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Pleased with their results, for '69 engineers turned up the heat on their performance Olds. The special "W-30" package was offered to the speed needy, a throaty "Force-Air" inducted 360 hp version of the 400 CID V-8. Tricked out with special grille, stripes and unique identification cues these unforgettable motion machines were benighted with heavy-duty drive shafts, special handling packages, heavy-duty wheels and a wicked straight-through exhaust system. Just to be extra safe, Oldsmobile's also added side-impact bars which were welded into the doors and head rests became mandatory equipment on all vehicles. A 455 CID V-8 churning out 365 horsepower was introduced. It would be the largest ever offered. The bore was now 4.057 while the stroke was shortened up to 3.385 inches. A special honor was bestowed in 1970, for the third time in the division's history an Oldsmobile would pace the Indianapolis 500. An Olds 88 had done the job in 1948, a much larger Olds 98 had served in 1960. Now a Cutlass 4-4-2 convertible would do brickyard duty at the most prestigious automobile race in the world.
Jim and Audrey Frey of Coleville, Saskatchewan own this 1970
Oldsmobile 4-4-2 convertible. Jim swapped a restored '57 Chevy for the ragtop nearly twenty years ago while ice fishing with a buddy,
who--good guy that he was threw in a rebuilt motor and a paint job. This Olds has the 455 CID
V-8 with 400 Turbo-Hydramatic transmission and 327 Posi-Trac rear axle. This GM offering is just not another pretty automotive face, either. The Frey's Olds hauled two kids and a big dog around all summer for years and even today the 4-4-2 easily zips pasts transport trucks while hauling a 17-foot trailer on family holidays. CC |
Production tumbled by nearly a third in 1970 despite even beefier
performance packages. Insurance companies sounded the death knell for the entire muscle car genre as accidents climbed.
"Four-barrel, "four-on-the-floor" and even "bucket seats" became dirty words that
automatically shot insurance policies into the stratosphere. In 1971 just
over 7,000 of the hot Oldsmobile's would be produced and for the last two years of its life,
4-4-2 was reduced to an option on Cutlass 'S' models.