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-   -   1984 Olds Cutlas Factory Drag Car? (https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthread.php?t=175772)

R68GTO 06-03-2023 06:48 PM

1984 Olds Cutlas Factory Drag Car?
 
A friend of mine that has been a drag racer all his life purchased a 1984 cutlass drag car a few years ago. Someone at the strip this spring told him he had one of a very few factory drag cars that were shipped without a VIN from Oldsmobile. Anyone ever heard of this? The car does not have a VIN and is equipped with an aluminum hood.

John Brown 06-03-2023 07:00 PM

Aluminum hoods and trunk lids were actually quite common. No vin tag cars were sometimes given to schools for use in shop classes. Without proof of where it came from, it's pretty hard to tell.

tom406 06-04-2023 01:13 AM

I actually do remember reading about no-VIN Cutlasses sold to racers in the late 80s, here’s some more chat. I think they were more complete than body-in-whites, but not complete or street legal or registerable.

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...ag-car-164838/

I think the first car in this video is one of them as well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC3IweOk2fo

R68GTO 06-04-2023 11:06 AM

Thanks for the thread link Tom. Very interesting that in that thread they mention that car had a 1988 front end on it. My friends car is the same....1984 main body with a 1987 front end. I'll ask him if his has a similar sticker in the trunk.
BTW, the Cutlass in the video looks just like my friends.

83hurstguy 06-06-2023 02:43 PM

Olds provided quite a few of them to racers back in the 80s, and there were a handful of them still racing in stock eliminator/super stock a few years ago. You likely won't be able to find any factory records on what was provided. Another Olds forum that had a bunch of posts about them ~10 years ago is gone.

It's probably worth a post on classracer.com asking about them. The racing community tends to have a pretty good insight on this stuff. Names that come to mind are Jerry Ryan and Alan Warman, though Alan passed away a few years ago.

PeteLeathersac 06-06-2023 03:13 PM



Heard of them before too but know nothing, love to see and learn more!
Even though no VIN Tags, interesting would be if any Hidden Vins also what they are specifically.
If there are any Hiddens, being Canada Vintage Services has details for ‘77 and newer GM Vins available, these uncompleted and/or shipped vehicles wouldn’t be included w/ their GM records, would they?:hmmm:
:beers:
~ Pete

.

Dave Rifkin 06-06-2023 04:28 PM

If I recall correctly, they were prepped by Ed Quay.

67BelAir427 06-07-2023 11:06 AM

Body in white
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by PeteLeathersac (Post 1624113)


Heard of them before too but know nothing, love to see and learn more!
Even though no VIN Tags, interesting would be if any Hidden Vins also what they are specifically.
If there are any Hiddens, being Canada Vintage Services has details for ‘77 and newer GM Vins available, these uncompleted and/or shipped vehicles wouldn’t be included w/ their GM records, would they?:hmmm:
:beers:
~ Pete

.

Pete, you should call Jim Wildgoose in Stoney Creek . He has one that came from the factory. Never seen the street.

67BelAir427 06-07-2023 11:11 AM

1 Attachment(s)
Picture of Jim's car. He told me it was shipped as a body in white from the factory. Never did ask him about how the Landau Roof came about ? But you can call him
and ask.

R68GTO 08-31-2023 11:55 PM

Checked back in with my buddy. His car has a VIN sticker in the trunk. Comes back as a 1985 cutlass with a Diesel engine. It was built as a black car with factory T-tops. It has an aluminum hood, trunk lid, and core support. He's now digging around the World Wide Web trying to find out more about it. He has not yet found any others with the aluminum core support or built with T-tops.

Thanks for the info guys, he's off and running!

Gary Anderson 09-01-2023 12:29 AM

FWIW

https://www.racingjunk.com/stock-sup...1&np_offset=16

markinnaples 09-01-2023 12:41 PM

Super interesting topic. And to me, kind of crazy that they would offer a body in white (or close to it if not that specifically) with T-tops.

drce500 09-07-2023 03:59 PM

1 Attachment(s)
Those cars weren't body in white cars. They were all test vehicles from GM. A large number of the Cutlass bodies had been diesel test cars, some with tons of miles on them. They did the same with the Olds Ciera race cars. Arlen Fadely was in charge of the program, same guy who did the same at Ford before that. SS&DI magazine had a series on him years before buiding the orange Maverick out of a body in white. Pontiac did the same, The Rod Shop Transam that Larry Morgan raced in Super Stock was a running driving car, Larry and i drive it around before he took it apart, it also was a T Top car which wasnt ideal but were left in it and wasnt a problem with the roll cage added.

