This one just popped up on ebay. Asking $25k for it. Claims only 4400 miles. Car looks it, but the selection of photos is unimpressive. Several are redundant (do we really need a separate shot of each tire?). No photos of the trunk or engine compartment. No photos of the dash. Just one of the interior. Exact same exterior color and interior upholstery as my '77. https://www.ebay.com/itm/3349199140...=0&osub=-1~1&crd=20230621024316&segname=11021
Jaunty, car has door sticker from American sunroof. Do you know if GM outsourced the sunroofs on these cars to American or is this a dealer/owner add on ?
Yes, that sticker is original and attests to how low-mileage the car is because I've never seen that sticker on any other '77 Toro, not that I've seen thousands of them or something. Olds contracted with American Sunroof originally for the Toronado XSR, which was to have had a power t-top along with the bent glass rear window. Sales literature and so forth was printed up. But right before production began, Olds gave up on the idea of the t-top because they could not get the mechanism to work reliably, and they didn't want owners constantly coming back to the dealer with complaints. So they invented the "XS" at the last minute which kept the bent rear glass but substituted a more conventional sunroof instead of the t-top. It was American Sunroof which supplied the sunroofs for Olds. Here's the t-top on a couple of prototype XSRs. Here's a page from the 1977 dealer brochure.
Wow! That was a ballsy image to print up, the car sitting in front of the Forked-Tailed Devil, the P-38 Lightning! Especially in 1977, when anti-Vietnam sentiment still ran high! As an Olds lover, I have to say, I don't like the T-tops on this. For some reason, the roof just doesn't look right when the panels are retracted. But if it had worked, it would've been novel.
In fairness, I don't think the average Olds buyer had much thoughts about Vietnam aside from "stupid kids lost the war, we didn't lose wars in MY day!" They loved implying that folks who drove their cars were pilots, golfers, jet setters, trend mongers, etc in the mid-late 1970s.
From October 8, 1976. At this time, Olds was still planning to produce the XSR for customers, but apparently had not yet actually built nor delivered any. They decided to make another option available as well and call it the XS. Then, on March 14, 1977 came this. I take this to mean that, while Olds might have been taking orders for the XSR, those customers were left waiting, sometimes for months, without receiving their car. It wasn't until March of 1977 that Olds pulled the plug on it. Imagine being one of those ordering an XSR, say early in the model year like September or October. March comes along, you still haven't received your car, and then you get hit with this. The letter talks about introducing the model for 1978, but it never happened.
