Junkyard Find: 1992 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

You like rare cars? How about a final-year-of-manufacture Olds Toronado Troféo? I’ll bet there aren’t more than a few hundred ’92 Troféos left in the world! Here’s one that I spotted last week at a snowy Denver self-service yard.

I have an unhealthy obsession with the products of GM’s mid-80s-to-early-90s efforts to compete toe-to-toe with German luxury marques (or at least drop the average age of Buick, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac purchase from 96 to maybe 70 years old), and so I’m always happy to write about cars such as the Buick Reatta, Cadillac Allanté, and Olds Troféo. This car is the third Troféo in this series, after this ’89 and this ’90.

Even a 70-year-old in 1992 must have been aware that the Buick 3.8 V6 wasn’t exactly cutting-edge technology in the luxury-car world.

Look, a driver’s-side airbag!

And, depressingly, molded-in fake stitching on the not-quite-leather door panels.

If this thing had had the touch-screen Visual Information Center, I’d have pulled it and bought it on the spot. Just analog gauges, though.

With all its flaws, the ’92 Troféo has a certain amount of cool going for it.


Presented without comment.









Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • RatherhaveaBuick RatherhaveaBuick on Mar 13, 2014

    I'm a young guy. 22. This, along with a Lincoln MKVII and a Turbo Buick would be my dream car. 86-88 aren't as nice. But 88-92...what a gorgeous machine. The Eldo's of the time were just lame, (Calais) and my friend has a 93 Riv that is lovely, but there's something ultimately unique about Trofeos...

    • See 1 previous
    • RatherhaveaBuick RatherhaveaBuick on Mar 13, 2014

      @28-Cars-Later Not always true. A lot of the elderly tend to take great care of their old land barges, garaging their Town Car's and Olds' and keeping them immaculate. Remember that late 80s and early 90s is the era of cars that are vintage to a person my age. And its a fact of life that a lot of the elderly will be passing on their low mileage 80s and 90s iron to the next generation. Trofeos are much more rare than VII's, at least in my area, I just can't afford either.

  • WildcatMatt WildcatMatt on Mar 24, 2014

    My knowledge of this car comes mainly from the article in "Crap Cars" which talked about the VIC/ECC system. Last fall a local garage which specializes in older/offbeat cars was having an open house and he had a Reatta there he was working on. When I expressed interest he told me about the car's history and opened the door, and to my delight there was VIC sleeping in the center console. The guy fired the Buick up so I could play with the computer. Given the vintage I thought the screen was actually pretty responsive and I was shocked that the software actually let me set it to the correct date and time -- I have late-90s VCRs with clocks that won't go past 2002 -- so for what it was it seems like GM actually did a lot of work on the firmware. Paging Dr. Olds -- do you have any anecdotes about this system?

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    • Allan850glt Allan850glt on Apr 01, 2014

      Ratherhaveabuick dude the '89 Trofeo I owned had both additional controls for the stereo and climate control functions on the steering wheel/horn hub. They would provide adequatecontrol over both functions to make the vehicle "somewhat liveable" if the CRT screen blanked out on you, although still a pain in the butt as you'd have to fumble with the buttons until you got the desired result. I noticed your interest in the Lincoln Mark VII, another vehicle I've owned. I happen to know of a VERY NICE local '89 Mark VII LSC for sale. Black over gray leather. Mechanic owned, who happens to be a real cool guy who LOVES and maintains his cars. It's basically cosmetically restored and mechanically upgraded and LOVELY. Even upgraded to coil spring instead of the old airbag struts. It's $3995, and in Kenmore/Buffalo NY. Lemme know if you're interested and I'll email his info. Actually Buffalo NY Craigslist is a great place to find cars like that. We're home to GM/Tonawanda Engine Plant, The Ford Hamburg Stamping Plant and GM Delphi-Harrison of Lockport. A lot of higher end GM and Ford products are sold and well maintained and eventually sold quite reasonably here. My fam themselves having been GM employees I can attest to how good the guys and gals who work at the plants really keep up their cars and to buy one, you usually end up with a good deal.

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