Wow what with all this virus business about, and social distancing, I find I am really going to this site and others just to pass the time and converse. I really enjoy this site and feel I have got to know some of you a little. So, if some of you are bored why not just tell us Olds guys a little about yourself and what you're feeling in general? Someone on the HAMB site started a thread asking people to put in a few pics of what is going on in their world. I like that idea, how about if we do it here? I'll start:
I'm Greg, I'm 63, my wife and I are retired and live on Long Lake near Harrison,Mi. We have a 71 Cutlass Convertible we've had since 94. Also have a 56 F100 that is a project. I have 2 married sons and 6 grandchildren. Lets hear from you guys!!

Grandson and son helping with Vista Cruiser rear end.

Picking up a parts vista over by Montegue MI. Car is gone now.

Shop in barn across street.

Last year Christmas...

 

Hi Greg
My life seems to be as busy now and before the virus hit. But this sounds like a fun idea. I'm John, I'll be 62 in a couple months. I'm semi retired, working in Forestry 2 days a week. I've done the Forestry thing since I was 18 so I like playing in the woods. I also like Rockhounding, birding, Hunting, gardening vegies in the summer and of course Oldsmobiles. I've got an old house that needs a lot of work that I'm puttering on. Over the years I've drug home way more cars than I'll ever have time to rebuild. But I'm enjoying collecting cars and parts, selling/trading spare parts, and interacting with other Olds people in the process. I've developed a lot of friendships through the car hobby. I live in Medford Oregon and spent much of my life in Oregon. They don't salt the roads here and as long as the cars don't spend too much time on the coast they don't develop the cancer type rust that many old cars do. The priority project car is a 1966 442 I bought from a friend last fall. I need to finish dismantling a 1968 Delmont 88. 1954 Olds 88 and a 1978 Toronado. Those are all partially dismantled, but as life changed I got busy doing other things and haven't got around to pulling the rest of the good parts and disposing of what's scrap. Oh, one other not so fun adventure. My elderly Mother has dementia and she's in a care facility. Due to the virus I can't visit her, which is really causing problems with her mind. I'd been spending a couple hours with her almost every day so this will be a difficult period for her and I. I pray this virus gets resolved and our lives can return to normal soon.

 

Wow that is tough about your Mom, John. My Mother in law had Alzheimers, sure is a cruel disease. Forestry is a tough career but I'll bet you are in shape, but maybe have some bumps and scars?

 

I suspect its a phase of life than many of us will go through. Where one of our parents will need the care they gave us when we were small children. I loved working in the woods and started my career on a summer fire crew. I do have some fun stories and pictures I've taken over the years. Being young and invincible does wear on a person though. I had both knees replaced in my mid 50's from stupid stuff I did as a youngster. Gotta prove I'm just as strong and tough as the next guy!

 

Greg, do you still have the Vista Cruiser in your pictures?

 

I have been a car nut as long as I can remember I was a lego maniac as a kid, put more miles on my bike than some people did on their cars, once I got my license I moved on to cars, snowmobiles, 4 wheelers, anything with a engine and moves I worked in a Buick/Cadillac dealership for a couple years, worked at Coan Engineering for a couple more, then got a job at the Kokomo Chrysler Transmission plant been there 22 years this June if any of you in readerland own a Chrysler product with a automatic transmission, it was built in one of our 4 plants Delco electronics is also in my hometown, every radio in our classic GM cars came from here I’m proud of my hometown automotive heritage, countless firsts were devolved here. Stainless steel, the first signal seeking radio, Elwood Haynes designed the first commercially successful car, the Howatizer, pneumatic tire, the list goes on Kokomo is a happening place!
Grand Canyon last spring break

My wife of 16 years

My 15 year old son on the Vegas strip. The girls suggested a tip, I told them I couldn’t possibly accept a money, the photo would be plenty. 😎

Last day of last years spring break. This virus made us cancel this years vacation. 😡


My oldest driving my Olds. I told her to relax, if she wrecks it, she won’t receive ANYTHING in my will. No worries!


My pride and joy. I have owned this car since I was 17, I’ll be 48 in September.

I tell my wife if I didn’t have the car hobby, I’d take up drinking!

 

No,I sold it when we moved. I don't really regret it as I thought I would. I had started to accumulate a bunch of nice parts and planned to restore it after I retired, but we moved. I actually gave it away for $2000, including all the better parts. But a nice fellow Olds guy from close bought it and It is in good hands. I really enjoyed it. You think you get lots of "thumbs up" when driving a beautiful restored muscle car- You should see how many you get in a unrestored Vista Cruiser, loaded with grandpa and grandpa in front and 3 preteen grandkids and a dog in the back!!

One day a buddy and I decided to take his hay to be sold. We took the Vista and someone took this pic and put it on Facebook!

 

Matt, beautiful family you got there. Say, I really like the A pillar gauge pod you have on your Olds. I always thought that would be cool to put gauges on my 65 Coronet back when I had it, But the only thing I could find back then was for later model Camaros and Mustangs and the angle was all wrong for the more upright A pillar of the Dodge. Looks like you nailed it.


I actually don't regret selling this one either. It was a excellent car though. It taught me a lesson though- I wanted a rompy load fast Mopar since I was a kid. I found after I finally got it that it was too much, which is why my Olds is mostly stock and sedate.

 

Hi Greg.

Yes we can have a nice talk, but it's going to be a little one-sided.

