Aluminum 455 Olds Several photos

[Griley]

Hey, I thought some of you would enjoy seing these pictures of a very rare piece of Oldsmobile history.
http://www.levelonerestoration.com/

[StealthBird]

Looks to be the engine from the cover of Motor Trend, Nov 1969?

[Griley]

It does at least look similar who knows what Olds did with it before shipping it to Colorado.

[PeteLeathersac]

The alloy Oldsie engines are very cool and we've looked at them a few times here before...in short developed for and used in Can-Am racing and/or tested w/ different variations that used Hemi heads, 4 Valve per cyl, DOHC and Twin Turbos too!.

Also, wasn't there a '69 or '70 Cutlass someone posted and we were all looking at here in the past year or so w/ an alloy engine but the thread went sour because they were passing it off as a real W-car and it wasn't...or something else sideways going on?.



~ Pete

--------------------
I like real cars best...the REAL real ones!

[StealthBird]

Inline Tube had the aluminum 70 Olds W-31, and there was also an aluminum 70 W-30 442.

There's a 1970 Trans Am on E-Bay right now with an aluminum Ram Air V. We were at Mecum this year and watched it go through.

Check out this 1962 Catalina with an all aluminum 389. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Pontiac-C...5fCarsQ5fTrucks

Here's another Olds DOHC engine from the museum.

[olredalert]

------Mike,,,Did you notice the roof on that 62 in the E-bay addy??? Very strange, very strange. He doesnt say a thing in the add about either the top being grafted on this 62 or 62 bodypanels being grafted on to a 61. You would think he might have addressed this in the add, no???.......Bill S

------Just dropped down to the questions area, which I should have done before I posted the above. Its still very strange!

[PeteLeathersac]

I love the '62 Poncho Bubbletop look too!.
I've looked for info on these before as I remember seeing a Canadian '62 Poncho Bubbletop years ago and have searched since but never found anything on them being a factory reality..
A few US cars have been built, the eBay car and this car http://www.carcraft.com/featuredvehi...ina/index.html are both 62's w/ '61 roofs also I'm pretty sure I read about a '61 w/ 62 quarters/front clip etc before too..


~ Pete

[Griley]

We also have a few pictures of the Toronado that won the Pikes Peak hill climp in 1970. The engine in that car was also built by Olds engineereing and made around 500 HP.
http://www.levelonerestoration.com/

[StealthBird]

Griley, that Toro is very cool!!

On the topic of that 62 Catalina bubbletop, the roof is very strange indeed. The aluminum engine in that car was recently featured in Hemmings Muscle Machines, but in a Tempest wagon.

There were many of these all aluminum 389's floating around back then. Pontiac Engineering was whipping up some very exotic stuff, and what's amazing is that they had the smallest budget and engineering garage of all the divisions. Yet they managed to turn out DOHC and SOHC engines, 3-valve heads, 4-valve heads, all aluminum engines, aluminum rear ends, hemi heads, aluminum frames, swiss-cheese frames, aluminum bumpers, aluminum fenders, 2-piece aluminum headers, lightweight 421SD cars with rear transaxles, and they did all that by 1963.

On top of that, it was recently discovered that back in 1961, Pontiac engineers were prepared to release (for production) a twin turbo 389. Smokey Yunick had taken one of these twin turbo 389 packages and produced 900 hp on a dyno by kicking up the boost. Estimates had the production version at around 450-500 hp, and again, this was 1961! Pontiac cast up exhaust and intake manifolds for a production run, but abandoned the project when it was determined that NASCAR and NHRA would not allow turbo cars.

Always liked the cover of this early 1968 Hot Rod issue. The SOHC 421 in the lower left corner was installed in Mac McKellers 1963 Grand Prix, and all these decades later, it still pops up at car shows on occasion.



I hope you guys make it to the Muscle Car Nats in Rosemont IL in a couple weeks. There will be a large Pontiac representation there, including the factory lightweight 65 GTO, the Car & Driver 64 GTO, and loads of others. The theme is "the best of 1969".

[Griley]

That is a great cover I also have that issue. I herd several years ago about that turbo project and one fun things I recall hearing was that on a dyno pull the jetting was to lean and the engine back fired and blew a carburetor into the roof of the dyno room! To bad I can't make the Chicago show this year, but do hope to make it next year.