Saw this article the other day and remembered when these things happened. Amazing what was done with a 4 cylinder that still holds speed records. It was maybe too little, too late but it was an awesome accomplishment at the time.

Oldsmobile Aerotech

 

Sigh. What could have been.

The end was in sight when GM started building cookie-cutter cars. Nothing keeps you on your toes like competition. When GM decides that internal competition wasn’t a good idea (it worked pretty well for 60 years!) they lost some of that killer instinct.

Add in the desire of top brass to throw in their own influence, while abandoning well established styling characteristics (the Olds emblem used on the last few model years looks to me like it belongs on a import!) was another nail in the coffin.

Im not saying anything that hasn’t been mentioned countless times before. There is nothing wrong with progress, but don’t recklessly dismiss what got you where you are.

 

Good read. I'll never forget the first time I saw a Quad-4 w/ its header-looking intake runners and thinking "Woah, these guys are serious". Other than the GN/GNXs (which was nothing more than a big turbo on a then-20 year old engine design), what did Buick ever offer the automotive engineering world? It never made sense to me that GM killed Olds and kept Buick. Were sales in the early '00s that much lopsided towards favoring Buicks?

 

They kept Buick because they were popular in China(and 50 million Chinese can't be wrong). It was apparent to me the powers that be wanted to end Oldsmobile so they purposely built cars that no one would want, hence acting the victim, gee we had no choice...

What an insult to the company, and its customers, to take away the revolutionary new Delta V8 and give it to Cadillac to become the Northstar, and then install it in an Oldsmobile and say it was a version of the Northstar.

I thought I had read somewhere that the CEO of Oldsmobile had died, and they thought it was easier to do away with an "ailing" company than to replace him.

I've seen a couple versions of the Aerotech up close and it is a rather impressive looking vehicle.

 

Doc Watson was working on going 200 mph with the Quad 4 in a almost production Oldsmobile. Out in the salt flats. I can not remember the details. Too long ago now, think it was in the late 80's

We talked when I was buying his Ground Effects Package for my 1984 Hurst/Olds (Aero Commemorative). I still have his little booklets he would mail out, somewhere. There is an article about his Quad 4.

As well as parts for sale. I have too much s**t. In a box somewhere from moving. But will try to find them. Maybe someone else has more info.

 

Thanks for sharing. I didn't know they put the Aurora v8 into the Aerotech in later years.

 

Where did this come from? Olds went through a number of General Managers (not "CEOs") at the end, but none of them died while in office.

John Rock is probably best known as one of Olds' last GMs. According to the stories at the time, he did his best to save the brand, but too many events were out of his control. He was Olds GM from April 1992 to November 1, 1996, when he retired from GM. He died on November 16, 2007, well after he left Olds.

After Rock, Olds GMs were the following. None of these people died in office, and it must not have been a very pleasant job to be overseeing the demise of the brand. I think that describes why no one stayed n the job long.

Darwin Clark, 11/1/96 to 1/1/99. After his time as Olds GM, he became a GM (General Motors) vice-president in Europe
Karen Francis, 1/2/99 to 4/30/00
Deborah Ennis, 5/1/00 to 10/1/02. This person actually held the job when the end of Oldsmobile was announced in December 2000.
William Nicholson, 10/1/02 through the end, 4/29/04

 

It must have come from nowhere. I thought I had read that, I must be mistaken. Imagine being one of the last two GMs, what they must have thought.

 

The reasons for the demise of Oldsmobile have been debated ever since the end of the division was announced now almost exactly 20 years ago. They will probably BE debated until the end of time. The reasons are many, complex, and intertwined, and I think the best summary of why comes from James Walkinshaw, a long-time Olds employee who later worked with Helen Jones Earley at the Olds History Center and who co-authored, with Earley, the book "Setting the Pace -- Oldsmobile's First 100 Years" as a commemorative of the 100th anniversary of Oldsmobile in 1997. That book was followed by a supplement called "Oldsmobile -- the Last Chapter" that was published in 2004, and it contains pretty much everything there is to know about Oldsmobile's final years and days.

Mr. Walkinshaw wrote a column on December 31, 2000, later in the same month that the end of Olds was announced, giving his thoughts on what caused Oldsmobile to die. It is the best analysis of the events leading to the end of Oldsmobile that I've seen, and it is written by someone who should know. The column appears in "Oldsmobile -- The Last Chapter."

What he wrote is a bit lengthy, but if you care to read it, I've reproduced it in full below.

 

Tell me more. This is new to me.

 

I was just as angry at GM for killing Saturn as I was for them killing Olds. I owned a couple of Saturns before they started sharing parts with other GM cars, and the ones I owned were great. I also owned a couple of Saturns after they started sharing parts with other GM cars, and the quality went downhill quickly.

I was sadder to see Olds killed off since I was a long time fan of Oldsmobile, but I thought that GM's decisions with the Saturn brand went against their original intent with the brand and were bad for business.

 

Jaunty, thank you for sharing.

 

X2.

Jim's take pretty much validates my long held opinion that GM management had its head so far up its *** in the 80s and later that they would have never seen what they were doing to themselves.

 

There have been a few articles over the years. It’s nice to see that people remember.

I picked up this souvenir a couple years ago. Supposedly they only made a little over 70 of them.

 

cjsdad and fellow members enjoy this video. It's 32 seconds of Oldsmobile absolutely reveling in the achievement.

 

This is a great little article and reinforces what all know, but with insider insight. I am very surprised that he makes no mention what so ever of Saturn. Saturn was actually given the resources to achieve what Olds was trying to do. Many theorize that the demise of Saturn was due to bitterness from Olds and other GM divisions. Even though Saturn survived to the bankruptcy, it was clear that they were being slowly phased out anyhow and were no longer the company they once were.

I've said it before and I'll say it again here- The greatest thing help GM was it was born a publicly traded company and the worst thing to happen to GM is that it's a publicly traded company.