In addition to realoldspower.com, try 442.com and classicoldsmobile.com (though both of these seem to have frequent problems with being dog-slow or completely dead). By the way, you won't win many friends in the Oldsmobile community by using the word Gutlass.
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Never heard an Oldsmobile "fan" use that before...just troublemakers and clowns. Which one of those mentioned works best depends upon what you're looking for. If you have really thick skin, there's highperformanceolds.com...anything goes and self policing...:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
"By the way, you won't win many friends in the Oldsmobile community by using the word Gutlass." Dave, He's just jealous.:laugh: Duane
It's cute, but just so wrong. At the risk of turning this into a brand-bashing session, was there another GM division that made a better 350 ci engine? Not in my opinion.
GM Central office sure supported that. They started dictating whose engines went into whose cars in the mid to late 70's. Lots of Olds 350's went into a lot of other GM brands then, especially California cars due to their stricter emissions. Where they really screwed up, was committing the Olds 350 diesel across the board on everything from pickup trucks to Eldorados. Olds was not happy about that as it ate up all their capacity to the point where they didn't have enough to put in their own marque cars. That engine was not ready for an across the board application. It was a joint manufacturing/product engineering exercise to see what could be done on existing facilities for the future supply. The engineers I know that were on that program would never have been involved in that if they knew what GM corporate was planning. Corporate did the same thing with the new transmission from Hydramatic at that time. They raced it into production way before it was fully developed and tested. Pity the customers that bought new Cadillacs with that 350 diesel and the new transmission (T375?) That would never have happened if the divisions were allowed to call their own shots on program timing...like they had been highly successful doing for 50+ years at that time. Interesting that Hydramatic took the hit for the transmission and Olds took the hit for the Chevy engines in Oldsmobiles labeled "Rocket Power". How stupid. That is the same central office marketing group that came up with the great promotion campaign "Not your fathers' Oldsmobile"..when 54% of new car purchases were previous Oldsmobile owners. Nice move... The term Gutlass (spelling intentional) arose from the people that grew up with Oldsmobiles with no engines in them. That was the image corporate wanted for the brand. Olds had the engines, 403 for example, or could have worked with Buick (like they had in the past) with the 3.8 turbo for the mid 80's 442's and especially the 83-84 Hurst Olds. A G body Cutlass gets exciting real fast with a 403, especially with earlier, smaller chamber heads (1972 and older). The nodular crank from the same era cars (68-72) is a must as the 307 and 403 cranks are soft and develop knocks and spun bearings at around 100k depending upon maintenance. Use of the earlier 64-67 330 cranks takes it to the next level as they were forged...Other than the bolt pattern for the flexplate/flywheel, they were identical to the later cast cranks and a drop-in. That bolt pattern change from the early ones was to coordinate with the different balancing strategy, nothing else. The other term hard core Oldsmobile fanatics, like myself, find amusing is when someone calls them a "Cutty"...:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: You can guess the age group easily there.....
That's how I referred to the '72 Cutlass Supreme I drove in high school 30 some years ago. 350-2 Gutlass. Loved that car though.
One of my 72 Cutlass Supremes was a 455 with a 3.42 rear end. That would have impressed you. Drove that car to work (Ford Engineering in Dearborn) for 2 years in the early 90's. Had a steady diet of 5.0 Mustangs in a never ending supply. Besides to and from work, we could usually pick up something on the way to and from lunch. Yum, Yum.....fun :laugh: :laugh: There were also the "Buttless Cutlasses" in 78,79, and 80....hands down the most ridiculous and ugly Oldsmobile ever.
I used to drive a '72 350 2 bbl Cutlass as well, though it was an S, not Supreme. With all due respect, yours must not have been in a good state of tune, because there was absolutely nothing gut-less about mine. My very next car was a '70 350 2-bbl Skylark. It was a noticable step down in the guts category (but still a good driver). I think that Dave nailed it: the Gutlass term became popular in the G-body years ('78? to '88) when the majority of Cutlasses sold came with a 260 or 307 with tight converter and highway gears. Hot rods they weren't. (The Hurst/Olds and 442s being a pleasant and fun exception.) And Olds sold hundreds of thousands of these cars (I believe it was GMs #1 seller for several years?), so many people had the unfortunate experience. Of course, it didn't help that in the late 80s GM started calling almost all of Olds models "Cutlass."
Naw, it wasn't all that bad. I went through a lot of rear tires because it was good at lighting them up. :3gears:
Not that this matters, but the "Gutless" nickname wasn't created by anti-Oldsmobile enthusiasts in the 60's and 70's, that nickname was first used for the F7U Vought Cutlass, a carrier-based Navy fighter back in the 1950's. The F7U Cutlass was underpowered, and pilots dubbed it the "Gutless Cutlass".
Gutlass indeed. My mom had a 78 with the 260. It was a decent enough looking car, but .....NO POWER. I could damn near walk faster than that thing would go.
Gutless is one thing that can be easily rectified (I put a 68 350 in my 79 Brougham years back. But there is no fix for the Buttless Cutlass designs of 78-80. There's no hope for those things...
Ahhh...the old "Gutlass Buttless Cutlass", my father brought home a few of those back then (he was a GM exec). I think the only car uglier was the buttless Cadillac Seville of that era.
