After years of looking off and on, my dad finely found the pictures of his 71 W-30 that he bought new. He traded it in on a new 77 Cutlass. When I later fell in love with these cars at 13 years old, dad went searching for his car and found it crashed. The passenger front tire was smashed all the way to the passenger seat. The guy lived to tell the story but was in the hospital for a very long time. He was drinking and driving and hit a tree.

Dad said that the top picture was taken when the car had around 60,000 miles and the one of him under the hood was around 75,000 miles putting spark plugs in it and just before trading it in.

A story he has told several times over the years is that he was drag racing a guy and had the dual gate on the wrong side. He said he shifted from 1 to R and almost tossed him through the windshield. It never even hurt the transmission.

Notice on the order form that is says "subject to strike"

 

What great pictures and how cool to still have the original bill of sale. It must be hard for you and your dad to see the car in such a mangled mess.

 

Any idea when he took delivery of the car? Who has a picture of their dad wrenching on his W-30 that he bought new??? Cool pictures.

Don W

 

Yes, thank you for sharing! Cool pictures, although the last one hurts just to look at it!

John

 

Those photos are a great find. Sounds like the car had quite a life. That comment "due to strike" on the paper work is quite unique. A lot of us know how that effected production in the coming days. I like the notation of "check #181". Thats a low number....of his checking, that might point to other personal historic memories and times of his life. The crash photo is a scary one and about as bad as they come.

I too, have an elusive photo I keep an eye out for. Its one of those "first day I got it" pics...32 years ago. I keep my fingers crossed it'll show up.

 

I did the same thing in my 70 Supreme back in high school. You get used to pushing the shifter forward and to the right to upshift, but when it's not in the right (his / race) slot that results in blasting past all of the detents and shifting straight into Reverse. The rear tires locked up and howled quite loudly, as if calling all of my high school friends to observe the idiot behind the wheel, so I quickly yanked it back into Drive and apparently all was well. Except for my 18 year old ego, that is

 

He ordered as soon as he graduated high school. Likely a fairly new checking account.

 

I will have to ask him. The picture is funny because my dad has hair, lol

 

Another story, my dad would kill me for telling..... He was 20 or 21 when he taught my pregnant 15 year old mom how to drive in it. It also had manual steering. And yes, they are still together and happily married to this day.

 

He said it came in with a cracked dash and they ordered a new one for him. He helped the service shop put the new one in. This same dealer is the one that ordered a sebring yellow 70 W-30 with blue stripes and interior for a guy. When we found that dads car was crashed we later found this yellow and blue W-30 and dad bought it. By that time it was painted red and we noticed it has H heads on it. They had told us that it was not the original engine. Then we later figured out that it was the original engine out of his own 71 W-30. The engine was swapped out in his car before it was crashed.

 

Really neat pictures and story. Thanks Eric!

 

That's really cool about the engine swap! What a lucky fortuitous coincidence! That makes for a cool story. You might want to think about "interviewing" your Dad about his Olds (and other, i guess ) memories and putting them into a sort of binder or book. It would be really cool to hand that down to your kids, so they can have a sense of their personal history. You could even start a chapter or volume of your own Oldsmo-efforts

 

 

Nice pics, except for the last one. I find it interesting to look at the original stripes on original paint cars. Personally I like the quarter panel portion of the stripes to be parallel, or close to parallel, with the side marker lights. This picture shows some of the original cars did have a noticeable flare up to the stripe though.

 

X2, I have seen many original paint cars and about 20% of them had the stripes not parallel to the markers.

 

o.k i'll say "it will buff right out".oh nevermind that thing is toast.

 

Cool story. Thanks for sharing. Are those SSI's painted red?

 

look like buick wheels painted red. big center cap.

 

Yes, it is a Buick wheel on the back corner. Must have been changed after my dad sold it.

 

Thanks Eric for sharing the story and photos. My brother also had to wait for his new '71 442 he ordered due to the strike. Odd that the new owner would install Buick wheels on the completely stock W-30 and replace the good engine. Wonder what engine was in it when it was wrecked? Small world with engine being found in the '70 Sebring yellow w/blue stripes W-30. That must have been some striking paint/stripe/interior color combination. Sort of like the '70 Rallye red with gold striped W-30 seen in the period car magazine.

 

Thank YOU mister Eric
Cool tale
I tried to get paper work for my car
Do you know when He took delivery ??


Keep the shiny side up

 

Very cool story.
I'm with others the last picture hurts.
Thanks for sharing.

 

Found more documents and the original owners manual. He took delivery of the car on February 6th of 1971. We even have the hand notes from the lady that collected the money form my dad when the car came in.

Great documentation for a car that no longer exists, lol. I suppose if the car still existed we would have lost the paperwork, lol.

 

The original paper trail is super cool
It really is too bad car was wrecked


My gold car was ordered 17FEB delivery 3APR 1971 with 70 style fenders...

The green car I never did get order / window sticker for
Oh Well

 

Hey...been a while. I just read this and it was cool to see the pics. Too bad on the crashed car. Was also interesting how your dad put so many miles on the car. Maybe you'll come across more pics somewhere too.

 

Glad to see you on again. We do have an old 8mm film of the car but it is just pulling out of the driveway and driving off. Still kind of cool.

 

Well that sure beats nothing. I'm sure you'll come across more relics. I know there is probably a ton of photos I've never even seen of the W-30 we had in a photo album or storage somewhere. Always cool to see that kinda stuff. What have you been working on lately?

 

Jetfire stuff as always. Also have a 70 442 convertible 4 speed car I am doing work on for a guy. Nice solid original car. Replacing all wiring in the entire car. Had some wires melt on him many years ago so he pulled the battery cable and it sit ever since. Just getting it road worthy again.
Now that the kids are getting older I have more school activities to deal with so the car stuff slowed down some.

 

Oh man. Wiring would not be my thing. But it is nice for you to have a hand in it. Give me a call some weekend. I need to catch up on all the Olds news.