Patriotic 1968 W cars part deux

[Dave H]

How's about this? Not the greatest pic, but you get the idea.

Red, white, and blue W cars:

Red: the 68 W30 project (mostly red)

White: The future W31 Ramrod clone that just sold (I have another white one to sub in here)(also mostly white)

and Blue: My Ramrod W31-

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?

An original, a restored car (in process), and a dreaded clone?


:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[PackerBacker]

Now that''s a sweet garage full!!!

:beer

[ndrach]

Hey get some paint on that drywall.Don,t you retired people ever do anything?

[Dave H]

I finally threw the contractor out back in February as he was dragging his feet on completing the garage and always had his hand out for more $$$. His trick was to leave something obvious undone (like electricity and gas) and argue about what was or was not included in the deal for the package. I lost almost the entire winter waiting for him to finish up inside so I could move in the cars and get to work unpacking from the move and setting it up. The drywalling and primer coat was a victim (along with roof vents, eavestroughs, and downspouts). I finally towed his tool trailer up to the top of the hill near here (since he couldn't make it up the snow and icy slope with his 2WD) and he got the message. So far I'm $600 into the vents and gutters, final drywall sand and paint to go yet.

Unfortunately, I have to move everything out to complete it and with the daily thunderstorms, hailstorms, winstorms, etc., not ready for that.

Guy has real balls, though, and still asked my wife to do his taxes anyway. We got our justice. :grin: Unfortunately Uncle Sam and the lady guv of Michigan got the proceeds. They always do.

[ECM68442]

When your ready to move the cars to finish the garage..........feel free to bring them here to NJ I'll store them for you ;)

[John Eberly]

Dave -

My garage got a spray-on "pebble" finish last year. No sanding after the tape and no paint.

Color is white. It really makes the most of whatever light you have available. Only downside is that it doesn't clean at all - it absorbs grease so I have a few hand prints. Can't beat it for cheap and quick, and I could paint it if I wanted.

[Dave H]

"De plan, de plan!"

I put 4 x 8 sheets of a white formica type material on the walls of my last place, and they really worked well. They glue on and wash off nicely. (<$3.00 at Home depot and the glue smells great)

That is the plan for the walls, but the upper 2 feet of the walls, ceiling, and cupolas for the skylights will have to be the old sand, and paint.

Bought some of the new tech flourescent (halogen?) light bulbs that look like a corkscrew and they're great. They screw into a regular socket and ony use 40W of power, but give off 150W of light once they warm up. Much better than the old flourescent tubes. White walls and ceiling should really help, too.

White 68 is at its new home in New Hampshire and will be probably used to resurrect a rusted out 68 Hurst that he found in Pa. last week.

[Dave H]

Here's the 68 Hurst that he's resurrecting. It's a documented car with all paperwork and history. He bought it and the 29,000 mile 70 W31 last week in Pennsylvania. Both are unsavable rust buckets, but have all the goodies and the paperwork.

I got the rear window from this Hurst for my Hurst/W30 clone :laugh: so I'm a little closer to the real thing. :laugh: :laugh:

[Dave H]

Here's a 68 Ramrod that's even more original than mine! He bought it in California recently for very big $$$. Only thing ever done to it is the LF fender was changed many years ago. Other than dull paint, this car is VERY nice and came with all the documentation. This guy has 5 68 Ramrods, a coupla 69 W31's, 4 or 5 70 W31's and 30 or so other very rare Hursts, W30's, etc.

Lots of the cars were bought out of museums where they have been sitting for many years. (Volo for one). Some have under 10k miles on them.

I fell in love with a black 69 F85 W31 post car with a gold painted top.

[Dave H]

along with about 1/2 of the big $$$ cars in the building......

[Casey Marks]

Dave,

Did that '69 with the gold painted top come out of Georgia by chance ? I was looking at one about 8 years ago.

[Dave H]

Not sure, but very probably. As few of these that were built (about 900 total W31's in 1969, how many would be black with a gold painted top?), hard to believe there would be two of them. It may have been a low option Cutlass, not an F85. Only car he had with dog dishes.

He buys these cars, trades, sells, etc. all the time and many of them have passed through many owners. He pays the big bucks for them. That's the nose of my friend Tom's 68 post Hurst (one of only 2 built (with A/C)) behind it. He cranked it up and I helped him tune it a little. Awesome car.

