[retengw31]

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The 65-67 cars would run off and hide from the 68 442. The whole reason why the Ram Rod cars existed was the 68 442 was such a loser on the street and the strip. The 68-69 400 was probably Olds worst muscle car engine.

Olds marketing in 65-67 was a huge reason why they werent as popular as some other makes.

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Bingo.....

In 1949, Olds came out with the short stroke OHV and tore everybody up. Both Pontiac and Chev didn't have an OHV V8 until 1955 and were definitely stodgy old man cars. They came on strong though after that with their lighter bodies. Buicks....???? until the Stage I cars in 1970 weren't exactly a barn burner either. Olds had the tripower J2 option in 1957-1958 on the Super 88's. Coupled with a 3 speed stick, these cars held their own against almost anything else out there at the time. 58 was such a horrible year, that they had all kinds of tripower manifolds to use up, so they put them on all kinds of 88 2 barrel cars with blockoff plates on the front and rear venturies. 4 doors, 2 doors, whatever. We used to open the hoods of every one we saw in the junkyards back then and did find a few.

Olds shifted from performance oriented engineering to emissions development under Bob Stempel. The 67 Turnpike Cruiser 442's and the anemic long stroke 400 in 68-69 were really offshoots of the newer lower RPM, torque monsters.They reassigned most of the guys responsible for the W cars to emissions. More than one of them left there soon after.

Olds was also very active in jet boats, especially the drag boats. You can still find those 455 K head engines in Sidewinders and other Jet boats of that era.

I think Olds would have a different image today amongst the younger people if they had put an engine in the Gbody 79, 83 and 84 Hursts and also the 85-87 442's. That was GM corporate's decision by then. They put so many Olds engines in other ndels, they ran out of enough 350's for their own models and GM had them use Chev 305's. Probably would have got away with it if the idiots in marketing hadn't decided to put "Rocket" on the air cleaners...same group also came up with the "Not your father's Oldsmobile"...brilliant. Up to that point 54% of new car sales were to repeat buyers...nice move.....

BTW, that Mod Rod was updated in mid year to incorporate 4 bucket seats. They had to sacrifice the whole top assembly to fit them in. When I tried to buy it, it had no top on it. Somebody with big connections got that car.....as usual. It was the one with the pearlescent front end, not that other one in the pic (orange car). That rear quarter did say "Mod Rod".......