This Page Last Updated: December 17, 1998

More Dziadik "Works In Progress"

Since you can never have too many Oldsmobiles, I've adopted several more and have expanded the family. While I was deep into restoring the '74, I came across an add for a '66 Toronado in Syracuse, New York. The '66 Toronado has been a car that fascinated me ever since I was a kid when the car first came out. I couldn't add another car, especially one that would require a one thousand mile trip when I was behind schedule on the '74.

I contacted the seller of the car and remained in touch until Thankgiving when we were able to make the long and interesting journey from Georgia to Syracuse, NY, and stayed over in Connecticut to visit with family before returning home. That trip was as all my journeys, was interesting, and is now known affectionately as "The 2252 Mile Odessy". A good friend of mine here in Georgia let me borrow a 16 ft trailer to retrive the 66 Toro. (I've since borrowed it for two more "Odessey's"). I had never towed anything before. This trip was actually a course more like "Towing 101". Do you know what it does in Syracuse on every day except for the 4th of July? It snows. We arrived there Sunday night and looked over the car. We got to know the people we were buying it from, and even went out to dinner with them. When we awoke early Monday morning at the hotel, our son yanked open the curtains and declared: It's "blizzarding" out there.

Well this phenomenon known as lake effect snow continued on and off for three hours while we loaded the car on the trailer. The car was not running and was on a hill, so it took some choreography to get it loaded. Thank heavens my friend's trailer has a very powerfull power winch to pull this 4500 pound car on it.

The lake efffect snow turned into real snow for 250 miles heading east on the New York State Throughway, onto the Mass Pike and then "my shortcut" on old Rt 20 through Otis Mass, to old rt 8 in Mass and into Ct. Now remember I had never towed anything before in my life. I was now towing a 4500 pound car up and down hills, around twisting turns on an unlit road. To add to the tension and make this more interesting, we somehow managed to be the first vehicle through three inches of snow on the afore mentioned winding, twisting, unlit, hilly road. There were no tracks to follow and the snow was coming down sideways right into the windshield. Somehow we finally got through it all.

Since then, I've purchased two more 1966 Toronados for restoration. One I've retrived, while the other still remains in Kentucky, which I hope to retrive soon. There is more ofcourse to that story, (including snow), but I'll save that for the next time I update this page.

December 17th, 1998:

O.K., I guess enough time has gone by and it's time to update. Due to snow back in February, the 3 rd Toro despite much effort stayed stuck in the snow. We drove back in August and retrieved the 3rd Toro.

I saved enough money to get all the machine work done and purchase the engine parts to rebuild the 425 for "Vickie". After carefull re-assembly it came back to life last week and has moved under it's own power. I'm happy to say that it's smooth and fast.

66 Toro #1 awaiting restoration	66 Toro #2 awaiting restoration	Oldsmobiles basking in the sun

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