You are so right.
I had two at the same time. Each was $500. But I chickened out from making the Terrifying Toronado.
First, I ended up with a complete drivetrain off of Craigslist that I wanted to put in the back of a Prius (cheseroo got it and brought it to me). While asking around for how to stuff it in the Prius, everyone said, "Just find a Toronado and get the whole front subframe out stick that in the back."
They made it sound so easy to "Just find a Toronado."
It was.
I picked up a '67 for $500 about a week after I started looking.
Then I started looking for disc brake brakes because I didn't want to kill anyone. They were stupid expensive.
So I started looking for parts on Craigslist. Lo and behold, there was a whole 68-69 Parts car "ran when parked" in AZ and it had factory disc brakes. $500 obo and came with the disc brake compatible wheels, too. Sweet.
I there I was with 2 complete, running Toronados and a 3rd complete drivetrain.
Ended up taking the dash and front subframe and everything out of the 68-69 and send the rest to the scrapper and got $72.19.
Figured we'd run the 67 with 1 engine and then put in a second engine later, perhaps mating one of the leftover Olds 350 diesels from the Corvegge onto the Toronado transmission into the back, thereby having a twin-engined Terrilbler Toronado with gas in front and diesel in rear.
Then I sold the 67 to MTGT Dave.
I still have the complete front subframe with powerunit from the 68-69, the complete engine/trans that I started with, and now also a rear suspension setup from a lexus SC400 to try in the prius instead of using the toronado subframe (which is just too big/wide). Oh, I also have another toronado disc brake setup I found on ebay for cheap.
Ya know, If all of my Oldsmobile stuff went away, and maybe the Prius along with it, I'd probably be much better off with a few extra bucks instead of a few tons of 60's iron taking up space. 'Cause the longer they sit around here, the more I'll just talk and talk and talk about what I'm gonna do with them rather than actually just get down to brass tacks and put the f-er together.
Not sure what shipping to Pittsburg would run ya. But maybe it's worth looking into.