On 10/14 back in 1965 Oldsmobile (RIP) debuted one of the most advanced cars it every produced. That car was the Toronado. Front wheel drive and stylish looks made this car in the middle of the muscle car, it held it’s own. The first year of production was 1966. The engine was the 425 topped with a 4 barrel Rochester 4GC carb. Its bore and stroke was 4.125 x 3.97 with 10.5:1 compression and lay out 365 hps. It was a muscle car!!!!
1966 Toronado – Kool factor of 8.5 out of 10.
10/14/24 was a huge day the automotive development time line, but no one actually new it yet. That was the day in Allentown, PALee Iacocca was born. Savior of Mopar and instrumental in the success of one of the most important cars in the American auto industry – the Mustang!!!!
Often a comment sparks an entire blog entry. Nothing gets me going more than a discussion about US auto makers, especially if I can lay out my thoughts about “what’s happened to (insert brand here)”.
In a comment to my Auto Factoids for the Week of Aug 19, 2012 (http://wp.me/pKHNM-1fG) Bill wrote:
“If I were in charge of GM, I would not have left Oldsmobile for death. I liked the idea of ‘Saturn-izing’ Olds into a Lexus level car. There might have been only one, or two models under the Olds badge, but I would not have left the world’s oldest car company for dead.
Oldsmobile was GM’s ‘experimental’ division both in terms of engineering and product marketing. Many automotive firsts such as automatic transmission (Hydramatic), OHV V8s, and even the ‘self winding’ car clock……….Which brings me to the time I find myself saying in many of my comments in your BLOG:
“What happend to GM????””
I’ve mentioned this before, it never really made any sense to me why you would have so many divisions in a car company as GM did. Some say, it was to offer different levels of options that were affordable on up to expensive. But lets take the Chevrolet for instance. At one time they had the Biscayne, Belair, Impala and Caprice (and I think that was the correct order from lowest optioned to the highest) as option levels and pricing to reach everyone. This doesn’t seem too bad. But now add in the other divisions with Chevy being the lowest, then there’s Pontiac, Buick, Olds, and Caddy and I think that would be the correct order for options and pricing as well. A further break down in what as suppose to be different classes of automobile for different classes of society was the norm for those divisions as well. For example the Tempest and La Mans, GTO were basically the same car with different options.
I understand brand/model loyalty, especially at the initial merging/acquisition of a brand, but at some point that stopped being the only valid reason for keeping them separate. By the time the ’70s and ’80s rolled around they all started looking the same. For example take the Chevy Monte Carlo for 1978 and compare with the Buick and Olds of the same year:
78 Buick Regal
78 Chevy Monte Carlo
1978 Olds Cutlass
Minus the big tires on the Olds, tell me why I should purchase one over the other or purchase one at all (beside the fact they were fairly ugly)?
Frankly, I would have kept Pontiac over Olds any day but then again the difference between a Camaro and a Firebird in 2000 wasn’t much -but they are both gone now.
2000 Firebird
2000 Camaro
There just wasn’t much different. They diluted the brand and it became impossible to find any major differences – unless you were a gear head and most consumers were not.
The necessity to cut cost and share parts made it nearly mandatory to have them all made from the same cookie cutter.
Now don’t get me started on the purchase of oversea brands and becoming a finance/mortgage company to defray cost. (Did you know that at one time GM did more business in home/real estate loans then they did with their core car brands?
Well I wasn’t present for the 1956 year but it was an interesting year. Lincoln and Continental were separate makes and interestingly enough the Clipper (a model of Packard) tried ‘independence’ on for size. Oh…and there were some very cool show cars.
The finished out with Chevy and Ford way out in front with 1,567,117 and 1,408,487 – respectively. They were followed over 500,oo behind, were Buick with 573,024, Plymouth with 571,634 and Oldsmobile with 485,458. The rest of the field looked like this:
This is the series where I list up the power plant offerings for the year.
Now you would think that being a GM division that Oldsmobile would have the 350 and the like, but the had their own unique engines.
First up was the 225 cid. Oh…a straight six….NO…..a V6!!!!! This was an iron blocked overhead valve engine. The bore and stroke were 3.75″ x 3.40″ and with a compression of 9.0:1 it laid down 155 hp. It had four main bearing and topped with a 1 barrel Rochester Type BC one barrel. This was the lowest level engines and refered to as the F-85 and Vista Cruiser series.
Next up is the smallest of the V8’s offered that year, the 330 cid also in the F-85/Cruiser series. It was an iron block engine as well. The compression was 9.0:1 with a bore of 3.939 and stroke 3.39″. When ou topped that off with a two barrel Rochester Type 2GC carb you could manage a stout 250 hp.
10/12/1950 Kaiser-Frazer Built their 500, oooth car.
