F/S Lee Pearl's 1970 442 W-30 Convertible 4 speed

[Charley Lillard]

Turns out the paperwork was fake. Now it is selling as "Undocumented"

[Stefano]

When the car was sold on eBay and unrestored a while back, it had no paperwork what so ever.

So who made up and or had someone make up all the paperwork which was displayed with the car at BJ?

[LeeP]

Wow!!!! Maybe that is why the old w-30 guys had never seen that car. Even if it is a real w-30 the black cloud will follow that car forever. It would seem other cars done by that restorer will now be questioned. That is very sad. Lee

[Canuck]

Woa!!!

Thats gotta hurt!

Thornton has done lots of non W30 cars and presented them as they were. I saw photos of this one and it was rough to start with and likely thought to be a real W30 before Thornton restored it. Several cars have been on ebay over the years by various sellers and reemerged with paperwork along the way.

Paul

[Stefano]

Thornton's have certainly restored quite a few Oldsmobiles and some were undocumented W-Machines brought to auction, however I do not recall ever seeing a W-Machine done by them being advertised as NOT authentic?

[Charley Lillard]

Nobody is saying it is not authentic. Just the paperwork was not authentic.

[PhilS]

This sale is an example of a car being bought without consideration of its history. An unknown car with recently located docs and a world record auction price. Pretty scary.

[HO455]

Unfortunately, the only Oldsmobile cars that can go completely unquestioned are cars with Canadian documentation. Sadly, all the other paperwork is going to be suspect in one way or another. I would imagine even the Thornton’s could be fooled today because the fake documentation is so accurate.

My friend was a longtime serious W-30 convertible collector and he was bamboozled on a fraudulent 1971 W-30 4spd convertible. He knew these cars well and went back to the 1970s collecting them.

I remember cars as far back as the early 1980s being accurately cloned into W-30s. Now people think those cars are real because they have appeared as W-30s for such a great length of time. I know of numerous cars in the Chicago area that started out life as standard 442s only to eventually become "documented" W-30 cars.

It is too bad that all the corruption and dishonesty has entered the hobby. However, when serious sums of money got involved in the hobby so did all the dishonesty. It would be funny if they ever found the paperwork for these cars to see how many of them today are fakes. I bet it would reduce the W-30 population by 90%.

[TimG]

At least 1972 has an X in the VIN.

[Stefano]

There are also a bunch of real W-30 coupes and convertibles here in Chicago land!

The only "fake" '71 4 speed rag top which I can remember recently, was a std 442 rag original green, converted to a black W-30.