Might be a good car and the opening bid is reasonable, but more than three blurry photos will be needed to generate interest. Can't even tell if it is the Brougham or Custom without interior pics. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1976-Oldsmobile-Toronado-/123104309103?_trksid=p2141725.m3641.l6368
You can tell if it's a Brougham or Custom by the VIN, which he does give. This car is a Brougham. 3Z57S6M712297 The second character is a Z, which indicates Toronado Brougham. It would be a Y if it were a Toro Custom. I agree that it could be a decent car, but the photos are way too few and of poor quality.
It makes you wonder just how many do so because they have a flip phone camera vs. those who purposefully obfuscate.
Remember when all you had was 2 lines in the paper or Hemmings, and amazingly, we still bought and sold cars?
I doubt many are purposely obfuscating as it will only come back to bite them when the prospective buyer looks at the car in person. I think it's just laziness. Most people think the car will sell itself and a few quick snapshots are all that are needed. On this site, we (or, at least I) tend to be more perfectionists when it comes to cars-for-sale ads and want to see as many good photos as possible.
Yes, but that was a different era. Hemmings or publications like it were the only way to advertise a car nationally. Expectations are higher now. With the internet everywhere and high-quality cameras in everyone's pocket, car-for-sale ads are expected to be more than two lines of text and no photos.
I think you can also tell Brougham or Custom from the presence of a padded vinyl top or not? The picture in the first post seems to show a padded top(Brougham). (Remember its pronounced "Brog-ham" by the way.)
I disagree...IIRC, 'Brougham' is English, so it's pronounced as 'Brome,' reather than 'Bro-ham.' But pronuncial Nazism aside, didn't someone just say a few days ago that the Custom was the base model and the Brougham was top-shelf?
Actually, it's a slow brome, as in brohm like ohm the electrical resistance. I'd like to pronounce it browg-ham, in order to punish the English language for not being more German
No. The vinyl roof was optional on any Toronado. "Brougham" was an interior option, so jwdtenn is correct. Unless you know the VIN, you can't tell if a Toro is a Brougham without seeing the interior. Getting the Brougham package gave you the 60/40 split front seat with velour fabric. The non-Broughams got the vinyl bench seat. For 1976, very few Toro Customs were produced versus the Broughams. Production of the '76 Toro Custom was 2,555 while that of the Toro Brougham was 21,749, or more than 8 times as many.
Just to finish the thought on Toronado models, for the first generation (1966-1970), Toronados models were simply "Toronado" and "Toronado Deluxe" for 1966 and 1967, "Toronado Coupe" and "Toronado Custom" for 1968, and "Toronado" and "Toronado Custom" for 1969 and 1970. For '71, the start of the second generation, the models offered were "Toronado Coupe" and "Toronado Custom Coupe. The first Brougham was offered in '72, and for '72 through '76, Toronados were offered as "Custom Coupe" and "Brougham Coupe." Starting in '77, all Toronados were Broughams. If you got the XS option in '77 or '78, the car was a "Toronado Brougham XS." All third generation ('79 to '85) Toronados were "Toronado Brougham," and this carried over to the first year of the fourth and final generation ('86 to '92). In '87, all Toronados were "Toronado Coupe," and for '88 to the end in '92, the cars were either "Toronado Coupe" or "Toronado Trofeo."
He added a few more photos to the listing, but I'm still not impressed. He still does not show a full shot of the car's rear end nor of the rear seat nor the engine compartment. But he finds the time to give three essentially identical photos the front seat: and three photos of the trunk, like that's the most important thing. Yes, we want to see it, but how about ONE photo of the trunk and two of areas of the car you haven't shown us? So we have six photos doing the job of two while important parts of the car go unphotographed. Wonderful.
While I agree 100% with jaunty75, I wouldn't necessarily worry *too* much about the back seat with the driver's seat being in such nice shape as that's usually the seat that goes first. But it does bug me he's got all these pictures of the trunk... covered in the trunk liner so you can't see the metal. I also am not a fan of that jack being allowed to sit freely in the back like that, that's how you get punctured\dented quarters.
