Repro Pontiac round port/Oldsmobile W30 cyl heads

[retengw31]

Yeah. Just what we need another coupla hundred fake W30's. As if there aren't enough of them out there already.......

[HO455]

……….Send in the clones. This is another sad day for true Oldsmobile enthusiasts. The problem with fraudulent and dishonest Oldsmobile W-30 sellers is already at epic proportions. But it now will become an epidemic. We just have to look at the spring Mecum Belvidere, Illinois auction to see a recent example of this at which time a car broker sold a 1971 black & white W-30 convertible clone for 170K. The car was represented as a legitimate four speed car but had air conditioning, power brakes, a spoiler and the wrong heads-but some unsuspecting buyer did not seem to care. Special thanks must go out to “Parts Place Joe” for helping propagate an already completely dishonest hobby. But I am sure his bank account will continue to flourish in the future with the addition of these new D, F and H Oldsmobile heads. Sadly this hobby has become completely distasteful. Now 99.9 percent of the W-30s for sale or coming through major auction houses are not legitimate W-30s but just well assembled clones. With the new addition of these heads all the pieces for perfect W-30 clones are available. From what I understand there is even perfectly aged counterfeit Oldsmobile broadcast sheets, exact duplicate OW transmission tags, Intakes, Red inner fenders etc… There is really no way to distinguish what is authentic anymore. I spoke with a very well know Oldsmobile restorer collector recently & he stated that almost ever W-30 he has recently seen sold in public was not truly a legitimate W-machine. He said that most of the true & legitimate W-30 convertible four speed cars are in the hands of wealthy private collectors that really have no need to sell their cars. He said if a legitimate W-30 convertible four-speed car does come up for sale it is almost always done in private. He said these cars have become so rare & sought after that they generally move from one collector’s hand to another collector with no public knowledge of the sale. He said there have been sales reaching astronomical numbers for perfectly concours restored 1970 W-30 convertible four speed cars with unquestioned pedigrees. But they have completely escaped the public arena. Sadly for the W-30s and the LS-6 cars without the benefit of a historical service that the Pontiac & Buick community enjoy, the level and quality of fake W-30 and LS-6 cars is just going to increase to an unbelievable level. I guess it does make the authentic W-30 or LS-6 cars almost priceless if you can prove out its pedigree. But sadly it also has made the hobby so dishonest & distasteful that you almost want nothing to do with it anymore. I believe that is why so many Muscle Car enthusiast have gotten away from the whole numbers matching concours aspect of the hobby and have gotten heavily involved with the Pure Stocks etc… But in reality that is what the cars were truly made for anyway.

[wheelhop]

I think you're being a little hard on Parts Place Joe. Sure, he's making a good living but he's helping to reproduce what a lot of us couldn't afford otherwise.

[HO455]

Hey Wheelhop,

I really have no problem with a lot of the reproduction restoration parts. But when we start reproducing certain very rare items such as Oldsmobile D, F and H cylinder heads that becomes a problem. Now we are going to see numerous examples of cars being represented as legitimate W-30s when clearly they are not. In the past the cylinder heads made it at least a somewhat difficult proposition for the unscrupulous sellers to create super accurate clones because it was cost prohibitive and certain items were very difficult to find. With a set of 71 H Olds W-30 cylinder heads for example currently bringing prices north of 15K it made it at least difficult for many to create bogus cars. But now with these wonderful creations of D, F and H cylinder heads for a couple thousand dollars from Parts Joe we will see an incredible influx of very accurate clones being represented and sold as authentic W-30s. That is were the real rub of this comes in. I have NO problem with people trying to restore their cars accurately with high quality reproduction parts but unfortunately that is not where the story ends. Many people who are in this hobby today care about only one thing and that is MONEY. They do not care who they hurt or what they do as long as they come out on top with a lot of zeros at the end of their bank accounts

[Chevy454]

If someone sets out to clone a W30 to flip then a set of reproduction heads isn't gonna make/break the deal, nor will the water be any less murky...without the repro heads they would have just hung a set of real heads on it...I sure hope folks aren't basing too many buys solely on which heads are on car wears!

[SmallHurst]

Unfortunately for Olds, most all of the value of the car (or clone) will go with having the correct heads. For the '69 H/O (I will speak on that car because of my experience) documentation is very iffy. So when documents become iffy, the parts of the car start to lay out the truth of the vehicle. D heads were only for '68 and '69 w-30 cars and '68/9 H/O's. F heads only for '70 w-30 cars and H heads for '71 w-30 only. For the '69 Hurst, the heads, mirrors, intake, wheels and transmission codes were special to the car. Outside of those parts, everything else was standard issue Cutlass and 442. Recently, a partial list of cars converted at Demmer Engineering was found. Unfortuately, it is not a complete list. 2x for me as my car was not on that list. I know that my car is ligit, but paperwork is not there to support it. I have owned my car for 12 years now and I talked with the second owner of the car.

Now, we have reproduction mirrors, hood scoops, rear wings, dual gates, consoles, rims can be made, rough intake manifolds, and now reproduction heads. Soon, someone will come out with transmission tags. At that point and time, I will have what my car really is, a glorified 442 with special paint. I know that it really won't affect me because the car will not leave my possession, but some guys who bought the cars for money will really be crying the blues. It will turn into a 2 class system. 1)that you are already in the loop and might be offered the cars that are true and rare and will have opportunity to own a real car, or 2) you will be on the outside looking in and getting duped with clones.

[Astock]

I purchased a real '70 W-30 from the original. After about 10 minutes of looking for a build sheet I found two. The original motor was long gone since the seventies.So,if I buy a pair of new repop casting for $2,500 rather then a original pair for about $10k(that might I have a defect)that would make my car any less real?

[agtw31]

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when we start reproducing certain very rare items such as Oldsmobile D, F and H cylinder heads that becomes a problem.

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it's a problem only if you just paid 5 grand for a set of 37 year old H's,or if youre trying to sell some H heads for 5 grand

[Fast67VelleN2O]

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it's a problem only if you just paid 5 grand for a set of 37 year old H's,or if youre trying to sell some H heads for 5 grand

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Sometimes this is when I am glad the reproduction market steps in, when the guys WHOARDING this rare stuff drives the prices though the roof for their own benefit. Remember 67 Chevelle GM SS Hood's in the 90's? 1,000 for a nice one. Then the repops came out and guys lost their shirts on the hoods that they were whoarding. The guys in the reproduction business try to get a piece of the pie too. I can't blame them at all. Thumbs up to the reproduction guys who make what some of us can't afford, more affordable to us.
Matt

[JOZW30]

But isn't really about mis-representation more than whether a car is a clone or not?

As a "car guy" I don't have a problem with somenone building a tribute car because they can't afford the real thing. Trying to sell it by lying about it's "correctness", is the issue.

Only consider myself knowledgable about Olds, so I can't say that this goes for other makes or not, but here goes.....

Anyone that knows anything about the W30's knows that unless it's a 72 or has bullet proof documentation, you treat it as a "could be" W30. Period. If you pay $175K for one one of these "could be's with incorrect/unavailable parts to boot, your a fool. If you don't know enough to even find someone that does know enough......well, you get the picture.

Sorry for the novel.

I put a repop W30 intake on my 72 because the originals were all over $600.00 and the vast majority were garbage.

Thanks Parts Place!