Don R.

Another thread on the general forum asking for "Back in the Day" photos got me scanning old pics of some of the Olds projects I've done over the years to post. I found some of the 69 H/O # 74 car plus other info so I thought I'd go into more detail here. Fair warning, these will be pretty long posts.


It was early 1978. I lived in the northern Chicago suburbs and I bought and flipped cars as a hobby / extra income thing. I mostly did muscle cars, partly because I loved them but mostly because they were cheap and easy to find. We had been through one gas crisis and were working on the second so nobody wanted those 8 to 10 year old gas suckers. Most of them had been through multiple owners and multiple Illinois winters so they were rusty wrecks owned by teenagers and could be bought for $500 to $1000. I had recently sold a 1970 Buick GS 455 Stage 1 and bought an orange and white 1970 Olds 442 as my next project. It ran good but was rusty and needed a lot of work.


I started working on it while I drove it and was looking for parts. Back then there was no internet, Ebay, or Craigslist, the only ways to find parts was via printed ads, swap meets, or junkyards. I used a local ad paper called the "Tradin' Times" to buy and sell plus classifieds in the two main Chicago papers. I happened to see an ad for a 1969 442 and went to see it as a possible parts car. When I got there I found a car painted silver with black stripes with salt encrusted Ansen mags, a giant rear spoiler and a weird mailbox hood scoop with HO 455 lettered on it. It also had the Hurst Olds logo and the brass #74 original owners plaque on the glovebox. I knew what a Hurst Olds was, I remember seeing new ones at a dealer in 1969, but I had no idea if this was real. It was cheap, so I jumped on it, and suddenly my project plans changed!

z11375ss

Reminds me of the Buick Skylark I owned that I put a BBC into. Ran like a raped ape but was NOT a good looking car. Rusty, dusty. 4.11 rear, ran great! There were tons of these cars at one point. I remember it well. What did you do with that H/O?

scorpio ps

Well there are so many things wrong with the way that car looks. I would have to see a lot more of it to believe that it was a '69 H/O. Its possible that cars were cloned even back then.

tru-blue 442

Great story Don. Let's hear more.

z11375ss

Yeah X2. Let's hear more!

tru-blue 442

Maybe a Chevelle to an SS back then.
This one was only 9 yrs old. And it
had the plaque.

Don, did it have it's unique breather set-up,
dual gate and door panel rockets?
What a sweet find...more, more, ha ha.

Don R.

I will be telling the whole story, just getting started. In addition to the car itself its the story of the time I did it and how different the whole hobby was back then, stay tuned.

Eddie Hansen

Don thanks for sharing your stories I do remember the late 70,s too I don't think the term muscle car war even found yet , these were just old cars lol.....

Don R.

So now I owned two Cutlasses. The ugly silver car had its share of problems but was more interesting. It was an automatic car without air conditioning. The good: Hurst Olds glovebox emblem, original owners plaque, dual gate shifter with plastic console, decent black interior, faded gold striped headrests, correct hood scoop, correct ram air cleaner, chrome valve covers, front disc brakes, dual exhaust cutouts in rear bumper. The bad: rusty, terrible paint, wrong spoiler, wrong wheels, jacked up suspension, wrong rear axle, tired motor, crunched front and rear, pitted trim.


The first thing I did was write to Hurst asking for information and parts availability. They sent me reprints of some original release info and a few suggestions on parts sources, the only thing they still stocked was the plastic exterior emblems. I immediately bought three for $6.18 each. I was a member of OCA and in the roster I found a guy near me who had a 69 H/O. It turned out he also worked at the parts counter of a local Olds dealer so we became good friends! He looked at my car and told me it was the real deal but I had a lot of work ahead of me to bring it back.


"Restoring" these cars back in the 70s was completely different than it is today. Even though something like an H/O was rare, not many people knew or cared. There were a few guys in OCA that were really into them but it was not a business and there wasn't the numbers obsession you see now. I'm pretty sure my car was real but I never checked a VIN number and couldn't tell you if the engine and trans were original or not. I never knew if it had "F" heads, and as you'll see later it wasn't an issue to me. It was just a few guys having fun in their garages.

scorpio ps

Ok now you got my attention.

Don R.

Here is some other info Hurst sent me including lists of both standard included options and available options with the GM codes. My car was pretty basic, beyond standard it had power steering, N34 steering wheel, and AM radio, a comparative stripper. It didn't have the correct side mirrors, they looked similar but were smaller. I don't know what axle ratio it came with, it had a GM 10-bolt non-posi with a highway ratio. I was lucky that the stock radio remained, nothing had been cut up for aftermarket speakers.


