First Love, Best Love: The Toronado That Won An Esteemed Collector’s Heart

Many automobiles are prized for their stylish shapes. Others are highly valued for the innovations they introduced. Coveted as well are those that carved out a unique place in automotive history. But most treasured perhaps are the cars that take us back to a special time and place.

For Ken Lingenfelter, who owns approximately 250 automobiles, including some of the world’s most sought after exotics, that most treasured car is a 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado. The special time is the mid 1960s and the place is the Fisher body plant in Euclid Ohio, where his dad once tested prototypes and gauged the quality of new Fisher creations.

The love affair began when Ken’s dad was deeply involved in the development of the stylish Toronado, a car that broke new ground for both General Motors and the industry. “After dinner, dad would take me to the plant,” said Ken in a telephone interview. I was already a car geek but seeing that car put me over the top – burned memories into my brain.”

It was the first front-wheel-drive American car produced since Cord breathed its last in 1937 and was undoubtedly a bold move for the usually conservative Detroit automaker.

“The car was a marvel of its time with fastback styling, flip-up headlights, front wheel drive and big motor,” said Ken. Every time I see one, it still catches my eye.

Ken, whose collection includes approximately 250 vehicles, is fond of many automobiles, but for years his first love, the sleek Toronado, eluded him. Determined to find an excellent example of the car his dad had helped create, he scoured trade publications and classified ads from across the country. Finally, he saw a classified listing for a ’66 Toronado in Old Cars Weekly; the ad described the car he had been searching for. After phone and mail negotiations, he took delivery of it sight unseen. The gamble proved worthwhile: the metallic blue ’66 Toronado is a one-owner car that looks brand new and shows only 40,000 miles on the odometer.

GM’s Toronado began life as a styling exercise by designer David North. His 1962 creation was meant to be a compact car, but expediency and GM’s existing E-body platform dictated otherwise. Meanwhile GM Engineers, under the direction of John Beltz had been developing a front-wheel-drive system called the Unitized Power Package. The North design and the UPP were a good match, and GM slated the Toronado for production.