Vintage M/T Review: 1968 Oldsmobile Hurst/Olds – Olds Breaks The Rules, Hurst Runs Interference

 

Between 1965 and 1969, General Motors corporate policy limited most smaller GM cars to engines no bigger than 400 cubic inches, with no more than 1 rated horsepower per 10 pounds of curb weight. In 1968, Oldsmobile broke that rule with a limited-production model called the Hurst/Olds, a specially trimmed midsize Cutlass with a hot version of Oldsmobile’s big 455 cu. in. engine. Motor Trend tried the Hurst/Olds in September 1968, and found that it offered scorching performance even with air conditioning.

 

Before I get into the particulars of this car and its performance, I want to set the record straight on one very important point. The 1968–1969 Hurst/Olds was a car built on a fiction: the (false) pretense that it was actually aftermarket specialist Hurst-Campbell, not Oldsmobile, that installed the big 455 engine in this specially trimmed Cutlass, and so it was therefore not technically a violation of corporate policy.

 

Oldsmobile’s June 25, 1968 press release announcing this car cautiously asserted that the Hurst/Olds had “Hurst modifications done by Demmer Engineering in Lansing.” That much was true, but this equivocal statement soon gave rise to an oft-repeated rumor that Oldsmobile had shipped a batch of engineless cars and a batch of 455 engines to Demmer to put together. You’ll still occasionally hear people repeating that claim today, but it wasn’t true, and Oldsmobile eventually admitted as much. The division’s official history, Setting the Pace: Oldsmobile’s First 100 Years, published by the Oldsmobile Public Relations Department in 1996, states unequivocally that “the cars actually arrived at Demmer with the 455 already installed.” Demmer’s role was to add the special paint, trim pieces, and emblems, and to install the Hurst Dual-Gate shifter and center console that were part of the package.

 

Olds press materials claimed that the Hurst/Olds “was conceived for Hurst by Jack (Doc) Watson, well known to automotive enthusiasts as an innovator of special event vehicles and for his many contributions to the advancement of motor sports throughout the United States,” and said that the car was a reproduction of a one-off created for Hurst-Campbell president George Hurst.

 

That was also true, more or less, but the real father of the Hurst/Olds project was Oldsmobile chief engineer John Beltz.

 

Like John DeLorean, to whom he was often compared, John Beltz was a dynamic and somewhat iconoclastic engineer who also proved to be an outstanding manager and leader. Watson, who had known Beltz since 1965, later described him as “a maverick,” noting, “He wanted to do things, yet he was a corporate player and knew were the boundaries were. [He] knew I was the only shot he had to get past the boundaries.” Together, they had conceived the idea of a big-engine “super 4-4-2” that would help to boost Oldsmobile’s image with the performance crowd. The Olds sales and marketing organization hated the idea, certain they would be unable to sell even a limited run of 500 cars, but Beltz managed to push it through, with such confident nonchalance that Watson worried it might jeopardize his imminent promotion to Oldsmobile general manager.

 

Why DIDN’T Oldsmobile just have Demmer install the policy-violating big engines, as they implied they had? As DeLorean had found out a year or so earlier when he had explored the idea of a Hurst Firebird with a 428 engine, both shipping engineless cars and arranging out-of-house engine swaps involved big logistical headaches and presented policy challenges of their own, but the biggest problem for Oldsmobile was warranty liability: Olds didn’t want to ask dealers to sell new Oldsmobiles not covered by the factory warranty, and they didn’t want to offer factory warranty coverage on engines the factory didn’t install. Having the engines installed on the regular Oldsmobile assembly line was a policy violation, but it involved less legal risk.

One of the advantages of presenting the Hurst/Olds as “one-of-a-kind” custom job was that it allowed Oldsmobile to market it as something new and special rather than just a 4-4-2 with a bigger engine and special paint (which is what it was, down to the VIN).

 

Motor Trend editor Bill Sanders happily ran with that idea, offering this fanciful introduction:

“Tromp on it, baby, lay a stretch!” The taunt remains, branded on your psyche with irreverent laughter. A dilettante without portfolio in the hustling world of exotic street machines, you’re tired of getting dusted off at every stop light. Savoring your new found affluence, you’re hot for a hot car, but an enigmatic choice presents itself. You no longer make it with the Pepsi Generation — you’re over 30 and nobody trusts you. You’re in that group who remember when ice trucks still made neighborhood deliveries and Frank Sinatra wore a bow tie. Face it, man, just settle for a family sedan.

Wait! Hold it! You just lucked out The American “Supercar” has taken one step beyond: enter the “Executive Hot Rod,” a set of wheels that can run in the Woodward Ave. “500,” cool little old ladies on Colorado Blvd., then black-tie-it at the Sheraton Cadillac or Beverly Hilton without even going through a car wash. Now you can turn e.ts in the low 14s while running in air conditioned comfort.