Lets talk about parts and parts cars. In 1978 this was a 9 year old car. In the Chicago area a 9 year old car that was driven all the time was already rusted but the interior was still in decent shape if it had stayed dry. Many of these cars were in junk yards or back yards with comparatively low miles and decent mechanical shape but sidelined by body rot or collision damage not worth fixing. Oldsmobile was still in business and new parts were easily available from your local dealer. Certain things were gone but back then a lot of dealers still hung on to old stock parts rather than dumping them. I made my list and started looking. I found decent used rust free doors and a trunk lid locally along with a complete correct Olds rear axle with 3.91 gears and posi. I bought new bumpers, diecast trim, and a core support from the dealer where my buddy worked and I established a jobber account. I bought a running 69 Cutlass Supreme which had a good black bucket seat interior and a full set of correct 15" chrome H/O wheels. I swapped seat cushions and wheels then resold it.


I also made the decision to completely part out the 70 442. It had an excellent rebuilt engine, like new dual exhaust system and the OAI induction with glass hood which even then was a popular part. I can't remember the details but I know I also used a number of those parts. I took that car down to nothing but a frame and body shell sitting in the garage then had a junkyard pay me to haul that away. The money I made on parts paid for most of the parts I needed to buy, although if I ever would of put a price on how much labor all of this required....

Don R.

This car needed lots of work but I'll start with the mechanical side. The engine in the car was real tired so I swapped the long block with the 455 from the '70 which was recently rebuilt and ran great. I know this will not set well with today's purists but... I reused the chrome valve covers, distributor and stock intake and exhaust manifolds from the 69. I rebuilt the Holley spreadbore double pumper from the '70 but saved the original quadrajet. The water pump, alternator, fuel pump, and starter were replaced with new parts. The original transmission was in good shape and remained with the addition of a deep sump pan. I swapped the dual exhaust system from the '70 also since it was almost new.


The 3.91 posi rear was rebuilt with new bearings and clutches and installed. The suspension had been crudely jacked up so all springs and shocks had to be replaced. In addition all suspension bushings, tie rod ends and ball joints were replaced along with new rear control arms. The brakes were rebuilt and the whole hydraulic system was replaced.


I did add a few options to the car such as a rear window defogger and power trunk release. I also found a complete used Rallye-Pak gauge and tachometer setup with wiring harness for $7.00! I was able to get the correct sending units from the dealer and it worked great.


The biggest job by far was to come, that was getting the body and paint done.

Don R.

When I decided to post more about this car I dug through a bunch of long stored stuff, in addition to photos I found the binder where I saved all the correspondence and info I accumulated. My local H/O buddy had referred me to Bob Gerometta who was the performance consultant for the OCA at that time. In response to my request for information he sent me an 87 page "Oldsmobile Performance" manual with a ton of drag race oriented tips and parts swap info. He also sent me copies of the NHRA Technical Information Form and the AMA Specifications for the 69 Hurst/Olds. Here is the NHRA form, the others are too large for this format.

GAOldsman

Very cool Don I like the part where they state the Goodyear Polyglass on 7" steel wheels are unbeatable on the street

Don R.

Back in the late 70s I did all of my car work plus car storage in the 20' by 20' garage attached to our house in Roselle, Illinois. This was our first house which we bought new in 1976 after living with my in-laws for a year to save up a down payment. Our two daily driver cars were usually outside in the driveway even in the winter. We had no basement, shed, or extra storage space anywhere else. My memory is fuzzy today but it amazes me that I completely stripped one car and did major parts swaps on another all in that tiny space but I know I did.


I also did all the bodywork and paint there on the Hurst as well as quite few other cars. I had started painting cars years before when I still lived with my parents, those cars were painted outside on a gravel driveway surrounded by giant elm trees. Thank heaven for good old lead saturated lacquer paint and rubbing compound! By the time I was in the Roselle house I had a decent compressor, air tools, and spray guns. Of course you still lost a high percentage of paint to overspray and even in the garage I still got junk in the paint and sanded away a lot of what I laid down. I opened a jobber account with a local auto paint supply shop and became a pretty good customer. Back then you could buy all the materials to shoot a car, good DuPont stuff, for less than $100.


