This is the Airnado, it’s a combination of the front end of a 1969 Oldsmobile Toronado and an Airstream travel trailer, providing a self-contained home on wheels powered by a 455 cubic inch V8.
Due to the fact that the Toronado was front wheel drive, the front end contains both the engine and transmission, making the construction of the Airnado a little simpler than it might have been on a rear-wheel drive platform.
This is the Airnado, it’s a combination of the front end of a 1969 Oldsmobile Toronado and an Airstream travel trailer, providing a self-contained home on wheels powered by a 455 cubic inch V8.
History Speedrun: The Airnado
The “Airnado” is a custom motorhome built in the early 1980s by Wendell Atkins, a Michigan tool maker who grafted the front clip of a 1969 Oldsmobile Toronado onto a custom-fabricated frame and then added the aluminum bodywork of a 1967 Airstream Land Yacht 20′ Globetrotter.
Power comes from the Toronado’s 455 cubic inch (7.5 liter) Rocket V8 with a four-barrel carburetor, driving the front wheels through a TH425 3-speed automatic transaxle. The Rocket V8 was factory rated at 375 bhp and 510 lb ft of torque, meaning the Airnado shouldn’t have any trouble getting up to highway speeds.
Atkins welded frame rails onto the Toronado chassis to carry the Airstream shell, he also added a rear beam axle on parallel leaf springs, and the finished creation has front disc and rear drum brakes.
Custom-made aluminum fill panels form the cowl and windshield frame, this is what ties the two donor vehicles together visually. Though at first glance it does look like a Toronado reversed into an Airstream at speed.
The living quarters inside include a kitchenette with a propane four-burner range, a stainless-steel backsplash, a wood countertop, and an electric refrigerator/freezer. There’s a dinette with a refinished table and a flatscreen TV, a bathroom with a toilet and sink at the rear, and a sleeping berth above the forward cabin.
Up front, two captain’s chairs in blue cloth face a barrel-style 135-mph speedometer, a Suntune tachometer, and supplementary gauges in the center stack. A Midland CB radio and a cassette head unit round out the cockpit.
Up front, two captain’s chairs in blue cloth face a barrel-style 135-mph speedometer, a Suntune tachometer, and supplementary gauges in the center stack. A Midland CB radio and a cassette head unit round out the cockpit.
The seller bought the Airnado in 2022 and completed a renovation of the living quarters in 2023, all documented on YouTube. That work included replacement sub-flooring, checkerboard flooring, teal-repainted cabinets, red cloth seat cushion re-trimming, and RGB LED lighting above the storage cabinets.
On the systems side, the seller added roof-mounted solar panels, a Renogy 2kW pure sine wave inverter, and two Dakota Lithium 100Ah batteries, along with a diesel furnace, freshwater tank, ventilation fans, and utility hookups. The left drive axle and a dual-circuit master cylinder were also replaced.
It’s not perfect though, it does have non-functional air conditioning (the compressor belt has been removed), the windshield wipers stay in the automatic setting while driving, and it has a door that needs to be secured with a deadbolt on the move.
The living quarters inside include a kitchenette with a propane four-burner range, a stainless-steel backsplash, a wood countertop, and an electric refrigerator/freezer. There’s a dinette with a refinished table and a flatscreen TV, a bathroom with a toilet and sink at the rear, and a sleeping berth above the forward cabin.
The five-digit odometer reads roughly 79,000 miles, about 9,000 of which were added by the current owner. The Airnado rides on steel 15 inch wheels with Oldsmobile hubcaps and Mastercraft Stratus HT tires, and it’s titled as a 1982 ASVE on a clean Minnesota title.
It’s now being offered for sale out of Duluth, Minnesota with historical documents on Bring a Trailer, and you can visit the listing here if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid.
Images courtesy of Bring a Trailer
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