Something that’s always puzzled me about this car is the frequent assertion that the Hurst/Olds was some kind of highly tasteful executive hot rod that could pass muster in polite society. Granting that the 1968 Hurst/Olds was less gaudy than the white-and-gold 1969 iteration or some of the candy-colored Mopars that followed, I’m skeptical. The Peruvian Silver paint (which Olds described as “competition silver,” although it was actually a Toronado color) was restrained; the stripes and the big swath of black paint on the decklid were not, and I fear the red plastic fender liners and Super Stock styled wheels would have gone over poorly at the valet line for the Beverly Hilton.

 

In today’s more casual climate, an affluent executive driving a flashy sports car barely even qualifies as eccentric, but in 1968, I don’t think greasy hot-rodders were substantially more socially acceptable than dirty hippies (which is to say hardly at all). Showing up to a black-tie event in an obvious muscle car like this would have been a highly provocative gesture, probably not in a good way.

 

Sanders continued:

[Doc] Watson had two ideas in mind for developing the Hurst-Olds. First, he felt there was a market for a comfortable supercar, one that would handle acceptably, as well as turn wild quarter-mile times. As he told us, “I wanted a car that would give all the acceleration you want in the straight, but wouldn’t look like a floundering duck in the corners.” His second approach was to make a car available to the newly emerging affluent market of people who wanted more luxury in their cars. The Hurst-Olds fills his prerequisite of “Poise, Personality and Performance” completely.

The U.S. market was increasingly affluent in the late ’60s, but this sounds more like a rationalization for the price of the Hurst/Olds, which was fairly high, especially with air conditioning (a $360.19 option). While its all-black vinyl interior was fairly luxurious by intermediate standards, the Hurst/Olds was really only more luxurious than a Cutlass Supreme or 4-4-2 in that it had a strip of walnut veneer on the dashboard — which was real wood, although its integration with the dashboard controls looked a bit crude.

 

The Hurst/Olds did offer optional air conditioning, but you could also get that on all but the most exotic contemporary muscle cars, so it wasn’t particularly unique in that respect.

 

Sanders next moved on to the really important stuff:

The Hurst-Olds is available in two stages of tuning. Jack met us in Detroit with two cars and we headed for the Detroit Dragway to put a few runs on each. A SUPER-supercar should out-perform its contemporaries, and this was accomplished for the Hurst-Olds by replacing the standard 400-cu.-in., 4-4-2 engine with a specially prepared 455-cu.-in. powerplant, complete with a forced-air induction system. Special features of the engine include high-performance cylinder heads; a high-lift, long-duration camshaft; special carburetor jetting; a special distributor curve; and a specially machined crankshaft These modifications have boosted the horsepower rating on the 455-cu.-in. mill to 390 hp at 5000 rpm.

With air conditioning, which only 153 of the 1968 cars had, the Hurst/Olds had the W-46 version of the Rocket 455 V-8, which combined the block of the Toronado W-34 engine with the “C” heads and milder camshaft used in the 4-4-2 with automatic. W-46 valve timing wasn’t terribly hot by muscle car standards — 278 degrees intake duration, 282 degrees exhaust, 47 degrees of overlap.

 

Without air conditioning, the Hurst/Olds got the W-45 engine, which had the freer-breathing “D” heads from the W-30 4-4-2 and a different camshaft with more duration, more lift, and more overlap (82 degrees). Both engines were advertised at the same 390 gross horsepower and 500 lb-ft of torque, although the W-45 was a bit more powerful.

 

Both Hurst/Olds engines had heavy-duty cooling and Force-Air Induction, which Roger Huntington had previously demonstrated was really effective at increasing real-world power, delivering colder, denser air to the carburetor and providing a noticeable ram effect at higher speeds.

 

Although the AMA specifications filed in March 1968 indicated that the Hurst/Olds would be available with close- or wide-ratio four-speed manual gearboxes, and a couple of demonstration cars had four-speeds, all the actual production cars had Turbo Hydra-Matic with the aforementioned Dual-Gate shifter. Sanders explained:

Watson has incorporated a special transmission valve body and modified Turbo Hydra-Matic and finished it off with the Hurst Dual-Gate shifter. The Dual-Gate gives complete flexibility to the automatic, with full manual operation plus peak automatic performance. Advantages of the Dual-Gate are readily apparent under difficult handling conditions, with features such as the neutral loc-out that eliminates overshifting third into neutral and possibly blowing the engine. In the Drive position, quick bleeddowns give instantaneous shifting without any lag.

