[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.