R68GTO 09-07-2023 10:44 PM

Were the aluminum body panels used in production cutlasses in the mid-80's or were they added once the test car was designated for the race program? I wonder why the 1985 body test cars ended up with 1987 front ends?

Vern B 09-08-2023 02:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drce500 (Post 1631413)
Those cars weren't body in white cars. They were all test vehicles from GM. A large number of the Cutlass bodies had been diesel test cars, some with tons of miles on them. They did the same with the Olds Ciera race cars. Arlen Fadely was in charge of the program, same guy who did the same at Ford before that. SS&DI magazine had a series on him years before buiding the orange Maverick out of a body in white. Pontiac did the same, The Rod Shop Transam that Larry Morgan raced in Super Stock was a running driving car, Larry and i drive it around before he took it apart, it also was a T Top car which wasnt ideal but were left in it and wasnt a problem with the roll cage added.

To go along with this, from the early 80’s thru the late 80’s I used to see lots of mostly Buick’s and Old’s cars on the roads of Northern Michigan. They usually travelled in groups of 5-10 cars and as many as 3 groups a day putting miles on test cars. They would leave Detroit in early am, head north on east side of lower peninsula to Mackinac, then down the west side of the Lower Peninsula, then back to Detroit, 300-350 miles a day. Next day it was a different group of drivers and cars, or perhaps some of the same. I talked to drivers several times at lunch, or rest breaks and their accounts were they were mileage and other engineering testing.

There was a lot of new engineering going into cars back then, engines, fuel injection, transmissions, anti lock brakes, front wheel drive and more.

I’d bet anything all those cars weren’t scrapped and some of them made it out the back door, whether they were sold as pseudo race cars with no vin, who knows. If some of them were high miles, this could have been the source.

drce500 09-08-2023 04:16 AM

I don't remember anymore why or when but the aluminum stuff was assembly line, i wanta say it was on the diesel cars but don't remember for sure. Yes, some of the cars given to drag racers were totally whipped mechanically, the Cutlass given to Ron Garey still had some test instrumentation mounted. All of these cars had the vin tags removed mostly because of a case of FORD cars given away and resold which created a big stink

drce500 09-08-2023 04:24 AM

Those cars would have been crushed anyway so meant nothing to GM money wise. Some of the stuff they junked that i would see at the Tech Center and wind tunnel in Warren was heartbreaking

83hurstguy 09-08-2023 01:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by R68GTO (Post 1631436)
Were the aluminum body panels used in production cutlasses in the mid-80's or were they added once the test car was designated for the race program? I wonder why the 1985 body test cars ended up with 1987 front ends?

Aluminum core supports were an assembly line '78-80 item. The '81-up didn't get them. If I remember right they require some trimming in the headlight area for the '81-up Cutlass. It's long been a popular retrofit for front end weight reduction for all G-bodies.

Aluminum hoods were production parts and were originally thought to be a diesel car item for front end weight reduction, but people reported having them on original 307 powered cars too. I had one for my old '83 H/O and it was crazy how light it was compared to the steel hood.

The aluminum deck lid could be the rarest part if that's truly aluminum... the '78-80 cars had some aluminum deck lids, but I don't know that I'm aware of an '81-up aluminum trunk.

Updating the front end of a racecar to be the current model year was popular back then, especially if you had factory backing or a potential different class you could run in. The 70 cutlass factory-backed race cars were updated to '71 and '72 front ends. Wouldn't surprise me if it was the same in the 80's.

69hurstSC 09-12-2023 07:05 PM

Visions of Warren Johnson come to mind.

Pro Stock John 09-12-2023 08:32 PM

So has anyone posted anything to show it was a race car BIW / giveaway, I don't see a pic of the invoice. Seems like it was just a fleet / test car that was given away like they would to schools.

Gary Anderson 10-03-2023 01:57 AM

http://classracer.com/classforum/showthread.php?t=85871


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