Chasing Tornados In An Oldsmobile Toronado May Not Be Safe, But It Is On Brand - Jalopnik

Tornadoes are serious business, powerful enough to flip over semis or launch corn cobs through tractor windshields. So, naturally, when Dalton Storm at Pole Barn Garage learned that there was a tornado threat to his area coming in two days, he enlisted the aid of Buff's Garage to do the only reasonable thing: turn his rusted-out 1968 Oldsmobile Toronado into the ultimate storm chasing machine. After all, the name Toronado sounds a lot like tornado, so it had to be the right car for the job. Did I say car? I meant truck. The first thing they did was cut out the trunk and back seat areas (the rear window was already blown out) to transform the Toronado into a tidy little truck. All the best storm chasing vehicles are trucks, and the Toronado's angular body lent itself to the conversion much better than the VW Jetta ute that I built. Other top-priority items included a roll bar, extra lights, a siren, and a GMRS radio, since that's what all the cool kids use these days. (I'd also recommend they monitor ham radio repeaters for local Skywarn communications.) The car had several mechanical issues before the modifications began, like a missing windshield and a massive coolant leak, which set them back a bit in the modification process. The replacement windshield was broken, but with no time to lose, they installed it anyway. And rather than sort out what may be a massive head gasket leak in the enormous V8, they poured two large bottles of stop-leak into the radiator, a decision that certainly wouldn't come back to haunt them later. By the time they were done, the engine no longer leaked coolant and fired on most of its cylinders most of the time, which was good enough.