My oh my, what do we have here today? A 1975 W-25 Hurst Olds Cutlass for sale near the old triple-wide here on the North Coast (Ohio) with an asking price $24,900.
On the very tail end of the muscle car era, many would say, me included, it was already dead and buried by then, Oldsmobile continued to sell a Cutlass with a Hurst shifter, some "sporty" ornamentation, and larger roll bars. W-30 versions of this car came with Olds' 190-horsepower, 455-cubic inch V-8, don't call it a "Rocket" as they dropped that moniker for 1975, meanwhile our subject here makes do with the 170-horsepower Oldsmobile 350. Again, it ain't no "Rocket". Literally and figuratively.
This iteration of the venerable bestselling Cutlass first debuted in 1973 and is part of GM's polarizing "Colonnade" series of intermediate that included a gaggle of makes and models across all of GM's divisions save for Cadillac.
And why Cadillac never offered one is a question for the ages. If they did, no doubt it would have sold quite well, and Cadillac wouldn't have had to come with their Chevrolet Nova based Seville either. Can you imagine what Bill Mitchell's crew could have done with this large of canvas?
Anyway, through my foggy goggles, of all the GM "Colannades", of which I'm generally a fan of, I think Olds designers missed the boat on these. From certain angles it's plain dowdy looking to me, like something Granny would drive. Derided for their massiveness, again they were allegedly intermediates, our '75 here suffers the additional ignominy of having its opera windows covered over, I guess they thought it made it look NASCAR-ish? Who knows but holy blind spots, Batman. Things got better for 1976 before Mr. Mitchell showered his pixie dust on the '77's. right before retiring. After that, everything went to hell in a t-topped hand basket.
If you're here you probably know of the story of not only the Olds 4-4-2's but of Oldsmobile's on again, off again relationship with Hurst Transmissions of Warminster, Pennsylvania. The partnership started in 1968 and ran through 1975, then again in 1979 and finally 1983-1984. If anything, a "Hurst\Olds" looked sporty and powerful which I've always thought played against the Oldsmobile "type", but what do I know. Oldsmobile popped Cutlass' out like movie theaters pop popcorn and America gobbled them up. Amazing still that less than thirty-years later Oldsmobile went belly-up.
Fun fact, before the "Lightning Rod" 1983-1984 H/O's, more H\O's were sold in 1975 than in any year prior which is somewhat ironic given it was the height of the "Malaise Era"; performance cars were verboten. Some 2,500 of them with roughly half being W-30's and W-25's,
You could get your '75 H\O in either "Cameo White" or "Ebony Black". Swivel buckets, t-tops and even a hood ornament on our subject here.
Don't be call clogging my email for more information on this now. Please.
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