Beautiful Cars & Trucks

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[Schmidt Meister]

1970 Oldsmobile 442 W30  2-Door Holiday Coupe - 455cid/370hp 4bbl V8

[gwalchmai]

Did 442 originally stand for 4 barrels, 4 speeds, and two exhaust pipes? And GTO for "Gas, Tires, and Oil"?

[Batesmotel]

GTO

Gran Turismo Omologato.

Basically Grand Touring Automobile.

[tous]

2 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

Did 442 originally stand for 4 barrels, 4 speeds, and two exhaust pipes?

Yup, yup, yup.

I was under the impression, for a long time, that the Cutlass model only came as a 2-door; the same as the Buick Skylark and Pontiac Tempest, thus, I was struck by that picture's caption: 2-door Holiday Coupe.

After some research, it seems that there were indeed 4-door (sedan) Cutlasses.

<-- never too old to be larned

 

[Borg warner]

3 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

Did 442 originally stand for 4 barrels, 4 speeds, and two exhaust pipes? And GTO for "Gas, Tires, and Oil"?

Right about the 442, but GTO was an abbreviation for GOAT which stood for Greatest Of All Time. Actually I graduated High school in 1966 and one guy I knew, his mom bought a 64 GTO with a 389, 4 speed, 4  barrel dual exhaust positraction and he got to drive it sometimes. But that Goat was nowhere as fast as another friend's '65 442 that had a 400 inch Olds big block and the two of them even raced and it was no contest. That 442 would have been even faster with slicks but with the bias belted tires of the time he could hardly keep the tires from going up in smoke that car had so much power. what he would do was have 3 of us guys sit in the back seat to keep the tires from spinning but then the added weight didn't help.

Here's a picture of a 1965 442 EXACTLY like the one my friend had. Same color same factory wheels. it was a beautiful car.

[railfancwb]

1 hour ago, Borg warner said:

Right about the 442, but GTO was an abbreviation for GOAT which stood for Greatest Of All Time. Actually I graduated High school in 1966 and one guy I knew, his mom bought a 64 GTO with a 389, 4 speed, 4  barrel dual exhaust positraction and he got to drive it sometimes. But that Goat was nowhere as fast as another friend's '65 442 that had a 400 inch Olds big block and the two of them even raced and it was no contest. That 442 would have been even faster with slicks but with the bias belted tires of the time he could hardly keep the tires from going up in smoke that car had so much power. what he would do was have 3 of us guys sit in the back seat to keep the tires from spinning but then the added weight didn't help.

Here's a picture of a 1965 442 EXACTLY like the one my friend had. Same color same factory wheels. it was a beautiful car.

In the mid to late 1960s Sears offered Michelin radial tires. They were tube type and required a special tube. To entice people to buy this somewhat experimental tire Sears had a generous road hazard deal if you brought the tire back to them.

One of mine had a flat and the tube needed to be replaced. No big deal. Oops, out of that size special tube so we put a regular tube in. Once again NBD.

Later I was on an expressway in rural America, far from automotive support, and that rear tire blew. Never saw the tread. The remains were two beads connected by maybe hundreds of individual strings.

Adding insult to injury, one of the lug nuts had been cross threaded tight with an air powered impact wrench. Broke that stud off by jumping up and down on a “+” wrench. 

[Borg warner]

1959 Dodge Custom Royal

 

 

[deputy tom]

9 hours ago, Borg warner said:

Right about the 442, but GTO was an abbreviation for GOAT which stood for Greatest Of All Time. Actually I graduated High school in 1966 and one guy I knew, his mom bought a 64 GTO with a 389, 4 speed, 4  barrel dual exhaust positraction and he got to drive it sometimes. But that Goat was nowhere as fast as another friend's '65 442 that had a 400 inch Olds big block and the two of them even raced and it was no contest. That 442 would have been even faster with slicks but with the bias belted tires of the time he could hardly keep the tires from going up in smoke that car had so much power. what he would do was have 3 of us guys sit in the back seat to keep the tires from spinning but then the added weight didn't help.

Here's a picture of a 1965 442 EXACTLY like the one my friend had. Same color same factory wheels. it was a beautiful car.

I had one back in the day. Same color but with American Racing mags and red line tires. I showed my wife this pic. She said it looks just like ours. tom.

[gwalchmai]

10 hours ago, Borg warner said:

Right about the 442, but GTO was an abbreviation for GOAT which stood for Greatest Of All Time. Actually I graduated High school in 1966 and one guy I knew, his mom bought a 64 GTO with a 389, 4 speed, 4  barrel dual exhaust positraction and he got to drive it sometimes. But that Goat was nowhere as fast as another friend's '65 442 that had a 400 inch Olds big block and the two of them even raced and it was no contest. That 442 would have been even faster with slicks but with the bias belted tires of the time he could hardly keep the tires from going up in smoke that car had so much power. what he would do was have 3 of us guys sit in the back seat to keep the tires from spinning but then the added weight didn't help.

Here's a picture of a 1965 442 EXACTLY like the one my friend had. Same color same factory wheels. it was a beautiful car.

My HS friend Joe had a 65ish 442 like that but a ragtop. It was awesome. And dangerous. His mom finally talked him into selling it, and he got a lime green 68 Goat with a 389 and flexible plumbing pipes for exhaust . He was taking his mom to a doctor's appointment in the Goat one day and one of the wheels fell off at highway speed. No one was hurt but upon examination they found all the lugnuts were loose. Joe attributed it to an ongoing feud he was having with one of our classmates. High school...

[Schmidt Meister]

19 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

Did 442 originally stand for 4 barrels, 4 speeds, and two exhaust pipes? And GTO for "Gas, Tires, and Oil"?

While Pontiac went with an abbreviation of (English) Grand Touring Homologato, (Italian) Gran Turismo Omologato, ("grand tourer homologated which means officially certified for racing in the grand tourer class). Olds went with a shortened numerical indicator “442.” When the package for the A-body F-85 and Cutlass launched in 1964, the moniker stood for four-barrel carburetor, four-speed transmission, and dual exhaust, although the reasoning for the name changed in ’65. Pontiac had broken GM’s internal rule for banning midsize cars from using engines larger than 330 cubic inches when it installed the 389 V-8 in the GTO, and once the floodgates were open, Oldsmobile adopted a 400-cu-in V-8 for 1965, and the meaning behind 442 changed to 400-cu-in engine, four-barrel carb, and dual exhaust. That meant that beginning in 1965, 442s could be equipped with automatic transmissions.

[gwalchmai]

13 hours ago, Batesmotel said:

GTO

Gran Turismo Omologato.

Basically Grand Touring Automobile.

Omologato is Italian for Honkey Cat.

[Schmidt Meister]

Mike's Garage

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