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.
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
Lost in a sea of Toronados
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One of these days I will hot rod a Corvair van. That is going on the bucket list for sure.
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History of the Toronado:http://ateupwithmotor.com/luxury-and-personal-lux…
(Don't get me started on the Wikipedia page; there are a couple of lunatics who've been battling over that for years — it makes me tired just thinking about it.)
Restoring a Toronado is a pain. A lot of the unique pieces are hard to find, and I've heard semi-serious stories that Jay Leno's restoration of his own '66 Toro consumed a lot of available parts cars (and drove up the prices even further). Still a really neat car.-
thanks for the tip, i've redirected that link to your article
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Ooh, no Toronado Trofeo? I've got to say I'm out on that one.
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F'ing vandals.
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Wow, what a shame. My favorite Toronados are the '66 and '70 models. A GT would really be hip.
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If the vandals are found, I'd gladly pay a small sum to the owner of the Toros for the privilege of smashing their fingers with a ball-peen hammer.
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If I understand correctly, those guys were actually caught, however after touring the property yesterday, it is clear there have been all manner of riff raff in and out of there. It is really unfortunate, the whole time I was there I just wanted to clean the branches, leaves and rubbish off of the cars and tell them everything would be ok.
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I'd help you. I'll gladly hold their hands down. We had a '69 Toro when I was a kid, and I hooned the hell out of it when my folks were away (I was too young to drive at the time, please don't tell my mom). I loved that car. This story makes me all bummed out. I'd like to think that there is a special place in Hell for whoever did all that damage.
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Vandals suck ass. Damn, I hope someone buys all these.
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It is strange to find out just how many blogs the internet has on this topic. I don’t know if I will need to be back here, but it’s good to know I stumbled upon the one that offers some practical information if this should come up for me another time.
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I’m really enjoying the theme/design of your weblog. Do you ever run into any web browser compatibility problems? A couple of my blog visitors have complained about my site not working correctly in Explorer but looks great in Safari. Do you have any recommendations to help fix this issue?
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its a shame but there are restorers out there al in chicago
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