Lost in a sea of Toronados

Save me!
When I stumbled upon this bizarre Craigslist ad, curiousity got the better of me.  You don’t see many Toronados around these days, much less 20-plus.  Talk about epic barn find!    I emailed the seller and was pleasantly surprised to not only get a quick reply, but also a backstory on the cars and a short, impressive bio on the man himself. Bill is a mechanical design engineer currently living in North Carolina.  Back in the 60’s he was into building and racing cars.  Him and his buddy set up shop in Ogden and started hot-rodding Austin Healeys, a Corvair van and even an NSU Sport Prinz!  Not long after, he developed a healthy obsession with the almighty Toronado and started collecting them in hopes of someday opening a specialty shop.  His dream was to build custom, one-off Toronados.  He ended up moving to the east coast before his dream was fully realised and left his collection in the care of a close friend. Up until recently, the cars were in fairly decent shape, even after sitting all these years in his back yard.  Sadly, the property has fallen into disrepair and vandals have had their way with a lot of these cars.  A couple weeks ago someone broke in and knocked the windows out of most of them.  Having the interiors fully exposed to the elements now, Bill decided that there was no point in keeping the cars any longer and hopes that someone out there can save some of them before mother nature and vandals do any more damage.  Bill started collecting in about 1971.  It took me a minute to realise it but some of the first cars he aquired were probably only a few years old at the time.  Sadly time has taken its toll on alot of these cars. Notable cars in the collection include (6) ’66s (7) ’67s, a couple of ’68s, a 70 GT, a couple of Gen 2 Toros (71-78) and two ’67 Eldorados.  If you are not into Toronados, Bill also has two Alfa Romeo Guiletta Sprint Coupes for sale, one of which is a Veloce.  I also spotted a Brat in pretty good shape and what appears to be an MG.
Brat!!
And finally, he tells of one other item of interest.  Hidden somewhere amongst all this iron is an aluminum Olds 215 small block, an engine I have been daydreaming of dropping into a little white wagon I’m sure you are all familiar with. Let’s help a Hoon and Save The Toronados! See the Craigslist ads here and here Some additional photos can be found here, please note that the photos in this gallery were taken a few years back and don’t necessarily reflect the current condition of the cars.  Bill can be contacted directly at 801-693-8595 or toronado@newsguy.com

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