1968 Mod Rod 442

[retengw31]

GM didn't "give" Olds or any other division anything back then. There was considerable competition between Pontiac an Oldsmobile (Chev was always in a world of their own inside Mother General.)No question the Pontiac people did their homework right not only on the GTO, but the early 60's Super Stockers. Olds cars did not use that lightweight body, so the cars weren't that good performance wise except in Nascar. They repeated that in 1977 with the slope nose Cutlass through the efforts at Batten Engineering here. Even Richard Petty drove one of them.

Olds Engineering was almost anti-perfromance from about 1971 on, marketing did a good job of selling what we had. The Rallye 350 project (originally planned to be the 1970 Hurst Olds) was where the two warring factions (marketing and engineering) came head to head on the project. When it was decided to not offer a performance package (W31 or 455) in it, Hurst dropped out of the program as did Product Engineering and let marketing go do their thing. It was perfect for the "Screaming Yellow Zonker" crowd and the Dr Oldsmobile campaign which was a big success for the public.....but not for the real performance nuts inside Olds engineering. We thought they were silly.

Stempel was in charge of Olds Power train then, a much better politician (also a dynamite engineer)than his predecessor and rode the "emissions" wave right into the top office in GM.....Right idea, just not fun anymore. Only reason Olds had anything going in Performance was Dale Smith's backdoor program in drag cars and Jet boats. Read his little book: "Racing to the Future"....he covers that pretty well (as well as a few other interesting side stories.....like the Pure Oil mileage contests run every year.....

Stempel himself was primarily responsible for the design of the mechanicals in the 66 Toronado. Even after he was moving up the ladder quickly. he still kept his large drafting board and stayed there overnight working on all kinds of things like that. GM corporate had nothing to do with that until Cadillac joined forces for their own E car, the 67 ElDorado. Buick stayed with the RWD E body Riviera in 1966 and had a great car. Just different from the other E cars.

Another interesting sidelight is the Gbody program for the 1970 model year. The Grand Prix and Monte Carlo program had that stretched frame (front) car, but both Olds and Buick, didn't go for that...didn't need it, had their own cars in that market. But Olds did really like the top and rear quarter design of the Gbody coupes and put it on a regular wheelbase Cutlass chassis. Came up with one of the best cars ever, especially the 1972 models. Having the extra year to "get it right" by delaying the new corporate A body program from 1972 to 1973 really helped. Marketing did a super job with their "Little limousine" campaign and probably is responsible for Olds moving into 3rd place in sales (behind Chev and Ford) in 1973 and then having the most popular model in America a couple years later.

At the same time were were building and selling an equal half million B and C cars to push Olds over the1 Million mark during the mid 70's "Colonade" days.

[StealthBird]

Dave, I agree with everything you said. Robert Stempel is an unsung hero amongst GM Presidents. He was one of the last true brilliant engineers that was allowed to move up the GM ladder.


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The Rocket 303 was one of the first OHV performance engines. Saying that Olds didnt know how to make a performance car is false, many people say the 1950 88 was the FIRST muscle car. Midsize car with V8 power from the full size category. Olds won the very first NASCAR race and repeated that a lot in the 50s.

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Again, Oldsmobile was absent in 1959-1963, when Ford, Chrysler, Chevrolet, and Pontiac were on the NHRA and NASCAR race tracks. This was the golden age of factory backed racing, and Oldsmobile was sitting on the sidelines. As for the 1949 OHV V8 engine, well, Olds fans say Oldsmobile invented it. But it was developed by Cadillac and Oldsmobile at the same time, and neither division was aware of what the other was doing. However, the engine is credited as being designed by Ed Cole (father of the small block Chevy), along with Jack Gordon and Harry Barr, and they were working for Cadillac. Ed Cole's biography, as well as the excellent "American Musclecar" series they did on the small block V8, credit Cadillac for being the first to develop the OHV V8. Cadillac had been working on the development of their OHV V8 for 10 years. The Cadillac engineers did say they were stunned when they saw the copycat Oldsmobile version, but that was the way it was back then. The divisions were all in competition with each other.

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Olds was given the HURST deal in 67 to appease them for not getting an F car. Thus the 68 H/O was born.

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Again, my point was that Oldsmobile WAS given special attention because they were very naive about building performance cars. The original 442 was a response to the GTO, then it took 2 more years before they brought out their tri-power 442, which lasted one year. Olds used a Buick V8 for their ill-fated turbo car in the early 1960's. Oldsmobile was just not very serious about the performance market until the 68 Hurst/Olds. I believe it was Diego that stated that Olds had to fight for attention, while Chevrolet and Pontiac were under the GM umbrella. My point is that GM gave Oldsmobile several opportunities, but they kept dropping the ball. Pontiac had to do things the hard way. They fought an uphill battle. They were leaders, not followers.

Pontiac led the way in making the Hurst connection. Hurst shifters were offered as replacement units for Pontiac's 3-speed HD gearbox way back in 1961. In 1964, John DeLorean was the one that pushed to get a Hurst shifter in the 1964 GTO, which was a serious breach of GM protocol. Aftermarket parts were NEVER to be installed on a factory built General Motors car. But Delorean went around the rules (again), and every manual trans GTO built came with a Hurst shifter. When George Hurst built his 5-spoke mag wheel, the envy of the industry, it was scheduled as a production option on the 1965 and 1966 GTO's. It was this connection to Hurst Performance that led GM to go one step further in 1968, and have a car co-built by Hurst. The project was given to Oldsmobile, which was an odd pairing being that Oldsmobile wasn't known for performance, but it was to appease them for the F-body. The FWD platform on the Toro was VERY expensive to develop, and GM did in fact want to keep this an Olds exclusive to make Oldsmobile happy when they denied them the F-body.