Mosty of the cars are bone stock, but there are a few hot rods like the Hurst. There was a gorgeous yellow 70 W31 near this black F85 with a 427 Chevy in it. Beautiful show car and sounded wickedly fast. It was a real one with all the paperwork, etc. and could be converted back to stock easily. I wouldn't; I wouldn't touch it.

[junior supercar]

VEEEEERY NICE!!!!!!

for the record, 913 1969 W-31s. 26 were convertibles for those scoring at home.

Hey Dave, or anyone else for that matter. A few months ago, Karl Sup and I exchanged some emails. Seems, he knows a guy out in CA who restores W-30, W-31 and W-32 cars and bought a Ram Rod brand new. Said he bought it with disc brakes. He recently finished a GORGEOUS 69 S W-31, trophy blue, black interior, auto, black stripes on the hood (appraised for $70K). Documented car and it too has disc brakes. When Karl asked him about disc brakes on these cars his response was, "... sure you can get them with discs. I bought a Ram Rod brand new with discs" Now I always thought you couldn't get discs on these cars. However one of the magazines (Car Life?) back in the day did test a 69 W-31 with discs, so there was at least one built.

BTW, the trophy blue W-31 was recently in JWO as it won Best of Show at the Olds Club of AZ show this past Feb.

[Dave H]

No, but..........The only cars that were called Ramrods were the 68's as they weren't even called W31's.....even though the performance option code was W31. The dual piston disc brake system available on the 67 and 68's required a lot of pedal pressure and therefore, required a vacuum assisted power booster. That, as everyone knows, was impossible with no engine vacuum available from the "308" W31 cams or the "328" W30 cams. In 1968, the only W cars you could get power disc on was a Hurst. I guess the 455 supplied enough vacuum to permit discs with a power booster.

In 1969, however, they came out with the corporate single piston disc brake system and could be used with a manual brtake system (no power assist). You could then get manual discs on any W car.

Afraid I'd have to challenge any 68 Ramrod that supposedly came with disc brakes. The single piston system wasn't available yet (forgetting about engineering test cars that sneaked out for the moment), and the dual piston system would NOT work without a power assist.

Was his car a 68 or a 69?

The 69 W31's were technically not Ramrods, even though the air cleaner decals said Ramrod 350. The 69 W30 (and I think W32, not sure of that one) had aircleaners decalled as Ramrod 400's, but the cars were known as W30's and W32's. The success of the 68 Ramrod's didn't go unnoticed by the marketing people and they needed everything they could get on the 400's until they got to 1970 with the 455's. By 1970, they didn't need this as the 400 slug was dead and you got the 455 in the 442.

The air cleaner decal people also were the same group responsible for putting "Rocket V8" on the air cleaners of later Olds cars and resulted in some very sweet lawsuits. They were also related to the same group in marketing that came up with the highly unsuccessful program of "Not your father's Oldsmobile". That assumes, of course, that success is measured by killing off a major division.

I just saw a similar indication in the Marauder article in the latest Musclecar Enthusiast. Maybe the next thing will be "Not your father's Mercury?" Then "Not your father's Buick?"

The world is changing rapidly.........again.

[vista461]

No more 68 W car pics!
I keep drooling on my keyboard and it's going to short out soon :pp :laugh:
I would love to get a 68........ but with all the cars we have now I'd be living in it, waiting for the divorce paperwork.:laugh:

[SmallHurst]

I really need to convince my wife that I need to start on Cooper's project car!:Brow: If I could find a non-air '68 Hurst post car with 3.91's that needed just a little freshing up for about $8 K I am sure that I could convince her of it!:laugh: You know the little guy is 9 weeks old and I am already wanting to take the little guy out for a joy ride in my car. Anyone know of some earmuffs for someone that small!:bglasses:

[Dave H]

SmallHurst said:I really need to convince my wife that I need to start on Cooper's project car!:Brow: If I could find a non-air '68 Hurst post car with 3.91's that needed just a little freshing up for about $8 K I am sure that I could convince her of it!:laugh: You know the little guy is 9 weeks old and I am already wanting to take the little guy out for a joy ride in my car. Anyone know of some earmuffs for someone that small!:bglasses:

Rusty:

I doubt you'll find much of a 68 Hurst for that kind of money unless it's a project car. This yellow 68 442 is a really nice car with a 455 with Ka heads on it that originally was dark blue and is priced at $14k. It was at Carlisle and I think still on 442.com. He had a coupla serious phone calls on it while i was there.

