For anyone who was following along in that other thread I started that ended with me taking the car to the body shop on May 22 (and for anyone else), I decided to start a new thread, rather than continuing one that actually began with a question about the cooling system (or something like that).

Anyway, I took the car to the shop on May 22, exactly 7 weeks ago today. I got it back this afternoon. It looks fantastic, I think. Photos are below. I started with a couple from before the paint job so you can see the contrast. Yes, there's still much to do (find a hood ornament, get the back glass reglazed, clean the vinyl top, new tires, get the A/C fixed, get the antenna to go down all the way, and more), but I at least I can smile when I go out to the garage.


Two photos from before the repaint.





Way more than two photos from after the repaint.

 

Shiny...

 

That was the idea!

 

Thats whats nice about a driver quality paint job.

 

Nice job!! Very good job for a driver .
How much did the paint job cost if you don't mind me asking? Is it the water based paints?

Thanks
Eric

 

Looks good and enjoyable to drive I'm sure...

 

I have no idea what kind of paint it is. I just told him I wanted a quality paint that matched as closely as possible the color on the car and left the rest to him.

The total cost of the job was $2,400 plus tax. That includes the cost of trimming, fitting, and painting the new pieces that go between the rear fender and bumper on each side. (I purchased those separately and gave them to him.) I think he did a superb job with those. He also removed a few small dents in the rear quarters.

Not that it was a big deal, but he also replaced the trunk lock escutcheon with a nice NOS piece I was able to find on ebay.

 

John suggested you might need a NOS hood ornament I just got
Call or text me and I will send you pictures? Not sure what the application on this one is as the numbers were worn off the Box. 317-727-7041

 

Thanks for the info ! I wanted to get my 76 repainted since the turkey took out the windshield etc.
I can't get a price under 9k up here in Canada, I know the cost of doing business has gone up in the last quarter of 2016 and another rise in 2017 but the prices I'm getting here are out ther!

 

Thanks. I'll text you. I don't have a photo of the hood ornament other than what I've seen in photos of other Toros. Here's a couple of Toronado front ends I've taken from ebay listings over the last few months showing the hood ornament. I think the one in the second photo, on the black car, is actually worn a bit as it should be completely black as in the photo of the white one.

 

OK, I think there's a difference. Scott's emblem has a rocket in it. The Toronado emblem has the Toronado symbol like the ones just outside the headlights and hubcap centers. Scott's emblem is nice and you could probably use the chrome mount on your header panel with the rocket emblem from Scotts parts if you wanted to. It looks like they both have a cable to give the emblem flex. John

 

I've just been in touch with him, and you are right in that the ornament has a rocket logo on it and not the Toro logo. However, the price was right, the ornament looks great, and I'll just use it as is until I find an actual Toro ornament. When and if that ever happens, I'll switch them, but, in the meantime I'll have a nice Oldsmobile ornament that few people will recognize as not quite correct. Plus, it will look a whole lot better than no ornament at all.

 

Cool! I'm glad its going to work for you!

John

 

Thanks. Here's a photo of the ornament and the base. You are right in that the base looks different from the one on my car (the base is there, but the ornament is not), but it looks as though this ornament can be placed into my base.






Here's the base on my car.

 

By the way, one thing I learned from the fellow who sold me the car is that that row of flags under the Toronado script on the right side of the trunk lid is not actually correct. He worked at the Olds dealer in the early 1980s where this car was originally purchased and bought a set from the parts counter (they actually went on mid-'70s Cutlass Salons) and put them on because he liked the look. I like it, too, and, heck, if the hood ornament is incorrect and the "Olds 403" decal I put on the air cleaner is incorrect, what difference does it make if the flags are incorrect, too?!

 

It don't know that ornament will fit into your existing bezel. It's designed to fit the square inset, and the one on your car doesn't match that ornaments bottom profile. Just an observation. Do you have the spring loaded connector for the emblem?

 

That looks real nice and at a reasonable price as well. To bad it took so long car ownership is obsolete now w self driving cars ruling the road!

 

I do not have the spring mechanism, only the base.

I realize that this ornament is not a drop-in replacement. But I'm guessing that with a little tweaking here, a little metal trimming there, and maybe a little Elmer's glue everywhere, I can make it work. I don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good here. The goal is to have something that looks better than what's there now, which is an empty base.

 

The spring mechanism is part of the safety feature that ornament is designed to incorporate. Elmers glue? Ahhahahaha, good one. It won't bond metal to metal.

 

The spring action on those emblems make them very forgiving in trying to adapt one.

 

Is this what you're looking for?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-OLDS...9/292155082783

 

Cool. Yes! Bought it. $15 plus $2 shipping. Thanks. It appears to be only the ornament itself, not the base or spring mechanism, so I will probably still need the other ornament from oldspackrat to cannibalize for the mechanism.

 

OHHH YEAHHH!

The new paint looks AWESOME! I love the rear window on the Toronado XS.

FWIW, I didn't notice the lack of a hood ornament until you gents mentioned it.

 

I really like that maroon color.

 

Thanks. Olds calls it Carmine.