I assume the modified valve body came from Hydra-Matic Division and was installed by Oldsmobile along with the engine; the only thing Demmer did with the transmission was to install the console-mounted Hurst Dual-Gate shifter.

 

The only axle ratios available on the Hurst/Olds were 3.08, with air conditioning, or 3.91, without air. The AMA specs also list 3.23 and 3.42 ratios, which weren’t actually offered for sale, although some owners installed them after the fact.

 

Interestingly, Motor Trend apparently decided the “executive hot rod” concept was enough of a hook that they recorded performance figures for the W-46 A/C car, with its mild 3.08 axle, rather than the hotter W-45/3.91 combination. M/T also presented comparative acceleration figures with the air conditioning running, something they occasionally did for luxury cars. Although this wasn’t a recipe for ultimate drag strip performance, the results were still impressive enough:

1968 Hurst/Olds Performance, 3.08 Axle (2 Aboard)

Acceleration	With A/C On	With A/C Off
0–30 mph	2.80 secs.	2.65 secs.
0–45 mph	4.10 secs.	4.10 secs.
0–60 mph	6.65 secs.	6.65 secs.
0–75 mph	8.25 secs.	8.25 secs.
Standing start ¼ mile	14.28 secs. at 94.36 mph	13.97 secs. at 97.30 mph
Passing, 40–60 mph	3.0 secs., 219.6 feet	2.8 secs., 204.9 feet
Passing, 50–70 mph	3.5 secs., 308 feet	3.3 secs., 290.4 feet

 

Obviously, anyone interested in serious street racing or actual competition would have foregone air conditioning in favor of the W-45 engine, and might have been tempted to substitute the optional 4.33 axle gears available on the 4-4-2 for the standard 3.91. Hot Rod claimed a best quarter-mile E.T. of 13.9 seconds at 103 mph for a W-45 Hurst/Olds (although I don’t have a copy of that test, so I don’t know how much tweaking it might have involved). Car Craft found that adding a set of Hooker headers and drag slicks was enough to break into the high 12s.

 

Nonetheless, even the air conditioned Hurst/Olds was over a second quicker through the quarter mile than the 1966 Tri-Power 4-4-2 Motor Trend had previously tested, and a second and a half quicker than their 1967 4-4-2, which had the same Turbo Hydra-Matic and 3.08 axle. The Hurst/Olds was no lightweight — curb weight with air conditioning was around 3,900 lb — but it had plenty of muscle.

 

Chassis-wise, the Hurst/Olds was basically just a 4-4-2 with bigger G70-14 Wide Oval tires. In addition to the usual heavy-duty components, the 4-4-2 suspension was relatively unusual among contemporary sporty cars in having a rear anti-roll bar, which helped to mitigate the A-body’s strong understeer. By modern standards, it wasn’t what you’d call nimble (in an April 1992 Hurst/Olds “Retrospect” feature, Motor Trend editor C. Van Tune snarked, “Driving one today makes you wonder what was considered poor handling by comparison”), but many contemporary domestic cars were a lot worse.

 

Oldsmobile noted that the 4-4-2 suspension was “highly acclaimed by most enthusiast magazine editors,” and Sanders found the layout equally impressive on the Hurst/Olds:

Oldsmobile has given the U.S. public one of the better American-type GT suspensions on the standard 4-4-2 and this ride and handling package has been tuned to perfection on the Hurst-Olds. Without detracting from the suspension, much handling credit must be given to the Goodyear Wide Oval G70 Polyglas tires which are standard on the H-O. Even under the most abusive treatment minimum stability deflection or sidewall distortion occurs, keeping steering neutral in most situations and putting more horsepower on the road for maximum traction. The non air-conditioned package with 3.01:1 [sic] rear end transmits a much more stable road feel during heavy cornering situations. Although the 3.08:1 rear end doesn’t transfer maximum torque to the road instantly, which results in a tendency to oversteer, this can be rectified beautifully by downshifting to second, bringing up higher rpms and consequently increased torque. Second gear then approximates the 3.91:1 rear-end torque range in high, maintaining a more neutral steering situation and a better all around power and braking balance.

Incidentally, the Oldsmobile Rocket 455 engine wasn’t any heavier than the Rocket 400, so while the Hurst/Olds was still nose-heavy, it wasn’t any more so than the regular 4-4-2, which also made do with narrower F70-14 tires.

 

Power disc/drum brakes were a mandatory option on the Hurst/Olds, and worked fairly well, although I don’t know what to make of Motor Trend‘s claimed 91-foot 60 to 0 stopping distance. For whatever it’s worth, Sanders remarked, “each of the several panic stops we made were witnessed and measured by three unbiased helpers who are still shaking their heads,” but I’m dubious.

