As the story goes, Esso Oil asked custom car guru George Barris (he of Batmobile, Munster Koach and Drag-u-la fame) to create four custom Oldsmobile Toronado coupes for the 1967 Canadian Expo. The car you see above is dubbed Toronado 67X, and according to the seller on eBay, it is one of the only two cars remaining. The big coupe was originally gold, but time and poor treatment have turned it a lovely shade of something other than gold (well, several lovely shades, actually).

Although the auction has just ended, we thought you'd still enjoy a glimpse of what the seller calls the "Project car find of a lifetime" (which might be how long it would take to get it back together). Structurally, the Olds appears to be sound enough, but you can forget about the floorboards and the interior (which includes a wraparound rear couch!). Despite its obvious shortcomings, the car's provenance has helped it gain an appraisal value of $21,500 (which is about $15,000 more than a brand new Toronado listed for in 1966). On the auction itself, there's even a video of the engine running but you hear a lot more wind than engine.

The car was bid to $7,701 but ultimately failed to meet reserve, so we expect to see it back up on the ol' eBay block sooner rather than later. In the meantime, click the link below to learn more about this unique piece of Barris history, and check out the gallery of photos below. Hat tip to Jay!

Autoblog

A barn find the world could have done without. Yuck.

I just don't care for most of Barris' work, this included, and especially.

Here's another that Dean Jefferies did, clean & aggressive. This one I really like:

Here's a custom 2-seater :

Razoredge would've loved this thread...

Barris only built caricatures.

This isn't one of the better ones either.

That Toronado deserves to be saved and destroyed.

Slap a new coat of paint on it and demo derby it?