What if Oldsmobile produced a Toronado station wagon? General Motors was intrigued enough by the idea to build a prototype or two.
It’s only natural that General Motors and its Oldsmobile division would seek out additional applications for the advanced front-wheel drive unit designed for the 1966 Toronado. Known internally at GM as the Unitized Power Package or UPP, the powertrain module was a tidy, versatile package, and surely a bundle had been invested in its development. The next application following the Toronado, of course, was the 1967 Cadillac Eldorado. (See our feature on the Eldorado here.) And since one great benefit of the UPP front-drive system was that it allowed a low, flat floor, another use that easily came to mind was a station wagon.
By March of 1966, the GM design had a full-sized studio model ready for display at the Tech Center’s styling court (above). As we can see, this was essentially a European-style shooting brake adaptation of the production Toronado coupe. Sporty, yes, but the two-door wagon didn’t offer much more in the way of useful interior volume over the standard Toronado.
Taking a more practical approach, GM built a full-sized, four-door wagon prototype using the Toronado drive unit and front-end sheet metal. But at the time, Oldsmobile didn’t offer a full-size wagon—its largest wagon was the Vista Cruiser, based on a stretched A-body intermediate platform. (See our Vista Cruiser feature here.) So a Pontiac full-sized wagon body shell, from the firewall back, was merged with the Toronado front clip. As the photos show, the Olds/Pontiac mashup was more of a basic proof-of-concept rather than a finished prototype. The tail lamps fit oddly and the front and rear wheel openings don’t match at all.
Leading automotive historian Michael Lamm, writing in the late, great magazine Special Interest Autos (July-Aug 1978) reported that in fact, several of these experimental front-drive wagons were constructed. Mr. Lamm also noted that GM styling vice president Bill Mitchell raved about the flat, unobtructed floors, and he included this awesome Mitchell quote: “With the tailgate down, you could run a motorscooter into it.” But as we now know, the front-drive, Toronado-derived station wagon was never sent into production—though the UPP was later used to power the 1973-78 GMC Motor Home.
There was another Toronado station wagon, not that Oldsmobile had any direct involvement. In 1968-70, American Quality Coach of Blytheville, Arkansas produced the AQC Jetway 707 airport limousine. A Toronado with its wheelbase extended five and a half feet, it sported tandem rear axles, five doors per side, and a Vista Cruiser-ish station wagon roof. Somewhere between 52 and 150 of these behemoths were reportedly built, various sources say, and a number of them are still around.
I had seen in magazines the Pontiac mashup wagon, and the Toro airport limos, but never before the two door. That would’ve been slick, even though not very practical. When the Toronado, and later the El Dorado ,were released, I asked an elder brother why did they make fwd in expensive, likely limited (by cost) vehicles, rather than in affordable station wagons, where the benefits of fwd (flat floors, etc.) would make more sense…not that I expected him to know GM’s thought process, but to me it would’ve made more sense in a wagon…or even a pickup (recall the “Kelpie”?). Thanks for the history lesson. Always enjoyable!
Agreed, but surely the bean counters was the influence to keep it limited to expensive lines, initially.
They also put a FWD system in a B-Body wagon a 1 of. No drive shaft or differential meant the floor was lower, it was a huge cave and carried a lot.
A giant Front Wheel Drive Subaru station wagon before Front Wheel Drive Subaru station wagons became popular.
In 1979 I bought a 1955 Chrysler Imperial C-70 limousine from the owner of Executive limousine service near Dulles Airport in Virginia. He had been seriously injured in a vehicle accident and was selling off vehicles. Executive had a contract to provide airport transport services to/from Dulles, National, and BWI airports.
The company bought 6 of the huge AQC Jetway Oldsmobiles, but due to multiple major mechanical problems*, within a couple of years they were all sidelined and replaced by big Ford F-350 Maxi-vans. Executive brought a lawsuit against AQC, so the big Oldsmobiles sat in outside storage for at least a couple of years. I had told the owner of Executive I might be interested in one of the big Olds AQC vehicles if and when he decided to sell them off. A year or so later he called and made me an offer to buy one, an offer so cheap that I just had to own one of the 6. I was told I could have my choice.
I’ve only made a few poor decisions in my life, but that one has to rank in the top 5. I drove my ’73 Dodge B-200 Tradesman van [318 & stickshift] out to his fenced in storage lot at Dulles, and found a line of 6 of the biggest Oldsmobiles ever built. I had keys to all of them and spent several hours going over all 6 vehicles, and was able to get a couple of them to run. My plan was to flat-tow the best one back to my farm in Silver Spring, Maryland with the Dodge, but I quickly realized that was like a tail wagging the dog.
I ended up visiting a friend who lived just south of Dulles who had a big collection of vintage vehicles, mostly trucks. As it was too late to do anything before dark, and once fortified with more than a few beers, we thought the idea of flat-towing the Olds limo behind his Studebaker 5 ton 6X6 truck was a good test for his truck [and my tow bar], so the next morning he brought out the big Studie, and we hooked them together.
What should have been an easy 1 hour drive from Dulles Airport to my farm took almost 8 hours. While most of the trip was on high speed roads, the big truck never had the opportunity to even approach the speed limit, and there was the problem of the Olds experiencing 2 flat tires, both while still on the Dulles Access road. After the 2nd flat tire, I drove the van back to the storage lot and grabbed the spare tires out of the other 5 AQC limousines.
I had the AQC Olds for only a couple of months before I discovered it had major frame rust in the lengthened sections. I don’t think the new frame sections were properly painted before assembly, as it was only the elongated sections that had rusted thru. I ended up selling it to a guy who had plans to turn it into a party bus with a hot tub in the back. Never saw it again.
*Mechanical problems included FWD drive shafts & double u-joint failures, premature steering linkage wear, transmissions not lasting more than about 40,000 miles between overhauls, A/C systems that were way undersized, and the rear air suspension for the dual rear axles constantly failed. The reason we had 2 tires fail on the trip home was because the air suspension dropped and the tires rubbed against the wheel wells until the tire sidewalls failed. Executive’s owner told me those 6 AQC vehicles were so problem-prone that he almost lost the airport transport contract. .
Legend has it… That those AQC limos were R&D for the later GMC RVs. GM used all the info from the failures of those drivetrains to beef them up to be able to handle dragging around a camper. And they used the info from the rear suspensions to develop a better dual axle set up for the campers too. So, even though those jetway wagons sucked .. they taught GM how to put together those GMC campers.
Derek, I’m of the opinion the AQC mechanical failures certainly did result in GMC’s realization they needed to upsize various components, but I doubt GM set up AQC to fail just so they could learn from their mistakes.
As I recall, Executive’s lawsuit against AQC also brought in GM as a co-defendant, because GM had indicated the vehicles would still be covered under GM’s warranty, suggesting GM didn’t expect to have so many systems and parts fail.
The above info is not based on any specific facts, just my memory of what I heard from Executive’s owner.
Wow, what a behind the scenes account! Sounds sloppy, unfortunate really as they looked cool as shit!
Cheers!