Found this behind an old mans house. Been off the road for a very long time yet in remarkably good shape. Drivers floor board is toast yet zero rot in the quarters, doors or anywhere other than dog legs of front fenders.
Electric windows, correct wheels ( i think), PS, PB, AC, original disk brakes, electric windows, buckets with column tilt, am/fm. Original engine and all components are there yet no idea what shape its in. T400 (not sure if its orig)...no idea on rear end until I get it home.
Hood is bent up from someone jumping on it, windshield is toast. Original paint/primer except trunk lid, no accidents, no old dents. Stainless is near perfect, rear bumper is bent yet saveable. missing rear trunk trim
A bigger project than I wanted to deal with yet had a very cool color combo- silver green with black....couldn't pass it up.
Will get it home and steam clean it and send more pics/updates.

 

Ugly? It's beautiful , a diamond in the rough.

 

Nice score!! A California black-plate 442 convert that's loaded, to boot. Rolling that tarp back must have been quite an adrenalin rush!

 

Very nice find! Gotta love the lack of rust on those CA cars.

Terry

 

Agreed, must of been a rush! Beautiful car!
Has a very low body number ....any other imfo come with car?


Ted

 

Great looking start!! Can't wait to see what you do with it.

 

That's a great find and I hope you will think about doing a build thread as you proceed on this project.

Brian

 

That's a great. find.. nothing ugly about it

 

Some people have all the luck Sounds like a highly optioned car. Keep us posted on your progress.

 

Wow what a find and I'm jealous that I didn't it. I let a 69 442 go because the guys kept changing his mind on whether he wanted to sell it or not.

 

Thanks for all the comments...makes me feel better about taking on a huge project.
There's no history on the car- last registered in '84 it was abandoned on a big piece of land above Sacramento. Land owner almost gave it away to get it off his land. DMV records were all blank...had to pay big bucks to get it relisted on their database and in my name.
According to the old man it was covered up pretty well with plywood and old roofing panels...most of that blew off 5 years ago which probably killed the floor.
I'll have it towed home in a few weeks and try to get a better feel on rust/rot on the under side. There was no way to get it up in the air due to mud and distance from the road. I've never done any type of metal work so floor pan should be interesting. Would like to find someone local to do the welding and help with the fitting.
I left the Oldsmobile world about 5 years ago when I found a '65 GTO Convertible tri power...great car yet I never grew to love it like a '68 442. GTO will be leaving this year.
I have two young kids so this could be a long, long term project.
Happy to send updates when it lands in my garage.
My goal is to do a driver restoration- factory correct, respect the car without getting caught in a quest for perfection.
First attack will be figuring out what's up with the motor...hope it's not blown to pieces. i'm guessing either the motor or trans crapped out and that caused it to get off the road and stay there for 30 years.
Thanks again Mike

 

Sweet find! Not ugly... just well seasoned. Take your time, and do a build thread. I'd love to see this one coming together.

 

Finally got it home and in the garage...no time to dig in yet had a few minutes to hunt for numbers....Matching numbers Engine and Transmission. S4 single leg rear end.

 

The 68 convertible may be one of the best looking cars ever made.

 

Very cool find! Congrats on saving it!
Looks to be pretty restorable

Ted

 

Getting towed to the steam cleaner tomorrow- high temp, high pressure industrial place...should clean everything up very well. Will send "after" photos

 

I agree with that, not sure why, maybe the rear end, the grill?

Nice find!!!

 

Steam cleaner did a nice job of blowing out dead rats, rat crap and everything else.

 

Picking it up on Monday

 

that does look nice did you do the body work and maaco painted it ? last we knew it was just getting steamcleaned LOL

 

sorry for the maaco ad…didn't mean to post that one.
Believe it or not Maaco did all the metal work (tiny quarter panel patch, front fender bottoms and driver floor…. I quality checked everything and it was very well done. The blocked body (good not great), primed it, let it sit for 45 days blocked it again. body lines are good yet I can dial them in better.
All in paint/body price out the door was $5500- some very minor imperfections (most people wouldn't catch them). I would have paid $20k for a "perfect" paint job which would be rendered useless after one ding. This gets me the look I want and I won't cry too hard if it gets dinged/scratched or ?
I tried the original silver color and it looked ugly. Almost went with Hurst olds silver yet thought this one looked great.
I have a garage full of parts ready to install.

 

Congrats man, that Willow Gold looks great!
Car has come along way!

 

Wow, thats awesome. I need to find a ride like that. Let us know what you think of the Maaco paint job quality.

 

Nice!!

Good luck with the project and keep us updated

 

I don't think all Maaco shops are the same. In San Jose- we have a shop that cranks out several muscle cars every week. They do super cheap crap work if thats what you want or, for slightly more they will do much better than average. Their painter is incredible…shoots one car per hour with near perfect results.
The car will never see extended sun light or outdoor exposure so the paint should do fine.
They brought this thing down to metal and worked out all the major flaws. Definitely not a show car yet I'm tired of perfect paint jobs…this one is better than factory and not to nice to drive.
Lovin the color
Stay tuned for assembly

 

I'm definitely jealous of your project. Can't wait to see the final results.

 

Looks good!

 

I thought by your pic post dates that you went from steam cleaning to painted in 4 days.

Even if it took 4 months, that's pretty good.

Looks like a great start for a "ugly" car!

 

we lost about a month searching for a trunk…..then changed the color once (respray the doors/trunk). Also- the original estimate was 6 months- my car was the left over that guys worked on when they had nothing else to do. most of the progress was made in December when their business was slow.

 

Maaco has like the best equipment in the business.

 

Mines out of Roseville Ca. Originally a Z code car. Lived in LA for first part of its life. Then Roseville then Yuba city Marysville. Nothing like California rust. I will never mess with rust blet junk.