not sure if this has been discussed before {did not see it in search}. i was wondering about the word "oldsmobile" on the top plate of the air cleaner. i remember seeing my friends older brother's 70 w-30 {alot} back in the late 70's and the letters were white. i have located my original oai air cleaner not in great shape but looks unmolested. it has the letters white {very faded}and i remember in a couple old magazines i have laying around {1970} seeing the letters being white. but i very rarely if ever see this on cars for sale? what say you guys?
charlie,,,

 

other than pics from the 70s i have never seen one. my opinion is that people did it just because it looked good that way.

 

I was 5 when these came out to I have no first hand experience. I have owned two - one was white one was black. The over all consensus is they came form the factory black and owners down the line painted them white, on occasion a dealer would do it to make it look good.

The white one I had looked like Stevie Wonder painted it with a four inch wide brush so I can almost guarantee it wasn't factory.

 

just found one of the magzines, 1970 "hot cars" super street monster showdown Ls6 vs STAGE1,vs W-30 vs 455 gto good article! anyway the cars are all stock and there is a clear pic of the olds air cleaner with white lettering.
charlie,,,

 

All of the air cleaner adapters were black and none were painted. The are pictures with the letters painted are in marketing ads and with cars furnished by oldsmbile for publicity/ advertising. However, they did not come off the assembly line with them painted.

 

It was a fairly common thing to do...get out the model paint and brush and go to work. Still have one I did that to back in the late '70's. For that era we never had any factory installed valve covers like Ford shouting out the brand name so the OAI flapper is a natural.

Red would also look cool on a W car with the matching red wells.

After all....on tires they called them raised WHITE letters...why not on the OAI flapper??

 

There is one on ebay right now that is claimed to be original and has the Oldsmobile letters painted too. No way of knowing if this was OEM or afterwards. But I have seen others from 70/71 that were painted too. http://www.ebay.ca/itm/170777289944?...84.m1438.l2649

 

Snorkel end appears a bit small in that auction?? Maybe I'm just seeing things. Do these folks ever LOOK at their pictures before they post them on their auctions??

 

I have seem them unpainted, painted white, and painted silver. I have not seen any factory documentation to state how they left the factory. My W30 was unpainted and my W31 was painted white and appears to have been that way a very long time. I left them the way they are.

 

i think it was only the w-30, w-31, and the pace cars that were painted white from the factory

 

I'm sorry....
I'd like to bring this up...again..

My air cleaner is white letters. And definitely a nice job if not factory.
I had a barrett Jackson gudge this summer,, at a car show mentioned the white goes away after years of cleaning.
I did win the car show though

 

This is an old thread. I bought my 1970 new in 1970. I can provide first hand knowledge that my air cleaner was delivered with "Oldsmobile" in black letters. The tires delivered with my car were raised white letter "Goodyear G 70-14 Polyester."
There were very few W-30's in 1970. The only other W-30 that I was aware of was Paul Mayo's.
There are many more W-30's fifty-one (51) years later, most of which have chalk marks, and labels on the oil filler tube, alternators, and other parts of the engine, including the axle tubes.
The labels were removed before delivery. The first thing that we did was remove the heat shields on the exhaust manifolds and the point shields, both of which were a pita.
And as far as documentation, I threw my build sheet away because it didn't have prices and Faulkner Oldsmobile removed and discarded the window sticker.
I requested that Faulkner not install their dealer emblem on my trunk lid because I didn't want the dealer emblem to rust.
Neither Paul or I viewed our cars as extremely rare convertibles.
That was my state of mind in 1970!!

 

I bought my car from the original owner. Black not painted.

 

Your response makes no sense.

 

I bought an original air cleaner and hood from an original owner of a 72 442 with 455 and W25 circa 1992. It has unpainted letters, and no indication it ever had paint. But interestingly, it does have a couple of yellow chalk marks under the hood. And the original paint hood stripes were done better than I would have expected. It's the only W-25 hood I've ever had that is still crack-free around the hood scoop opening.

 

As stated above, Oldsmobile painted the letters for promotional photo shoots. OAI air cleaners did not come painted from the factory.

I started looking at these cars in the mid 70s, never saw one that was painted.