Re: 1968 Mod Rod 442
 

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This pic was posted in the fantastic 'Old Street Scenes' thread here on the board. It is from the 1968 Chicago Auto Show. Oldsmobile was obviously REALLY trying to shed it's stodgy image, and here's what they came up with. An early take (by one year) on the '69 mod themes by the Dodge boys & Plymouth.

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I never really thought Old had a stodgy image back then.

And what Mod themes are you talking about? You mean the Mod Top? Only Plymouth had a Mod Top, but I guess the intention of my point is that Mod was a certain style from mid-1960s London whose name often was co-opted for other "modern" styles through the decade.

Re: 1968 Mod Rod 442
 

98's,Delmont 88's,Bonevilles,and Electras were all my dad sold at his used car lot back in the 60's.
all he hung out with were stodgy old farts.

Re: 1968 Mod Rod 442
 

Right, but I don't think anyone would accuse Pontiac of being stodgy.

Re: 1968 Mod Rod 442
 

Olds fought their stodgy image throughout the 60's, and I think they did a pretty good job convincing the street crowd that by 1968, they were in the Musclecar wars. The 64-67 442 were also rans to the GTO (unless you ran into one of the handful of 66/67 W-30's, which was highly unlikely). In 68, the 442 and Hurst/Olds garnered some attention. Oldsmobiles problem, and why they were never considered a performance division, was that they only had one platform (the Cutlass) that they built on. The 442, W-30, W-31, Hurst/Olds, all were based on the one A-body they had. The rest of their lineup were stodgy old man cars. No dual quads or tri-powers (except the 442 in 1966) within their lineup. The Toronado was marketed as upscale elegant, not as a performance car.

Pontiac, on the other hand, used aggressive advertising, dual quads, and factory backed racing (up to 1963), and tri-powers were available on most of their model lineup up to and including 1966. The Catalina, Bonneville, Ventura, Grand Prix, and 2+2 were all available as high performance cars, with the GTO of course leading the way. Then in 1967, the Firebirds brought even more youth and performance to Pontiac, followed later by the Judge and Trans Am. Pontiac never had a problem with their performance image.

But Olds only had one performance car, and that was the Cutlass. They made some powerful Toros, even some police package Deltas, but they maintained a stodgy image. I think they finally broke the mold in 1968, with the new styling, the Hurst/Olds, and the W-31, but Olds would just never be identified as a GM performance division. The photos from the 1968 Auto Show really show how hard Oldsmobile was trying to attract the youth market.

Re: 1968 Mod Rod 442
 

I just never thought of Olds as stodgy - don't forget they were the Rocket Division! Dodge or Plymouth never had any problem with being seen as stodgy, so I kinda chalk it up as not having the luxury of being Chevrolet or Pontiac under the GM umbrella. Olds had to fight its way to be recognized because of this.

Re: 1968 Mod Rod 442
 

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Olds fought their stodgy image throughout the 60's, and I think they did a pretty good job convincing the street crowd that by 1968, they were in the Musclecar wars. The 64-67 442 were also rans to the GTO (unless you ran into one of the handful of 66/67 W-30's, which was highly unlikely). In 68, the 442 and Hurst/Olds garnered some attention. Oldsmobiles problem, and why they were never considered a performance division, was that they only had one platform (the Cutlass) that they built on. The 442, W-30, W-31, Hurst/Olds, all were based on the one A-body they had. The rest of their lineup were stodgy old man cars. No dual quads or tri-powers (except the 442 in 1966) within their lineup. The Toronado was marketed as upscale elegant, not as a performance car.

Pontiac, on the other hand, used aggressive advertising, dual quads, and factory backed racing (up to 1963), and tri-powers were available on most of their model lineup up to and including 1966. The Catalina, Bonneville, Ventura, Grand Prix, and 2+2 were all available as high performance cars, with the GTO of course leading the way. Then in 1967, the Firebirds brought even more youth and performance to Pontiac, followed later by the Judge and Trans Am. Pontiac never had a problem with their performance image.

But Olds only had one performance car, and that was the Cutlass. They made some powerful Toros, even some police package Deltas, but they maintained a stodgy image. I think they finally broke the mold in 1968, with the new styling, the Hurst/Olds, and the W-31, but Olds would just never be identified as a GM performance division. The photos from the 1968 Auto Show really show how hard Oldsmobile was trying to attract the youth market.

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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.

Re: 1968 Mod Rod 442
 

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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".......

Re: 1968 Mod Rod 442
 

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....so I kinda chalk it up as not having the luxury of being Chevrolet or Pontiac under the GM umbrella. Olds had to fight its way to be recognized because of this.

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Actually, it was the brilliance of Bunkie Knudsen, Pete Estes, and John DeLorean that MADE Pontiac what it was. No one GAVE them anything, they did it all themselves. They built NHRA and NASCAR winners in the early 1960's, while Buick and Oldsmobile had their collective thumbs up their butts, not knowing how to make a performance car. In 1964, Pontiac broke corporate policies and brought out the GTO, a huge sales success thanks to brilliant marketing by Jim Wangers. John DeLorean stated that Ed Cole (Chevrolet General Manager, then promoted to GM President) continually thwarted Pontiacs efforts because Cole favored Chevrolet, so Pontiac was always fighting an uphill battle. Even working in this environment, Pontiac flew past Buick and Oldsmobile in sales, and they did so based on their performance image.

Oldsmobile just didn't have a clue how to attract Musclecar buyers until 1968. The 66/67 400's were superior, but it was the 1968 models where Oldsmobile finally realized they needed an advertising camapaign to attract young people that wanted performance. Olds had a major change to their advertising campaign in 1968, taking a page from the "book of Jim Wangers". They began to put together aggressive ads, and they hit all the youth oriented auto magazines. Oldsmobiles 1967 auto show display consisted mostly of hubcapped Cutlasses and Delta 88's. Their 1968 auto show display had girls in go-go boots talking about 442's. https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/imag...ns/naughty.gif

But unfortunately, 1968 was too late for Olds. The Camaro and Firebird were huge sales successes, and those cars attracted a whole new audience. Pontiac, which was on the verge of being discontinued in 1956 (they were last in sales), had now flown past Cadillac, Buick, and Oldsmbobile in only 12 short years. When GM launched the F-body project, Chevrolet would be the chief architect, and Oldsmobile petitioned to get an Oldsmobile F-body. GM upper management decided that Pontiac had a far more youthful image, and were far more equipped to sell sporty cars than Oldsmobile was. To appease Oldsmobile, GM gave Olds exclusive rights to their FWD platform (1966 Toronado) for a few years, but the Toronado didn't break any sales records, and while powerful, was never marketed as a performance car.

Re: 1968 Mod Rod 442
 

By the way, the picture I posted of the girl "riding" a 442 chassis was Sandi Freeman, a model hired by Oldsmobile for their 442 display at the 1968 Chicago Auto Show.

Attached is a photo of the Oldsmobile Apollo from the 1969 Chicago Auto Show.

Re: 1968 Mod Rod 442
 

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.

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

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

http://www.tedstevens.us/sitebuilder...ap-447x600.jpg

There is another ad in 65 that doesnt even show the car, just some kicked up rocks and the tag "442 was here"

The cars were very good, but the marketing was lame.

And just a footnote to all this, once the muscle wars ended the Cutlass became Americas number one selling car. Olds jumped to number 3 in sales.