Olds' Seven-year Secret: A Racy Front Drive

As long ago as 1958 there were rumors that General Motors' Oldsmobile Division was corning out with something new and startling. The rumors persisted, and last year unauthorized leaks made it clear that the essential novelty of the car was front-wheel drive; it was to be the first American front-drive car since the coffin-nosed Cord of the 1930s. As a buff and a driver of all sorts of cars—racing cars, sports cars, passenger cars large and small—I am always intrigued when Detroit tries something new, and I found the front-drive idea especially interesting. While Europe has its front-drive Citro�ns, Panhards, Lancias, Minis, DKWs and SAABs, all but a tiny fraction of modern U.S. auto production has consisted of cars with front-mounted engines driving the rear wheels (the only exception being the rear-engined Corvair, introduced in 1959).

When I went out to Michigan recently to see and test-drive the new Olds, which is called Toronado and which is being introduced this week, I was prepared for anything, for I had heard conflicting stories about it.

From Olds engineers I learned first of all that the project was indeed begun back in 1958. GM corporate brass took a hard look at it in 1964 and flashed the production green light. There were times of anxiety as the years passed—one Olds official called it the "never-never car"—but there were also some lighter moments. Open-road testing was done with the Toronado chassis camouflaged by a Riviera body shell. One day in a western city two Olds engineers had the car up on the grease rack of a garage. The mechanic ducked under it with his grease gun, the story goes, and when he could not find a drive shaft or differential he peered out at one of his visitors and said, "Mister, I don't know how to tell you this, but you've got yourself some real trouble here."

On seeing the car myself, in its own coachwork, I felt that it was the first postwar American car with a look of having been designed by one person and not a committee. Severe restraints must have been applied to keep someone from piling on surplus chrome and gadgets. Comparisons will be made with other cars; there is a touch of Riviera in front and a hint of Ferrari GTO in the back, but to me the design is sound and all of a piece. This is a big, racy-looking car—an American with a slight foreign accent. With its 4,496 pounds and six-passenger seating capacity the Toronado is not, of course, a sports car, yet there is a sporting aura about it.

As Ford did with its well-timed Mustang introduction, Oldsmobile has the Toronado aimed in a specific sales direction. Priced at about $4,500—the company has not yet announced a firm figure—the target obviously is the Thunderbird, not the Mustang, class. Market experts estimate that there are 350,000 moderately well-heeled customers each year who will be attracted by something different.

Unlike most U.S. cars, which can be ordered from a wide array of power and styling options, the Toronado is introduced in one basic model only—a six-passenger hardtop sedan. There will be no convertibles, at least in this first model year.

All Toronados come with a 425-cubicinch, 385-horsepower engine; all with automatic transmission, power steering and power brakes. Options left to the buyer are interior design and exterior color (a choice of 15 shades) and such items as power seats and windows.

But it is the front-drive setup, of course, that is of paramount interest. It is a completely new design—not a copy of any other—and here is how it works: Oldsmobile has placed the big V-8 in a conventional fore-and-aft position, slightly to the right of center. The Turbo Hydra-Matic transmission's torque converter is attached conventionally behind the engine. But then there are some startling changes. The output segment (gearbox) has been turned around and mounted on the left side of the engine, facing forward. A link-chain assembly transfers power from the converter across and through the transmission gears to a differential unit locked on the front of the engine. This splits the torque between the two front-drive axles, and thus the car is pulled along.

Oldsmobile's young chief engineer, John B. Beltz (he is 39), who worked out the design, insists that it is less complicated than it will appear to be at first glance to many mechanics and home tinkerers. "We have nestled the transmission right up against the crankcase," he said. "Never mind other engineering jargon. In layman's language, we have created a silky effect by using a chain drive instead of gears. We tried gears and they worked just fine, but they were too noisy. A chain is quiet; we tuned it out of the audible range, just like holding your finger against a vibrating piano wire to stop the sound."

There currently are about 13 well-known front-drive models on the world market, all taking advantage of the fact that pulling gives better traction than pushing. In the ones I have driven I would have known blindfolded that they were front-drive cars from the steering-wheel feedback. There was usually some wheel hop or slippage getting started and under heavy acceleration. (That goes for the Cord, too. I once owned one and liked its looks, but I wasn't crazy about the way it handled.) Driving the Toronado at GM's Milford Proving Ground, I was immediately impressed by the absence of any sensation of being in a front-drive car. There was no front-drive feedback, no vibration, no hop or slip. This is precisely what the people at Olds intended, knowing that the American buying public is not used to novel engineering features and might balk at something with a sharply different feel.