The photo captions above read, “(Right) Cornering is flat and stable with mild understeer on 4-4-2 suspension and wide Polyglas tires. (Above) Street racers invariably look for tell-tale air intakes below bumper. (Below) Large doses of cool air through ducts keep big mill going strong. (Above) Tremendous torque of 455-cu. in. engine gets Hurst/Olds off line like ‘right now’ at drag strip. Wide tires aid traction here, too.”

 

Sanders noted that despite its heavy-duty suspension, the Hurst/Olds rode well:

Riding comfort is about the same as that of a 4-4-2 or a Cutlass Supreme with police suspension, but may be just a little harder, a compromise for the added stability. The stiffer ride was only noticed on washboard or rippled country roads. On a freeway it was superb.

He concluded:

There is little to fault with this car. All the modifications have heightened an already good package and any minor inconveniences are almost unnoticed now. It’s still basically a 4-4-2 or Cutlass shell, but the bucket seats, adjustable steering wheel and dash arrangement are still among the best we’ve found in ’68. By using the Hurst shifter a center console glovebox has to be omitted, but that is also a minor inconvenience.. Ride, low noise level and comfort are paramount in comparison to most super-type cars. With the Hurst-Olds you get uncompromising street and road performance and all the guts of a hot supercar, but with extra-wild engine noise and a concrete spring ride effect eliminated. Mr, Watson claims it’s a supercar that, “grows on you — not off you” and after a weekend of living in the car we are believers, For an average price, depending on what options you require, of between $4500 and $4900, the Hurst-Olds is one helluva bomb.

About the price: The $3,150 base price listed in the spec panel was for a base 4-4-2 Holiday coupe (NOT the pillared sports coupe, which was $63 cheaper). The Hurst-Olds equipment added $363.35, but you also had to separately order the Turbo Hydra-Matic ($236.97), power front disc brakes ($104.79), heavy-duty cooling ($21.06), and limited-slip differential ($42.13). So, the actual base price was $3,855.30 for the pillared coupe or $3,918.30 for the hardtop, which didn’t include power steering ($94.79), the Rocket Rally Pac gauge cluster ($84.26), or the woodgrain steering wheel ($31.60), which most cars had. Since the 1968 Hurst/Olds was a “limited quantity” special edition, I assume that most were fully loaded, with air conditioning the main variable.

 

Although the Oldsmobile sales organization hadn’t wanted any part of the Hurst-Olds, they eventually received about 3,000 orders. However, there was a limit to how fast Demmer could apply the special paint and cosmetic touches, so there were only 515 production cars for 1968 (not including a number of Hurst demonstrators, including four convertibles, that weren’t offered to the public).

 

Having gotten away with flaunting the rules in 1968, Oldsmobile gave it another shot in 1969, building another 906 Hurst-Olds cars. This time, they were all Cameo White with Firefrost Gold stripes:

 

The very conspicuous rear spoiler and cop-baiting boxy hood scoops with engine call-outs laid to rest all the “gentleman’s hot rod” pretense.

 

The subterfuge was the same as before: Olds installed the powertrain, Demmer did the cosmetic stuff, Hurst took the credit (or the blame). I’m quite certain that at least some senior GM executives knew what was actually going on, but the numbers involved were small, and the pretense was plausible enough that no one made a fuss. Despite Watson’s fears, it also didn’t prevent John Beltz from being promoted to Oldsmobile general manager in May 1969. (He died only three years later, at the age of 46.)

GM relented on the displacement limit for 1970, which made the Hurst/Olds redundant. However, it had been good publicity, so there were a number of reprises between 1972 and 1984.

 

As Chrysler demonstrated with the Plymouth GTX and other 440-engined intermediates, GM’s displacement limit was ultimately a bit silly. The Hurst/Olds was a fast car, but in stock form, even the somewhat hotter W-45 version didn’t represent any really catastrophic escalation in performance relative to the other first-rank Supercars of its time.

 

Much like the 440 Magnum/Super Commando, the great strength of the warmed-up Olds 455 was that it offered strong performance with minimal strain. You could add headers, glass packs, frantic axle ratios, and the usual muscle car hop-up stuff, but you didn’t have to — as the Motor Trend figures above demonstrated, the big engine let you administer an awful lot of hurt without even switching off your air conditioning.

Related Reading

Vintage Motor Trend Comparison: 1967 Oldsmobile Cutlass Turnpike Cruiser And 4-4-2 — Performance And Economy (by Rich Baron)
Vintage Car & Driver Road Test: 1967 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 — “It’s The Best handling Car Of Its Type We’ve Ever Tested” (by Paul N)
Vintage C/D Review: 1969 Oldsmobile Cutlass S W-31 – “The Difference Between Transportation And A Trip” (by me)