Folks have forgotten what an admired brand name Oldsmobile used to be. It was for a long time the most popular mid-price car brand in America, with the Olds Cutlass frequently the country's best-selling car. Olds was also an industry leader in innovation: the first car with an automatic transmission (1940), the first car, along with Cadillac with a high-compression V-8 engine (1949) and the first mass-production car with front-wheel drive. That last car was the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado.
There's a long list of technical innovations created just for this car. I'm not going to go over them all, but take a look here. The early Toronados did have an Achilles' Heel - disc brakes were not available until 1967, and then only as an option. Depending on drum brakes to stop a 4,500 pound car with the engine and transmission up front is asking for trouble, and anyone restoring one of these cars includes upgraded brakes.
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