Thirty Years Remembered

by Michael R. Frederick

I remember the first one.

It was the fall of 65, I was 16 and had just started my senior in high school. I had gone with my dad to the Philly airport to meet somebody or other when I saw IT from across the terminal. At first, I thought it to be some kind of Corvette but as I got closer I realized it was HUGE. A monster! I could have parked my VW on the hood. The sign said "Toronado", a new front-wheel drive car from Oldsmobile. It was gorgeous. Razor fenders, flared wheel-wells, sweeping roof-line, tires big enough for an earthmover. Only at my father's insistence did I pull myself away. Wow!

I remember the second one.

Our family doctor was the first one in the neighborhood to own one. Silver. His office was just across the street from the corner where my friends and I hung out. I used to watch him pull out on his way to the hospital or perhaps a house call. Sometimes, when he must have been pressed for time, the Toronado was pressed for speed. It had plenty. Off it roared leaving only dust and me behind.

I remember the third one.

I had joined the Air Force in 68 (which I considered, at the time, to be an excellent way to stay out of the army). When I came home in May of 1971, on leave between the Phillipines and Germany, there sat a 68 Toronado in my dad's driveway. A metallic chocolate brown with a tan vinyl top. What a beautiful car! And lucky me, he handed me the keys. The KEYS! ...the trusting soul he was. Maybe he just wanted to show off his new toy. Maybe he recognized the look in my eyes.

What a ride. I didn't fear anything on the street. It was fast, comfortable, and best of all -- fun. Before the day was out we were talking about trading-in my 69 bug.

Most of all, I remember the silver one.

I owned it, you see. My dad found it on a used car lot north of Philly. Black vinyl top, black interior, it was a stunning automobile. But after only a few days of the finest cruising I had ever known, the car when to Bayone, New Jersey for shipment to Germany. Not to be seen or driven for weeks. I must have taken a zillion pictures of it. For insurance purposes, I told myself but I really just loved looking at the monster. Almost as much as driving it.

I, too, shipped out. With family in tow, boarded the flight for Rhein-Main and whatever awaited in Deutchland. I wondered how the car was doing...

It was almost two months before I was notified that my pride and joy had arrived in Bremmerhaven. Seemed like two years. I had hitched a ride north with a GI who was shipping his car back to the states. Three hundred miles -- almost five hundred kilometers -- holding my breath, hoping they hadn't dropped it on its roof (as I had heard sometimes happens). After the usual lines, forms, ID check, and other military excesses, I was finally led to a storage area to search for my car. It wasn't all that easy. There were a lot of cars and my Toronado sat a bit lower than most. I finally spotted that distinctive nose peeking out from behind some ordinary car. IT'S ALIVE! In one piece! Which way to the Autobahn?

I don't remember which was more fun: Cruising at a hundred miles an hour, passing the BMWs, or the look on the Germans' faces when they saw us. Probably their faces. You could almost see their mouths move. "Was ist das?!?!"

I lived in a little town near Manheim called Otterbach and worked at a small airbase about 8 miles away. Every morning and evening bought the Otterbach Gran Prix. The GIs and their Cameros, the Germans and their BMWs. Through winding country roads without speed limits. I became fearless. I found that if you kept your faith and your foot in it, the Toro would eventually go where ever you pointed the front wheels. I got pretty good at diving down into those turns, letting the Quadrajet have its way with my fuel economy, and digging through the turns. I'll always remember a guy in a gray 2002 that tried to keep up. I wondered how long it took him to get his car out of that farmer's field.

Time marched on. My outfit moved north to Wiesbaden and me, the family, and the Toro with it. Maintenance was getting to be a problem. The car was now seven years old and parts were getting harder to come by. J C Whitney never seemed to have everything in stock at the same time. Half an exhaust system wasn't much help. I scrounged a few more pieces from a local GM dealer and a couple more from the guys in the motorpool. I learned to weld. Converting two left hand sections into a right and a left. Found out I could reverse the brushes in the starter motor to get a little more life out of it. I removed the vinyl top when it began to show the telltale bubbles of rust around the edges.

Then some GI came along and offered me too much money for the car. So with an eye to the three kids I now had, I sold it. Like a fool, I sold it. "Best car I ever had!", I said. "Coolest thing on the road!", I cried. "What a dope!", I said to myself.

Fifteen years had gone by when a DJ around the corner from my house in Harrisburg, Pa, asks me what it would cost to put a security alarm in his house and van. Seems he had just bought $5000 worth of new sound equipment and was feeling a little paranoid. So I went to his house to look the job over. We headed out the back door to look at the van in the garage when ... LO AND BEHOLD! There sat a white, 1966, Oldsmobile Toronado in all it's glory!

"What's with the car?", I asked (certain that I was drooling on my shirt).

"Oh", he said, "I bought it from this guy, replaced the floors, painted it, etc. You interested?"

"Well, maybe." (Maybe, hell!) "Tell you what, give me a price for the car and I'll give you a price for the alarm work. We'll work out the difference."

"OK.", he said, not suspecting a thing.

That weekend, I called my dad and asked him if it wanted to go to the Carlisle car show with Jeannie and I. "Sure.", he said. I told him I would pick him up. When I pulled into his driveway, I could have sworn I saw his mouth move, "Was ist das?!?!". At least he had that same look on his face.

I handed him the keys...