As I looked ahead at painting the 69 I was a little concerned at the complexity of the job. My local H/O buddy put me in touch with another guy who had an original paint 69 and I got some photos along with dimensions of all the gold stripes from which I made a drawing. I also found a correctly styled reproduction rear spoiler. I don't remember where it came from or what I paid for it but it was a good quality heavyweight unit and needed very little cleanup. The mounting dimensions came from the same car as the stripe layout.


I was never sure I used the right gold paint color. In their response to the first letter I wrote asking for info, Hurst told me they had used a 67-68 Ford color but had no code. Other sources called it "Hurst Gold", Firefrost Gold", etc. In the end after talking to other OCA guys I used a GM metallic gold which looked great but I don't remember the specifics.

Don R.

The body needed a lot of work on this car but it was not as bad as it could have been. The floors, trunk pan, and rockers were good along with all the body mounts so I left it on the frame. I removed the front clip, doors, trunk lid, and all the trim. I think I found some rust around the windshield so that was fixed and the glass replaced. I chemically stripped all the parts down to bare metal, substituted better doors and trunk lid, and fixed the rust on all parts before reassembly and alignment.


This was definitely the most ambitious paint job I had ever done. due to all the striping and panel work. I thought about cheating on the black stripes and using tape but in the end I used that sectioned masking tape that allowed you to remove a sharp edged section and I did them in paint. I color sanded and cleared it multiple times and it came out really well in the end. I detailed the whole car top to bottom and had it in what I thought was show condition at that time although they would probably laugh at me today.


A word about the wheels. As I said I basically bought a whole car to get the original wheels. I bought this car at night, in a snowstorm, in a rather sketchy part of Chicago. I'm driving it home slowly due to the weather, and I notice a clunking noise when I turn a corner - great! I reluctantly stopped in a parking lot to take a look - and found that all the lug nuts were way loose! Very lucky I noticed that before hitting the freeway. The wheels were actually very nice for originals, a few minor scratches and surface rust but they cleaned up great. Not sure why, but I painted the centers gold rather than the correct gray color. No one ever commented on that but like I said very few people even knew what the car was back then.

allyolds68

Keep the story coming. I'm enjoying this


I thought gold was correct for centers on a 69 H/O?

Hurst/Olds 73/74

I would agree, but it was the '70s. Reminds me of the 1970 442 W-30 convertible in Muscle Car Review October 2013. Originally red, it was immediately repainted yellow with Rallye 350 stripes because daddy's little princess fell in love with a Rallye 350 parked beside it on the lot when new. Maybe someone liked the silver/black theme of the '68 H/O better, but couldn't order the limited run '68, so he had the dealership order a '69 and had the dealership do the color change. A lot of "Panther Pink" Mopars were hidden under more subtle colors by the mid-'70s.

Also, I have one of those old "Scat Trac 60" tires in my garage. Being a Mopar guy, too, I liked the "Scat Pack" play on words.

allyolds68

There's someone on here that used to own that car and some of the story is made up. I can't remember all the details but I don't think the car was even a w30.

edit

Here's the quote from the old owner on ROP. It was a W30

Don R.

Every restored 69 I have seen lately has them finished with a dark gray. I think they used gold on the 72 H/O but I'm not sure, the experts need to chime in...

pogo69

in 1969 they were all grey from the factory and thats the standard ...however a dealer might paint them gold if wanted

im not sure about the converts

Don R.

The silver and black was a deliberate tribute to the 68 color scheme but it was not done when the car was new. Although it was messed up by the time I got it that was a high dollar clearcoated lacquer paint job but it was put on over a lot of bodywork and the incorrect spoiler was included so the trunk lid had been replaced. They even handpainted black over the H/O 455 stickers on the hood scoop. I had a lot of fun stripping that down without ruining the fiberglass. I did find some of the original white and gold under the silver but not much, the best section was under the wheel lip moldings, that was the only spot that the black pinstripe survived. This car had been daily driven by all its owners and had the wear and tear to prove it.


I actually hated the Scat Trac tires appearance, I tried to get some original Goodyear Polyglas tires but they were not available by then and nobody had thought about reproducing them yet...

Hurst/Olds 73/74

Thanks for chiming in and clearing that up. Love the car. I don't know what it is, maybe it's because they're "obtainable" price-wise, but I love seeing unrestored, rare muscle cars with lots of patina on them!

Don R.

I know what you mean, I feel the same way. The problem today is that they are worth so much that nobody drives them for real anymore. When I was working on muscle cars in the 70s and early 80s they were a glut on the market. Many times the car I was restoring was also my daily driver, like this 70 AAR Cuda - all primer and putty, no paint!

