[joe_padavano]

Imagine my surprise when I disassembled the tailgate on my new 84 Custom Cruiser to fix the power window and discovered that this one is plastic!! OK maybe not plastic exactly but some sort of resin-injected, fiber reinforced material (RIM, or something similar). My surprise is that I have two other B-body wagon tailgates, one on the 86 Caprice and one I got from a wrecking yard and both are metal. I'm aware of Oldsmobile's experiments with alternate body materials, like aluminum hoods on the diesel cars, but I was not aware of the plastic body panels. The cool thing about this is that it really is lighter than the metal one and the dual-action tailgate hinge, which ALWAYS sags on the metal tailgates, is actually in great shape on this 195,000 mile car. Learned something new yesterday.