The Oldsmobile Toronado's brutal mid life crisis made the 1992 model the best it would ever be. About time, too for 1992 was the Toronado's last year. GM's nasty habit of killing cars once they get them right rearing its ugly head once again.
From the looks of things, you could argue that someone inside GM was trying to kill the Buick Riviera, Cadillac Eldorado and Oldsmobile Toronado with their horrible mid 1980's updates. Had to have seemed like a good idea at the time to introduce "luxury" cars no bigger than economy cars. Proof was in their lack of sales performance. Those designs crushed sales by as much 60%.
When GM added some much needed girth to Toronado in 1990, what had been a strange, anorexic little lump, blossomed into a beautiful automobile. Even, in "arrest me" red she's quite the looker. Amazing what a little weight will do for some people. Ladies, take note. Real men don't like skinny women.
Sales, which had cratered with the 1986 model, remained slow, though. As good as Toronado had become, a combination of a shifting market away from coupes, a shifting market away from Oldsmobiles in general and a booming SUV market ultimately killed Toronado. The last one rolled off the assembly on May 28, 1992.
Oldsmobile, subsequently, got killed in 2004.
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