Hello folks,

I'm a newbie to the forum and have been working on, off, on, off, and on my 64 Olds F85 now for about 6-7 years. It's been so long I cannot even remember! Life, work, family seem to eat up a lot of time. If I had this car back in high school it would have been on the road in much less time (well, as quickly as my part time times would allow!).

So I have a two-door F85 that I purchased as a project. It has been a MA car it's whole life...not exactly conducive to rest prevention. I purchased her from the second owner, who had her for over ten years. It did have the 330 engine and two speed jetaway, along with bucket seats. I would love to tell you that I had a sedan/post/coupe/holiday coupe but truthfully I'm confused. I call her a "post" as I have full window frames on the front, a separate post between front and rear glass. What say the experts?

Well she had new floors and trunk when I got her. And ran. Sort of. She made it 15 miles home. But she had the death rattle from the get-go. Pretty much everything else was rotted out too. And you know how it goes, you start to take one thing off, then the next and before you know it the car is in so many pieces you can't tell it's a car anymore. But I managed to do my version of a frame off---actually a frame lowered/body raised on jack stands job in my garage. What I can tell you is that she has all new body bushings, new rear control arms and bushings, new front disc/power brake conversion with rebuilt drums out back, all new brake lines, fuel lines and tank, and a PST front end kit. I replaced all the front components. I also blasted and painted the control arms, new shocks, and new springs front/rear.

Now the bad. Please don't hate me. The Olds block and trans went to two separate olds guys who wanted them. Cuz' I'm kinda a Chevy guy. Well, a GM guy so I figure as long as I keep it all GM.....At the same time I tried to make sure anything I could sell or pass along and keep out of the scrap yard could at least help someone out.

Anyway my car is finally getting paint (my wife haaaaaaated that factory GM green color) and my engine of choice and components are sitting in the garage waiting to be assembled. And then the fun of doing the interior. I really dread putting the window glass, regulators and trim back in. I figure some towels and blue tape on my new paint to protect everything as I knowww I'll drop something.

Well there it is. And I hope to learn some new things here. I can tell you I'm one who likes to do my own work, learn all the time and try to help others. Thanks in advance to all and nice to meet you!

 

Does your car look like the green one on the right on this page out of the '64 Olds brochure? It was a officially called an F-85 Club Coupe. There were no hardtop F-85's. The 2-door '64 F-85 Cutlass hardtop was called a "Holiday Coupe."




As far as putting a non-Olds engine in your car, don't do it. Keeping the car "all GM" is not the same as keeping it "all Oldsmobile."

Many times people come to this site and say that they're "Chevy guys" as a reason to put a Chevy engine in their Olds. Ugh. With proper treatment and rest, Chevy-guy-ness can be overcome, and you can become Oldsmobile-guy like you should be!

 

Welcome to the site, its your car to do what you wish. The main thing is that it will live to drive again.

 

Well I guess then, I have a "Holiday Coupe" (so also can be referred to as a "Club" coupe?).

My father and grandfather were GM men, and as it was told to me, there used to be a distinct order to what you bought...you started out with perhaps the Chevy, then pontiac, then olds, buick etc up to cadillac. I guess it was a status thing. Forgive me I don't know the correct order.

So even though it won't get the Olds engine, I'm happy it will stay GM. I think I will not even mention what engine I'm building for it !

I did decide to keep all the trim on the side of the car though. Some was bent up a bit, but I'll keep working on that. I think that along with the trim down the center of the hood help make the car.

 

No. The car cannot be both a Holiday Coupe and Club Coupe at the same time. The former is a hardtop, the latter is not.

If your car has a center post and a full frame around the front door windows, it is not a hardtop, and therefore it is not a Holiday Coupe. Olds used the name "Holiday" throughout much of its history, and it pretty much always meant a hardtop. Holiday Sedans were four-door hardtops, Holiday Coupes were two-door hardtop. I think Olds started to get away from this in the late '70s when they stopped making hardtops altogether but still called some cars "Holiday".

There were three A-body lines in 1964.

The F-85 (series 3000) was offered in three styles, Club Coupe (two door post), station wagon, 4-door sedan (post car).

The Deluxe F-85 (series 3100) was offered in three styles, Sports Coupe (two door post), station wagon, 4-door sedan.

The Cutlass F-85 (series 3200) was offered in three styles, all two-doors: Cutlass Coupe (post car), Cutlass Hardtop (no center post), and convertible.

You can determine which series your car is by looking at the VIN. The second character will be a 0 if it is an F-85, a 1 if it is a Deluxe F-85, and a 2 if it is a Cutlass F-85.


Post a photo of this car, and we'll know once and for all what it is.

 

Here's a page out of the '64 brochure showing a Cutlass hardtop (Holiday Coupe). It's pretty easy to see that there is no post between the front and rear window openings.

 

The term "hardtop" is short for "hardtop convertible." When first introduced back in the '50s by I don't know who, the body style had the look of a convertible with the top up. The selling point was that you could have a car that looked like a convertible (no center posts) but had a fixed roof and all the advantages that that offered in terms of quietness, security, lack of water leaks, etc.

 

Ok, great info! I'll check my VIN, and the mystery will be solved! Thank you for the help. I will get back to you, exciting news for me today my car is out of paint and will be coming home soon!

 

VINs in 1964 weren't terribly informative. The first character will be either a 6 or an 8, indicating whether the car has a V-6 or a V-8, the second character will be the series as noted earlier, the third character will be a 4 to indicate 1964, the fourth character will be a letter indicating the assembly plant, and the last six characters are the production sequence number at that plant.

 

Hi Jaunty, Cutlass F85/ Cutlass Coupe it is! #2 in second VIN position. The car comes home tomorrow so maybe I can post some photos up. Thanks for the information on which car I have.

I think some confusion on this comes from the aftermarket. Whenever I was looking for parts, from various sources/mfgs and depending on the part, the listings would sometimes have "Holiday", "coupe", "hardtop", "convertible" etc as a deciding factor. I'm sure most of you have run into this. So for instance I remember finding a carpet that was listed for a "holiday coupe" and another site listed it for a hardtop.

For some things, like a carpet, I doubt it matters much. But there is certainly some inconsistency out there in model/sub model designation. At least now I know what I have...

 

That's pretty cool!

There were three styles of Cutlass for '64, all two-doors. A 2-door post like yours is called a Sports Coupe. The two-door hardtop is a Holiday Coupe, and the top-goes-down version is just called convertible.

Yes, we would love to see photos.