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."