Here's the dealer invoice I was able to obtain on this car from the GM Heritage Center. The color is shown towards the bottom of the left column.

 

Way, way cool car. Looking forward to hopefully seeing a couple of XS's at the Nationals. I had never seen one before the 2015 Nats and became a fan of them at the first one I saw.

 

Your car looks great!

Enjoy driving it. These are awesome interstate cruising cars.

 

Very Nice !! I think you got a heck of a deal on that paint job !

 

WOW!
I just looked at the VIN. You got the 5th one produced for 1978?? How cool is that?

 

Hello jaunty75: Thank you for the dealer invoice copy from GM. Way loaded car: dual 6 way seats and power mirrors, tilt, cruise, tape and a nice color. Very interesting to know the $2700 retail cost for the XS option. It seems expensive for a different window and two emblems. However, that made it rare and even more interesting now a days I guess. Sure hope to see this local car at the Nationals after a fresh re-do. Regards, Trent in Los Angeles

 

Pretty darn cool, I agree. But I've been told that cars did not necessarily come off the assembly line in VIN order. Special-ordered vehicles would be assigned a VIN as soon as the order was received at the factory, even if production of the car didn't occur until days later. In the meantime, other Toros could have come off the line ahead of this one, even if they had later VINs. Given all the options on this car, I'm guessing the original buyer special-ordered it instead of just buying one off the lot. I'll just be content to know it was one of the first ones to come off the line.

Here's the actual VIN tag on the car, and there's the cowl tag as well. The build date is early, 8C, being third week of August 1977. I assume the 79-79 for the paint code refers to carmine. I don't know what the other codes mean as none of the cowl tag decoders I know of work with models as late as 1978.

 

Actually, the XS package included one other important thing. Look carefully at the invoice and note what's not there. The power sunroof. That's because it was included as part of the XS package, according to the '78 Olds brochure, and that makes the $2700 price a little more understandable. According to the brochure, the power sunroof was available on any Delta 88, 98, or Toronado. I don't know what the by-itself price was.

 

Now I'm looking for opinions.

Blackwalls or whitewalls?


The car needs new tires, and whitewalls in this size (on the car now are P215/75R15--the door jamb sticker says JR78-15) are hard to come by. I tend to think that the full-size cars of the '70s look better with whitewalls, but I'm not sure I think that for this car. It's sportier, and while whitewalls would of course look fine, I think a set of blackwalls would look pretty good, too.

Thoughts?

 

Hello: "QEX JR78x15, TIRES W WALL" My own opinion would be white walls for sure. I think that full size and upper end cars look better with white walls for sure. I have spent some effort to find white walls for several cars of mine over the years. They are getting hard to find for sure. I have purchased several sets of Cooper tires and have very good durability with them and reasonably priced.

I went on the Cooper web site and found:

P215/75R15 100S 440 A B STD WSW 5.5 - 7 6 8.4 27.56 22 1742 10.5

So they stock standard white wall tires in your size. Several retailers are listed to sell their tires on Cooper website (Americas, Discount, Pep Boys, Big O Tires and a few more). Big O tires lists them for $87.99, Walmart says $98.11 each. I figure you might find a better deal locally. So here my .02 cents worth along with Oldsmobile Division. Regards, Trent in Los Angeles

 

What about the wheels, are there some sort of hubcaps? Are you going to put a 235-75-15 on it?

 

Dan,
Not sure I can go with that explanation of when a VIN is assigned. The order would be processed, but the VIN is assigned after the car body has been built and shipped to Lansing final assembly. It's the sequence of production for that specific day, and we both know that Toros weren't high production items.

Anyway, moving forward -
I believe the 74X is the stainless trim around the landau roof.
AM6 - SEAT, FRT SPLIT, 3 PASS, CTR ARM REST
79T is your padded Landau matching roof.

 

Such a cool car...congrats!. White walls

 

Those are the wheels. The car came with two sets of covers. One set is pie-plate sized and just covers the center portion where the lug nuts are. I did not have those on the car for the photos above.

Here's a photo showing those covers in place. This was one of the photos sent to me by the seller of the car.




The seller also included a set of full wheelcovers, which I have not to date installed on the car.





As far as 235-75-15 tires, I don't know. One conversion chart I saw (https://tireguides.com/TireTips/TireDocument/4) says that JR78-15 can be substituted for by any of these:

P225/75R15, P235/70R15, P255/60R15

None of these is what's on the car now, but that doesn't mean anything.

 

Yes, I know the car originally came with whitewalls. I'm just asking for opinions, and I appreciate them all.

I did try to find some photos of Toros of this vintage with blackwalls to get an idea of the look, and I found three. The third one actually has raised white letters on it (and curb feelers!), but they're not prominent in the photo, and you can get a sense of how a blackwall would look.

Overall, I think the look is not bad. There's enough chrome trim and pinstripes on these cars that the blackwalls actually serve to tone things down a bit.

 

Hey Allan, I want to believe you. I want this to be the 5th Toro off the line for the 1978 model year. I"m just relating what I've heard, that cars didn't necessarily always come off the line in VIN sequence. But I happy to accept that that's wrong.

Thanks!