latter was rapidly shrinking as boomers started to get the spending power and didn’t want what was absolutely “their father’s Oldsmobile”.

More importantly, even if it sold at the same low numbers as the actual 1986 car, the expenditure to make this “Torobird” would have been a drop in the bucket versus the hundreds of millions GM spent on torpedoing sales of the E-bodies, helping seal GM’s reputation as a company out of touch with the market. As silly as my idea is, I wouldn’t be caught dead in an E-body Toronado, but I’d drive this crazy Camaro-based version to work tomorrow.

If nothing else, the “Toromaro” would have been a far better tribute to the low, sleek, and sporting 1966 original for that iconic car’s twentieth birthday. Better than that, this alternate history Toronado would have had performance and handling to exceed that 425 cubic inch (7-liter) powered original. After years in the brougham wasteland, the crown jewel of the late Bill Mitchell era and one of the greatest Oldsmobile nameplates ever deserved that.

Top graphic images: General Motors