Course the good news of that is your 69 is worth a lot more than you probably realize, too.

[SmallHurst]

Dave,
I was just kidding about that price tag. I was the price watch advisor for the H/OCA for a couple of years. Believe me, I know what the value of my car is. It would mean, however, that I would have to sell it to get money from it!:blast:

[vista461]

Dave H said:

The air cleaner decal people also were the same group responsible for putting "Rocket V8" on the air cleaners of later Olds cars and resulted in some very sweet lawsuits.
Was that when they put the chevy V8's in, or is that a different situation?

[Dave H]

That was exactly when it happened. GM corporate started trying to run the individual divisions from central office about that time. Olds was really pissed that they didn't have enough engine plant capacity to put Olds motors in all their own cars. Old GM policy was cover your own cars, then supply the other divisions with the excess capacity.

They were putting Olds gas 350's in all kinds of other GM cars in California (Chev, etc.) as they were a lot cleaner burning without the air pumps, detuning etc. X bodies (Nova, Apollo, Ventura, etc. got a lot of them. Also GM corporate decided to put Olds 350 diesels in about everything in the world from pickup trucks to Sevilles.

That and GMAD's policy of trying to build anybody's cars the same way resulted in a lot of "cross breeding". The only problem with that was trying to capitalize on the "rocket" reputation by calling the Chev engines Rockets and try to fool the consumers. Nothing wrong with a Chev 350, just don't try to tell the buyer it's something else.

[vista461]

I bet that led to a lot of parts store confusion back then.
"I need a water pump for my Olds 350"
"OK"
Gets home...
WTF this doesn't fit... not even close:af:
"Darn parts guys, I know it's an Olds motor says "Rocket" right on it."

Man that would suck!

[Dave H]

I think that little faux pas also started the popular myth that Oldsmobile engines are "Gutlass Cutlasses", too. Not only because of the Chev 305 in there, but the performance engine option was a Chevy, not an Olds. If you wanted an Olds engine you get to take your choice of a ho hum 307, a smelly, finicky diesel, or the neck snapping "Rocket" 260. (Barf, puke).

[buicklawyer]

Casey Marks said:Dave,

Did that '69 with the gold painted top come out of Georgia by chance ? I was looking at one about 8 years ago.

The black and gold 69 W-31 is a fully documented car that belonged to Craig Couris from Atlanta. Flynbuick and I looked at the car a few years back. Should have bought the car. Craig has been trying to buy the car back and I thought he had cut a deal to repurchase. Dave is it for sale? John

[junior supercar]

Dave H said:
In 1969, however, they came out with the corporate single piston disc brake system and could be used with a manual brake system (no power assist). You could then get manual discs on any W car.


Actually, I have GM paperwork stating when the W options (30&31) for 69 were available (Oct 68?). And somewhere I have some notes stating late in the model year discs were available on the W-30. No mention of the W-31 though. But that doesn't mean it couldn't be optioned that way. I still don't know, definitively. And probably never will. But I will never say never.

Hmm, I wonder. The 69 W-32 could be had with discs, correct? albeit, power (IIRC), but it was a W-car. And they were introduced very late in the model year. I wonder if it was around this time frame, manual discs were allowed on the W-30 and W-31? just thinking out loud.



Dave H said:
Afraid I'd have to challenge any 68 Ramrod that supposedly came with disc brakes. The single piston system wasn't available yet (forgetting about engineering test cars that sneaked out for the moment), and the dual piston system would NOT work without a power assist.

I would agree about discs on the Ram Rod. But figured you have more knowledge about it than I so thats why I asked.


Dave H said:
Was his car a 68 or a 69?


The car Phil (I'd have to look up his last name again) bought brand new and said he ordered discs was a 68 Ram Rod. The car he just restored for a customer and brought to the Feb Olds Club of AZ show was a 69 Cutlass S W-31.


