auto_editor

It's funny how eBay offers rare cars with no info and common cars with miles of puffery. The way this is written I can't tell if this is really something for which there's little info or if it's just enough info on a common ho-hum car.

It's headed with "1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass" with a "1971 Oldsmobile vista cruiser-W-30-muscle wagon-442" second-line descriptor, and if those aren't enough, check out the murky description...


"up for auction is a 1971 vista cruiser station wagon. this vehicle is believed to be a very rare car known as a "muscle wagon". no parts ordered for the "vista cruiser" will fit the wagon, only1971-442 --W30, parts will fit. the "classic car price guide" lists a W-30 wagon and also list a price for this car. this car is equipt with 455c.i. V/8, turbo 400, W-30 heavy duty suspension. engine has been rebuilt, as well as the transmission. the car has been repainted in the original factory color. also the interior has also been replaced. this vehicle belongs to a customer of mine, and has owned it for several years. i don't know anything about this vehicle, you will need to phone the owner @ 1-405-282-0872 and ask for JOE"


I love the long description followed by "i don't know anything about this vehicle". And as for the "no parts ordered for the "vista cruiser" will fit the wagon, only1971-442 --W30, parts will fit." part I have no idea what I should think. If he said "no parts ordered for a Porsche 911 will fit; only Oldsmobile parts will fit" I'd understand. But LOTS of run-of-the-mill AND special-edition parts will work on either type of car, as 442s and W30s were VERSIONS of other cars, not SEPARATE models with no common parts.

Anyhoo, if you're looking for a laugh/headache here's the link. I'm no expert, but it seems to be being bid to typical Vista levels. Do let me know if this "Muscle Wagon" thing holds water. It might make for an interesting article...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1971-...item4158e16b63

2blu442

Yeah.... I'm not sure unicorn is a strong enough description!

But, 9 bids! I'm not sure if those are his buddys or if others would like to turn it back into a nice Vista Cruiser wagon!

Cameo White

The repro 69 W-30 decals are a nice touch.

stevengerard

what????!!, no parts from the wagon fit only W30 parts??

Decent looking car but complete fake.

w-30dreamin

Are those special w-30 speedometer,gas pedal and underhood gauges?

cutlassjoe

The gauges under the hood were confusing. So, you're driving down the road, you wonder what the water temp is...you have to pull over pop the hood and have a peak....The other neat thing is that on the glove box door it says Vista Cruiser. It must the be the W-30 sticker that makes it officially a Special Edition W-30 wagon.

DarrylJ

I looked at that also and chuckled. It looks nice under the hood but the grille work sucks! I guess they have to be w-30 grilles too!

joe_padavano

If true (though I doubt it), this is just one more reason why I don't think very highly of any of the price guides. More likely, however, the idiot seller also can't read the price guide.

jrzybob442

I don't tend to get involved in these discussions because there is always one person who wants to be contrary - but these are the facts - Olds would not put the high performance pieces on the station wagon because in police testing they had concluded that the car was susceptable to roll over in high speed manuvering. You can check a myriad of literature and find that even in 1964 when the 442 was available on all models - the station wagon was excluded.

Next, I would like to see the driveshaft on this piece with the short shaft W-30 transmission attached to the long wheelbase Vista Cruiser chassis. (Must have made a "special order" long tailshaft OW trans for this car).

The factory made one F-85 clone of a W-30 wagon for experimental purposes in 1970. The was never titled and was used as a parts chaser after letting the press at it. It was nicknamed "Wonder Wagon". Somewhere around 1972 it was crushed. They also found that car to be unstable at high speed avaidance manuvers, although it would run the quarter in the low 14s - with a 3.23 rear.

The Rally Red "clone" that surfaces from time to time was built by Bob Tetrault in the mid 80s and can be told from the original by one glaring ommision, but Ill keep that quiet so that the next guy who tries to pass it off as the Factory Wonder Wagon can't get away with it.

Back in the 80s we used say that there were more W-30s driving around than the factory ever made. You want to get a good price for your Cutlass - tell everyone it's a Cutlass with special W-30 parts. Nice touch to put those 1969 W-30 emblems on the 1971 vehicle, for sure the factory did that.

Want to put this to rest, let's see the body plate and POP. But this really points out why we need to GM to do some hard looking for production records. That's another discussion. for another thread - but having the production records would solve all this BS.

joe_padavano

There were two factory-built hipo A-body wagons that have been documented. There was a 1968 Vista Cruiser with the drivetrain from a 68 H/O, right down to the under-bumper scoops. This car was written about by Car and Driver magazine at the time. They dubbed it "son of Boss Wagon", since their original Boss Wagon was a 1966 Chrysler product. There was also a 1970 flattop with a W-30 that was written about in Road and Track. Both were hand-built one-offs and neither car was ever offered for public sale. Reprints of both magazine articles are available.

jrzybob442

The 70 wagon was also dcoumented in Car Life magazine - March 1970 see: http://wildaboutcarsonline.com/cgi-b...=9990288842242

However, I believe the 1968 VC was not built by Olds, but rather by Demmer. The OW trans could not have been fitted w/o a conversion to long tailshaft.

I knew the guys in Experimental back then and they were told that they could not build a vehicle for press coverage unless it used assembly-line pieces, erst the factory be accused of a "doctored" (pun intended) car. This occurred after GM learned that the 64 GTO used in the original magazine tests was running a 421 super duty block. That old Bunky was a bit of a trickster, but it had the desired effect.