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You are correct in saying their marketing sucked. Here is an ad for the 65 442, not something that appealed to the youth market.

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I agree completely. That's why I said Oldsmobile didn't connect with the youth market until 1968. They basically copied Pontiac advertising (like the kicked up rocks, Olds was here ad) which aped the 1964 GTO ad that showed an empty garage, with the words "There's a Tiger loose on the streets."

[retengw31]

Interesting way the stories have evolved. I was there, and worked for Bob Stempel. He hired me out of U of Mich. He used to give me a load of crap for driving Pontiacs instead of Olds..I had a 59 Catalina HT with a 3 speed stick at that time, many others soon after. First Olds (other than a 54 that I bought for the engine for my 41 Ford conv in high school) was a 65 convertible that I only kept a coupla months and then got my 68 Ramrod.

I really don't recall GM saying very much to either Pontiacor Olds back then, they didn't start tried to centralize things and micromanage their operations until they set up GMPD and GMAD in the 1969/1970 time frame. The 64 A car was supposed to be a common design across the divisions, and mostly was. Problem came in standardizing components as each division had their own preferred suppliers, with their own purchasing, marketing, finance, etc. etc. Like the engines, all divisions would have been happy to standardize with the others, as long as they used THEIR engine...there were 4 uniquely different 350's at that time.

I had heard that about who did the short stroke OHV for production first and who copied who...guess we heard it from two different sides. Olds got more notoriety since they put it in the lighter A body. Actually, Chevrolet had an OHV V8 in 1910, possibly Cadillac, too.

Lots of stories, I've told the one of the birth of the Ramrod at GMPG in the Fall of 1967 in a showdown match with a W31 prototype and Pontiac's new Ramair car....not sure which one.. it was brutal, but a setup all the way. Pontiac made the challenge to bring in an Olds 442's knowing how they could annihilate it. They agreed to let a 350 F85 since that was the "only one available there at the time". The Ramrod was running open headers and a 5.00 gear.Without the gory details, basically after 3 out of 3 Pontiac knew they'd been had and had fallen into the trap and said "that's not a production car!" Reply from Olds with a big smile was: "It is now".....released the next day and in production with the first 50 of the 500 build a coupla months later. Package was all done in 1966 as an engineering "project", just didn't need it until the 68 400 fell flat on its nose and the big $$$ teams were screaming for help. You would have never seen the W31 OR the 68 Hurst if the 400 had run like its predecessors from 65-67. Made too much money on the 442's and both the special runs of the 500 Ramrods and almost equal amount of 455 442's that were sent to Hurst at Demmer were way too expensive to process.

Sam Murray is still running a replica of the 67 Brainbeau car and setting NHRA records.......

Olds was furious at GM when they put out the edict that multiple carb systems would be no more starting 1967 (except Chevrolet...Corvette)...they only got one year out of their investment in 1966 as the 57-58 J2 parts wpouldn't fit the new family of engines.

Totally agree on the 59-63 cars, even though they did have some nascar cars then. They went a different direction from the others. Engineers rarely are good promo and marketing people...there are exceptions........

SISU

[StealthBird]

Dave, great insight. Thank you for your input!

Interesting to note, in 1969, the tables appeared to have turned, according to Milt Schornack's book. Milt Schornack (Royal Pontiac) brought their 1969 Firebird 350 to an NHRA race, made one pass, and shattered the national record running deep in the 12's. Dale Smith was there with a handful of the factory backed W-31's, including the Smothers Brothers Team. Schornack said that Dale walked over to him, looked at their Royal Pontiac Firebird, and said it ran well, but they were in the wrong class. This was the 350 cubic inch class. Schornack assured Dale Smith they were in the RIGHT class, it was a 350 powered Bird, and they were ready for a teardown. Smith walked over to the tower, raised a stink, and using his clout, Schornack and Royal Pontiac were booted. The official reason was that the 1969 350 H.O. Firebird was not a production car, and not enough had been made. Schornack and the boys loaded up their trailer, and drove back home. That's the way it goes sometimes. They traveled 12 hours, and made one pass. Schornack had their 350 Bird into the 12.0's, and said they could broken into the 11's quite easily, but in mid-1969, Royal Pontiac pulled out of dealer backed racing.

As for the 1949 Cadillac/Oldsmobile debate, it appears that all over the web (except for on Olds sites), credit goes to Cadillac for developing that engine.

As for multiple carb setups, I always thought it was interesting how Buick was able to produce 2x4 setups for their Rivieras, when Pontiac had abandoned their 2x4's by 1964 in favor of the tri-power. Pontiac wasn't too thrilled with the 1967 multi-carb ban either, as their entire GTO image was based on the "3 deuces" theme, and their other full-sized performance cars (2+2, Grand Prix, Bonneville) all had tri-powers as options. But it figures, Chevy got the special treatment.

[The Dude]

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Again, Oldsmobile was absent in 1959-1963, when Ford, Chrysler, Chevrolet, and Pontiac were on the NHRA and NASCAR race tracks.

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Absent in chassis only. If you wanted to win you ran an Olds on gas.

[The Dude]

[SmallHurst]

The first shot and the last one were both at Tulsa Raceway. The wagon was a '72 flattop that held several records in the day.