OK, here's the guys info.

Phil LaChapelle
Automobile Classics & Muscle Cars
Complete or Partial Show Quality Restorations and Repairs.
Specializing in 68-72 W-30, W-31, W-32
68-75 Hurst/Olds
68-72 442s

1485 Callens Rd.
Ventura, CA 93003
(805) 477-0666

[Dave H]

Chris:

Your paperwork is OK. We started building 69's in August of 1968, so no problem there. Most of the "build out" cars were frozen in May to June back then (dealer orders April to May, no matter what story they spun), but by Labor Day, we were out of the previous model and into the new one. Some years (like the 1971 model year) were rapidly advanced to full production speed to get as many cars out as possible, no magtter how good they were. That was the year of the 56 day GM strike and dealers were going bankrupt with nothing to sell once the strike was called. Fortunately for Cutlasses, that was a minor face-lift year (now called a front and rear six) but the B/C cars were a major redesign and the changes to the plant were enormous to accommodate. That affected the process on everything that was built, including the essentially carryover Cutlasses.

That strike, by the way, delayed the launch of the new A/G body cars a full year and what came out as a 73 Cutlass, Lemans, etc. was originally planned for 1972. The 1972 model launch was essentially a totally carryover car (tiallights and grille inserts for Olds), so they ended up some of the best cars GM ever built. Made a lot of money that year.

JEA, Jr:

I don't think John Ebbs has the black and gold car for sale, but I know he's been buying more than he's selling these days. You know the game. That thing almost took my breath away.

[WI70W31]

Dave H said:I think that little faux pas also started the popular myth that Oldsmobile engines are "Gutlass Cutlasses", too. Not only because of the Chev 305 in there, but the performance engine option was a Chevy, not an Olds. If you wanted an Olds engine you get to take your choice of a ho hum 307, a smelly, finicky diesel, or the neck snapping "Rocket" 260. (Barf, puke).

My father ordered a new 1977 Delta 88 2 door. The dealer was upfront with him and told him if he ordered a 350, it was very possible he'd get a Chevy. Well that didn't fly, so dad opted for the 403...:cool: With the 2.41 gears, weight and smog stuff it wasn't a drag car, but it did have a nice passing gear :Brow:

IMO that was the beginning of the end for Olds. Brand loyalty starts with the powertrain, and that was lost.

[Dave H]

Wow, an honest dealer! That is rare. I hadn't heard that before on a B car.

I think the 260 was available with a 5 speed in 76 and would you believe, we almost opted for it. Good thing my wife insisted on no more hot rods (for her) and we bought a new Supreme with a 350. It was a tossup between a 76 Cutlass Supreme (wire wheels and all) and a 76 Cordoba (with the "Corinthian leather").

Actually a 403 is a lot of fun, and can be setup to run almost as well as a 455 in a stock class car (4.375 bore, 3.375 stroke). Unfortunately, though, it really wants to rev and that was one thing you definitely couldn't do with them.

Just got back from the Homecoming meet in Lansing. Wow! Ran into Darrell Detweiler (Smileyolds), Dan Jensen (with his borther's 70 Cutlass, and Donny Brass. Met Chris Smetana from Illinois (Junior Supercar). Best Olds swap meet I've been to in a very long time.

Unfortunately, they no longer have the Preservation Class for unrestored cars, so I had to park the lumpy Ramrod in the middle of the show cars. It was painful.

Bring 'em on next week at Stanton!

[BlackGold]

I saw Dave's car at Homecoming, but the old goat was nowhere to be found. :Brow:

Actually, Dave, I walked right by your car saying, "Hey, there's a '68 just like Dave's. Sure looks nice. I wonder why Dave didn't make it today."

I think all the restored cars are jealous of your Ram Rod. They all had to resort to cosmetic surgery to look good; yours is simply aging gracefully. :)

[Dave H]

Spent a lot of time in the swap meet as usual. Great show wasn't it? Dan was there with his brother's Cutlass S. Beautiful car. Be anxious to see what that one runs with the QB engine.

"A.C." Rubrich called and his plans changed and he will be at Stanton. Since we got the original engine back working again, he's embarassed that it's only tickling the 13's. :Brow: :Brow: