06-19-2019, 09:45 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-19-2019, 09:50 AM by CaptainHenreh.)
My first "car memory" is an old one. I couldn't have been more than 3 or 4, and my dad had a Monte Carlo LS 5.0. He'd always had big GM muscle cars. Skylark, El Camino, the Monte. He loved that car, black with porno red interior.
Later, I found myself growing up in the back of one Oldsmobile or another. The malaise FWD ones. A Cutlass Calais here, a Cutlass Supreme there, mom and dad bought GM until I was well in my teens. When I was 16, I was driving my mother's Oldsmobile Achieva S, with the 3.1 V6, probably made all of 140hp...swerved to miss a deer, understeered off the road, overcorrected, rolled the sonofabitch. Turned her over so gently none of the glass broke, I was trapped inside, just after the apex of a blind corner on a country road. I don't think my mom ever forgave me for that, she lvoed that car.
I have a complicated relationship with Oldsmobile.
So I've had this itch. I've never owned a muscle car, haven't had anything with a V8 for "fun", and when my wife asked me what i wanted for my birthday, I told her, jokingly, "An 80's Olds 442".
The 80's G-body was the last of the GM body-on-frame cars, and there were three "performance" models:
The Monte Carlo SS
The Oldsmobile Cutlass 442
The Buick Grand National.
The first two made like a grand total of 180 horse power with their "305 and 307" cubic inch engines, whereas everyone knows about the turbo buick v6.
They...did not light the world on fire. Hell, the Cutlass 442 was basically just an appearance package, harkening back to a day when "442" meant 400 cubic inches and a 4 speed manual with dual exhausts...by 1987, the 442 meant a 4 speed transmission and a 4 barrel carb.
But there's potential. And they ain't making any more, ya dig?
So...I found one in florida. It needs work, but it looks like the body has been off and the floorpans and fenders have been done. Some aftermarket crate motor is in it, meaning I won't feel bad about "ruining" an original.
Thus begins the project.
![[Image: YgmHM7o.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/YgmHM7o.jpg)
Later, I found myself growing up in the back of one Oldsmobile or another. The malaise FWD ones. A Cutlass Calais here, a Cutlass Supreme there, mom and dad bought GM until I was well in my teens. When I was 16, I was driving my mother's Oldsmobile Achieva S, with the 3.1 V6, probably made all of 140hp...swerved to miss a deer, understeered off the road, overcorrected, rolled the sonofabitch. Turned her over so gently none of the glass broke, I was trapped inside, just after the apex of a blind corner on a country road. I don't think my mom ever forgave me for that, she lvoed that car.
I have a complicated relationship with Oldsmobile.
So I've had this itch. I've never owned a muscle car, haven't had anything with a V8 for "fun", and when my wife asked me what i wanted for my birthday, I told her, jokingly, "An 80's Olds 442".
The 80's G-body was the last of the GM body-on-frame cars, and there were three "performance" models:
The Monte Carlo SS
The Oldsmobile Cutlass 442
The Buick Grand National.
The first two made like a grand total of 180 horse power with their "305 and 307" cubic inch engines, whereas everyone knows about the turbo buick v6.
They...did not light the world on fire. Hell, the Cutlass 442 was basically just an appearance package, harkening back to a day when "442" meant 400 cubic inches and a 4 speed manual with dual exhausts...by 1987, the 442 meant a 4 speed transmission and a 4 barrel carb.
But there's potential. And they ain't making any more, ya dig?
So...I found one in florida. It needs work, but it looks like the body has been off and the floorpans and fenders have been done. Some aftermarket crate motor is in it, meaning I won't feel bad about "ruining" an original.
Thus begins the project.
1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass 442