There ya go...the 500, 000 th
On 10/13/ in 1902 Packard Motor Car Co. was formed from the Ohio Automobile Co. Of interest: In September, 1900, the Ohio Automobile Company was founded as the manufacturer, while the cars were always sold as Packards. Since these automobiles quickly gained an excellent reputation, and there were more automobile makers that produced — or at least planned to — under the label “Ohio”, the name was changed soon: On October 13, 1902, it became the Packard Motor Car Company.
1902 Packard Model F
An Ohio
The very next day 63 years later Oldsmobile debuts the Toronado (10/14/1965).
1965 Toronado I want one of these
On 10/15/1945 Oldsmobile began creating producing per war cars.
And 1924 on the 15th of October, one of my hero’s was born. The proud Poppa of the Mustang and savior of Chrysler Lee Iococca was born in Allentown, PA.
I bumped in to Bill Holtzclaw from Cartersville, Georgia, virtually (Facebook) and he shared a few pics and some detail on his restoration of a 1967 Olds F-85.
Bill's F85
“I am doing a full, frame-off restoration on this 1967 F-85 Club Coupe. It has a convertible frame, 442 suspension, steel crank 330, .030 over with W-31 cam and 2” intake valves, close ratio Muncie 4 speed and heavy duty 3.91 posi rear. It is a radio delete, heater delete, carpet delete car with the factory cloth and vinyl interior. The drive train is built and the chassis is being assembled. The interior is done, the chrome and bright work is done. Next, we’ll pull the body and put it on a rotisserie. It will be two-tone Crystal and Midnight Blue.”
“I’ve had a lot of interest in this project from some of the leading Oldsmobile collectors in the country. It is my version of what would have been a 1967 W-31, which was introduced in 1968. All of the parts to build this car back in the day were available as either RPO options or over-the-counter upgrades. The W-30 package was available as an over-the-counter package in 1967. The W-30 cam and the W-31 cam are one in the same, and the OIA kit will work for both small block and big block cars. So, it was a possibility! ”
The upholstery turned out awesome! He used NOS fabric for the seat inserts. The car was a factory carpet delete car with a near-perfect vinyl floor covering. “I cleaned it and had it dyed the color blue (same as dash pad) that I wanted. It looks absolutely brand new! I had seat belts custom made to stock appearance, and the standard steering wheel came out nice, too.”
Check out the vinyl floor covering
“I had the gauges restored by R&M restorations in Greenville, SC. The odometer was re-set to zero.” The dash bezel was restored by Chrome Tech USA. They repaired the 44 year-old plastic, re-chromed it and then detail painted it. The radio and heater delete plates were purchased from Red Venom Enterprises. “They only make the radio plate, so I purchased two and trimmed one to fit the heater control panel and the PRNDL panel. ”
Bill did the polishing himself
He installed a Sunpro Mini Tach in place of the factory clock. Looks like it came from the factory that way!
Great Job - Bill!!
Final Product
Bill is also the owner of a 1967 Oldsmobile F-85 Town Sedan with “Police Apprehender” package. It has the HiPo 330/320 hp, Heavy Duty Jetaway and 442 suspension upgrades.
Nice!!!
Might be why he’s known as OldsMoBill. “I am also known as the “Oldsmobile Police”!” Bill states.
Bill, I hope you check back with your status from time to time and thank you for sharing.
11/10/14 – The first Dodge is produced and on the same day 11 years later Ford built its first Tri-Motor airplane.
Not the plane:
1914 - 4 Door Dodge Touring
This is the plane:
Fords 1925 Tri-Plane
11/11/1940 – The first Jeep
1940 Jeeps
11/12/1908 – GM takes over Oldsmobile.
11/25/1844 – Mr. Benz was more in Karlsruhe, Germany (Been there, the wine is excellent, the beer is better and the food is OUTSTANDING!)
11/26/1966 -The DeTomaso Mangusta debuts
1966 DeTomaso Mangusta
11/27/1870 – Joe Mach’s birthday. Yeah…the guy that started MAC trucks. The company started when Joe and his brothers purchased a carriage and wagon company in Brooklyn, N.Y. The first vehicle they produced was a tour bus. (1900) Next up was rail cars and locomotives. At the time they used the name Manhattan. Somewhere between 1910 and 1911 the name changed to Mack at about that time the Mack brothers bought a truck company. Oh..in case you are wonder the Bulldog became their logo in 1922 and the name was changed to MACK Truck. When I was a very young, we called all tractor-trailer Mack Trucks.
1910 Mack Hook and Latter firetrucks
New Auto Factoid format.
The Ford Mustang sold 419,000 cars in the its first 12 months on the marked. That number trumped the 417,000 cars set by the 1960………………Ford Falcon!!!!
