yanktanks

Greeting:

I recently acquired a 1971 442 W-30 4-speed from my uncle which has sat in his garage since the fall of 1978. He is the third owner and it has just under 11k miles on it. I have included a photo of one of the broadcast cards I found in it; I actually found 2, 1 hog ringed to the under side of the rear seat and the other was attached to the carpet.
DSCN0910.JPG

It is a blue on blue car with a bench seat. There were some engine mods that were performed by the original purchaser; i.e. carburetor, camshaft, intake and exhaust manifolds were changed. All of the original parts were kept and passed on with the sale of the car. The car runs good- radiator leaks.


I'm looking for information on deciphering the broadcast card. Did this year vehicle come with a broadcast sheet? Where were they normally found? (I dropped the gas tank to ensure the tank was in good shape and it was not there.)What are some other area's of the car should I look at to confirm it's originality? And lastly, what would you value the car at?

Thanks in advance for all of your input.

As requested... here are some photo's of the car.

oldcutlass

Welcome to the site, post some pictures when you get a chance. Others will chime in on deciphering your card.

tru-blue 442

The 'build sheet' probably won't
be found. The W-30 was a Lansing
built car, and they were notorious for
not including the build sheet.
Nice find on the broadcast card though.
Post some pics of that fine automobile
when you get the chance. And welcome to CO.

tru-blue 442

Very nice!

oldcutlass

Awwwwesome.

Allan R

The broadcast cards were left in the car by the Fisher Body Works plant that built the shell (body) of the car. It does establish provenance of the car with some specific areas noted in the boxes of the card. Since all W30 cars were built at Lansing, you will not find a Lansing Assembly build sheet, but these broadcast cards weren't left by the assembly line. So here goes with your broadcast card info:



271 is the sequence that your car was assigned when it was scheduled for body assembly on June 28, 1970. This makes it a very late production car, likely one of the last W30's built that year.

34487 gives the car 2 pieces of information. 1 - it clearly identifies the body as belonging to a 442. 2 - the body style is '87' which is the 2 door Holiday Fastback coupe.

Body Number 448515 is the same number you will find on the cowl tag. It was the 448515 th A body produced that year at Lansing. By comparison, my car was built on April 7, 1972 and its body number is 442325, so the numbers are really close from year to year.

943 is the trim code. That makes it a dark blue themed interior.

26 26 is the paint code for the car. Translates to Viking Blue lower and upper.

I have yet to find someone who can tell me what that 2 means in PP

A52 is the bench seat that was optional for the 442 in 1971. Strato buckets (A51) were standard. The A52 seat gave the first owner a deduction of around 68.00 against the purchase price. Kind of a waste in my opinion.

W30 - there's your money shot right there. As long as your body matches this broadcast card you have the winning ticket. There was no code in the VIN to distinguish the W30 from any of the other 442's produced in 71. There were 442's produced at other plants, but as mentioned only the W30 was produced at Lansing.

U58 - is the Stereo Radio option which includes the rear speaker (U80) option.

With this information I can deduce your VIN starts out 344871Mxxxxxx, where the X's will tell you what the sequence of final build on the Lansing Assembly line was.

There should be a build date code on the cowl tag that shows this number/letter combination: 06E. This means that your car body was welded into it's components starting on the dreaded day of Monday. Same as mine.

Allan R

Just went back and looked at those pictures. The car has the correct red fender liners, but someone left off the W30 stripe when they repainted it. I'm guessing it was likely a black or white stripe.

According to my sources, there were 6285 442's produced in 1971 and if it's a factory 4 speed it's a relatively rare (as in lower production; aka scarce / desirable) car.
442 W30 production is broken down as follows:

Hardtops
247 4-speeds
563 Automatics
Total Hardtops = 810

Convertibles
32 4-speed cars
78 Automatics
Total Convertibles = 110

Total 1971 W30 production: 920. Some people will argue that its 910, but the numbers add up to 920.

steve442

Sweet car.

1969w3155

Allan, that's actually a blue striped car, hard to tell at first look. Uncommon, and sweet.

Diego

I wonder if the blue stripes are correct for 1971? I've always wondered if they were the same tint or different.

mmurphy77

Wow! Original tires too?

yanktanks

Allan, thanks for all of the information.

Also, 1969w3155 is correct, the stripes are very hard to see in the photo's. The paint and the stripes are original to the car- blue on blue.

Does anyone have a guess as to what it is worth?

1969w3155

$40-45k, and that's just a guess, could bring more...or less, just depends on who's looking. As a original survivor, it could be much more.

Diego

Could you post some better pics showing the stripes? It looks like the blue is different than 1970's mix. And with all the Viking Blue cars out there, this is the first one I've seen with blue stripes.

QMaster

Beautiful car!

Allan R

Wow! I couldn't see them at all, so this is a survivor car? That's incredible.

Dan, I think it would be conservative at 40-45. I'd bet more around 55-60K especially since it's a survivor in such great shape. I'd be pleased to store it at my place and look after it for awhile...... It's the kind of car I'd love to own. The only one close to that I remember as a youngun was the 71 lime green 442 W30 4 speed (white buckets/interior) just down the alley. It just sounded so awesome when it rumbled by. At the time I had no idea how rare it was to have a 4 speed W30.

Covering my crystal ball now.....

dc2x4drvr

I think 60k is low, beautiful car. How about some shots of the engine and spare parts..

Allan R

I'd like to think that too, but the reality is that Olds doesn't command the big bucks that other brands or Companies do.

X2 on the engine shots. Love to see under the hood and car if possible.

tru-blue 442

Spot on 60K to start.
Testing the water as it were.
Such low miles too.
Dammit Lansing where's the build sheet?

Boiler_81

Great looking car. You might want to check out the Oldsmobile Nationals this summer. TN shouldn't be to far to go. Your car would be one of the stars of the show if it is as original as I think it is.

http://www.cincyoldsclub.us/2014-nationals

dc2x4drvr

Much easier to go down, let's see the underhood shots, I'm thinking 75k, if as described..

yanktanks

These are the parts that were removed by the original owner. In my initial post I omitted the fact that the valve covers were changed to a set of M/T's.

Here's the Quadrajet's numbers, 7041253 RF 2110 .

The two items that were NOT passed along with the sale of the car, were the original valve covers and regretfully the OAI air filter assembly.

yanktanks

Here are a couple of photo's depicting the stripe/paint color contrast.

I apologize for the delay in my posting. Thanks.

Blackpage

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEET ! That is bas a$$

oldsmobiledave

Very nice car & thanks for sharing the photos with us.


I have no idea what you paid for it but my advice would be to scare up the missing OAI set up & then just clean the car & keep it long term. The car is guaranteed money in the bank & you get to enjoy it while your investment appreciates. Low mileage original cars come along seldom & this one is exceptional. Congrats.

Allan R

The stripes are much easier to see in those last pics.

re: spare parts. Are you planning to put them back on the car to retain originality or are they for sale? Personally, with the car being so stock, I'd put them back to increase it's overall authenticity. The VCs are reproduced, or can be obtained from some of the members who part out cars. I agree with Dave's comment.

Boiler_81

A couple of thoughts

First. you said the radiator is leaking. When you get it repaired, do not replace the original radiator. Get a new core soldered to your old side tanks. Make sure the rebuilder keeps the medal radiator tag on the tank.

It looks like you have the original tires on the car. While they are very cool for the historical value they are for sure unsafe to drive on. I would get another set of wheels and put reproduction tires and them. Put the original wheels and tires in storage. If you get to the point you show the car, you can bolt the originals on (after you arrive to the show) for the wow factor.