As a child, I thought cars were fascinating. I recall putting a wooded cigar box on the floor-shift-**** of dad's 1936 Buick. You could hear the gears turning.

My first job was at a gas station that did car repair. I was a detail-oriented kid, so the mechanics taught me brake, generator, alternator, and carburetor rebuilding. They kept the "manly" jobs for themselves--such as transmission and engine overhaul.

I got an engineering degree and, apart from buying a new 1970 LT-1 Corvette that I kept for 45 years, I was away from cars for a while when my family was young.

My first Olds was a 50,000-mile 1970 442 convertible, 4-speed, with air conditioning. I had that car for 30 years. I moved away from Texas, got divorced, got depressed, and couldn't get a job because of that. My first job after I started to recover mentally was 200 miles from home. I'd drive there early on Mondays and drive back on Friday afternoon. I drove my 442 and hit a deer. The next week I drove my LT-1 and got messed up in extreme fog and rain (the car hadn't been in rain previously). I decided I needed a $500 car to make that trip. I bought an Azure Blue, 3-seat, 1970 Vista Cruiser with 2 bbl 350.

As I was driving to work that next Monday, I idly thought about what had happened on the first two weeks and wondered what would happen this week. A vision of a road curving up into the sky came to mind. There was a peculiar white fence at the side of the road. A voice said, "that is the danger, but there is no danger." ???

My work friends looked over the car and told me it had the dreaded Firestone 500s. Since those tires were an odd size (H78-14), they were not available near the small town where I worked, but were available back home. A cold front came through near the end of the week and it was snowing when I made the return trip. About 50 miles from town one of those rascally 500s bit me and I had a blowout. I had no idea where a spare was in a Vista Cruiser, but I was dressed warmly against the -10° wind. I found the tire and jack, changed the wheel and found the spare had only about 15 pounds of air.

I drove at around 30 mph for 20 miles to the next town, which really p.o.'d the drivers behind who didn't seem to understand they could pass me. I realized on that slow drive that this was the third week with an adventure. And the vision came to mind. I realized that with blowing snow at night, highway curves seemed to bend up to the sky. That was exactly the situation where the blowout occurred. And the peculiar white fence was on my right as I changed the tire. I thought,"I am weird!" And I was so freaked that I started to cry.

Well, "that [was] the danger but there [was] no danger."

That job stopped after about a year but I saved so much money that during subsequent unemployment I quickly rebuilt the Vista mechanically. I got a W-31 intake manifold and carb, exhaust headers, and a T-400. I had the heads ported and 455-sized valves installed. I used the 315 hp, 350 4bbl manual transmission cam--which has duration within a degree of the W-30 automatic cam. And still being that detail-oriented person, I painted the engine with correct gold and topped the engine paint job with catalyzed clearcoat.

To my kid's delight, the unsilenced air cleaner made a howl each time I buried the throttle. And it was surprisingly fast, probably a 15-second car.

The car had spent most of its life in Ohio and was still very rusty. It was fun in those days to go the the gas station and tell them to check the oil. When they opened the hood, they always said the same two words, "Holy sh*t."

I always said that car had a heart of gold.

After having the rusted-out torque boxes welded three times, I finally junked the car but sold the drive train to my best friend who was restomodding an Olds business coupe from the early 40s. He sold the car to Jon Kosmoski. You all may have seen the pictures of Jon's gorgeous Olds that he finished about 4 years ago. The pictures ran in the major car magazines and were in ads for Valspar paint (Jon sold his business, House of Kolor, to Valspar). He told me it still has the heart of gold.

About the time I parted with the Azure Olds, I met my future wife at a job site in Los Angeles. I must have told her the story of the heart of gold because she found and bought a nice Bamboo 80,000-mile 1970 Vista with 455 out of the Auto Trader and it was waiting for me when I visited next. The next month I took vacation with my three children; we took the train from St. Paul to Union Station in LA. She picked us up in the Vista Cruiser! On the way back home, the previous owner, who must have had regrets from overcharging my sweetie ($1400), offered to let us stay with him and his family at their big place on Lake Mead. Two houses down was the vacation home of the Six Million Dollar Man (Lee Majors). My kids got to water-ski all they wanted behind the boat that the Vista formerly hauled back and forth LA to Mead.

Meeting my sweetie was a turning point in my life and I got better jobs and saved a lot of money. My dream was to turn that 455 Vista into the car that Olds should have built for young dads who needed room for the family but still wanted to blow off the obnoxious squirrel in the other lane.

I sold the 442 for some ridiculously low figure and started fixing the Vista to align with my dream. It took over 15 years but I did the mechanical overhaul and found a great painter and a skilled young upholsterer. If I'd put that money toward the 442, it would have been a $150,000 car. Instead I have a VERY expensive car worth perhaps $20k! But it's my dream car.

My LA sweetie and I lived in Minnesota for over 30 years and she never complained about the weather. That is until two consecutive winters with heavy snow where it would routinely take us a few days to complete the shoveling. She said during one of those shoveling sessions, "Let's move somewhere, where if the power goes out, we won't die." You can't argue with that logic!

That's how we got to Texas, north of where my three kids were born those many years before in what I now call my previous life.

I continued to work from home from the same Minnesota office where I worked for 25 years. They closed 18 months ago and with no jobs of that caliber in rural Texas, I have slowly gotten used to a more leisurely life where I get to make more "improvements" to the Vista Cruiser. I laugh that Wuhan Virus hasn't made much change in our routine.

You all be well!

Gary

 

Thanks Gary, I love your Vista- great job!