Hurst/Olds 73/74

Cool! Was that one originally EF8 Ivy Green Poly, or something else? 4 speed or auto? As you can see from my signature, I'm also a Mopar guy, been one since I bought my first Road Runner, a '68, back in 1990. Been an Olds guy since my first car, a 1975 Cutlass Supreme, back in 1986.

Don R.

Well now we are going off topic but I'll blame it on you... after owning a couple of 64 full size Oldsmobiles I had a long dalliance with Mopar. The first was a 67 metallic green GTX which I had for awhile, then I found the Cuda, an automatic. It was also metallic green, at least a few of the panels, but I changed it to Tor-red which looked a lot better with the stripes. I loved both of those cars from a mechanical and performance point of view but I got tired of rust popping up and interior parts falling off - went back to GM and never owned another. Not that I wouldn't like to now but I can't afford one!

Don R.

Once I got the exterior mostly done I put the interior back in the car. Everything was original parts, all the upholstery, headliner, door and side panels - I had traded with the parts car and combined all the best but they were not perfect. Reproduction kits like they have today were not available. The only things I replaced were the carpet and the door and trunk lid weatherstrip.


I detailed the engine and underhood area with spray cans, cleaned the wiring and replaced some with parts car pieces, nowhere near the level of detail you would see today. I bought an original OAI air cleaner foam seal and found original style labels after these picture were taken.

66400

Called them super cars.

Don R.

I came across this article from the June 1969 issue of Motor Trend, the 69 H/O was the cover car, referred to as "The Rich Man's Hot Rod" He had to be rich, their test car cost all of $4300!! They got a few things wrong in the article but their test results include a quarter mile time of 13.98 at 101.28 mph, stopping power of just over 1g, and being "the best handling domestic sedan in the country." I have the original issue somewhere and remember using these photos as reference in my restoration.

wmachine

Absolutely right!

Anyone that is interested in a very rare look at performance Oldsmobiles from *inside* Oldsmobile in 1969 should check out this publication at Wild About Cars:
http://wildaboutcarsonline.com/cgi-b...aldisplayed=50

Don R.

After close to two years I was almost done with this car. It was redone top to bottom and I had gone further than most previous cars in that the undercarriage was cleaned and painted and it was in what I thought was show quality although that would not be the case today. The only thing that was missing was the gold H/O 455 stickers for the sides of the hood scoop. I looked everywhere but at that time the originals were gone and no one was reproducing them. I kept looking, I even had one guy send me to-scale tracings from his original car.


By this time I had realized that this car was too nice to use as a daily driver so it sat in the garage under cover most of the time. This has never been my thing so I put it up for sale with ads in JWO, local papers, and signs in the window. The first set of photos were taken at this time with those signs, real attractive.


A word about the photos: the originals were all 35mm color slides. I took the photos on very sunny days so they were too dark and the color was way off. In addition they faded over the years and took on a blue tint so when I rediscovered them a few years ago they looked terrible. Recently my kids bought me a fancy Canon scanner that included the ability to copy film and slides and it included retouching software. Once I learned how to use it I was able to fix most of the problems with the slides and finally see the car as it really looked, that was when I decided to do this thread.

scorpio ps

Now I am hooked.

RetroRanger

I like it w the gold rims !!!

Don R.

After I put the car up for sale I finally found someone who was reproducing the H/O 455 hood scoop decals and got them installed. I took a second set of photos without the for sale signs. I started advertising the car in JWO and Hemmings Motor News but it took a while to find a buyer. I wound up selling it in June of 1980 to a guy from Canada for $5500, sounds cheap now but I thought I hit the jackpot! I used most of that money to buy a 78 Olds 98 Regency coupe with a factory moonroof, the nicest car I had ever owned in my life - but that's another story.

Don R.

Here's a few more photos.

RetroRanger

LOL so did the guy who bought it looks nice in the pics Don

berettass

Talk about living the dream!!!

sicky olds

Subscribed.

hurstoldsgal

I love your story! I replaced my stickers due to them fading and I found them at OPG (Original Parts Group). Thanks for sharing!

Don R.

Thanks. Today muscle cars are so popular that there is plenty of repro stuff available, I see that the 15" rally wheels are even available again. Unfortunately the cars are so expensive now I'll never own one again. I'm just glad I was able to play with so many of them when I could.