A Hurst/Olds by chance
For one owner, a 1975 Olds 4-4-2 ended up with a matching Hurst/Olds purchase.
The Oldsmobile and Hurst Performance partnership produced 10 Hurst/Olds models during the 20-year, on-and-off partnership that began in 1968 with the pavement-pounding, high-horsepower models through the anemic last Aero “kit edition” for 1988.
Although suffering from the low-power engines of the mid 1970s, the 1975 Hurst/Olds was significant for several reasons. It was the last year to feature the 455-cid V-8 that had been the standard Hurst/Olds powerplant since the model was introduced in 1968. The “Hurst Hatch” T-top was first introduced to General Motors vehicles with the ’75 Hurst/Olds (and Buick Century Free Spirit) as a replacement to the convertible body style, GM having last offered an A-body convertible model in 1972. Catalytic convertors were now required, and the 1975 Hurst/Olds was the first to sell more than 2,000 units, delivering to customers 1,242 black cars and 1,293 white cars for a total of 2,535 1975 Hurst/Olds cars.
A survivor H/O
Jody Andrews of Clearwater, Fla., owns the featured pristine and heavily optioned 1975 Hurst/Olds. He’s owned his black W-30 Olds for 12 years, having purchased it from the original owners. It sports the original paint and has just 18,000 miles on the odometer.
Andrews has owned a black 1975 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 since the mid 1990s, so when he was approached at a car show by someone asking if he was interested in another ’75 Cutlass, he walked over to look at the car. As soon as he saw the car, Andrews knew what it was and he knew he wanted it.
“He didn’t know what it was,” Andrews says. The seller purchased the car new, later letting his son drive it. He left it outside and it suffered from the exposure.
“The T-tops leaked and the front seats and carpet were a mess,” Andrews says.
Despite these issues, restoring the Hurst/Olds to its current state was relatively easy. Andrews says he had to wet sand and buff the original paint to bring back the shine. The interior is where most of the work was needed. He replaced the headliner and carpet. The rear seats and interior panels just needed a good cleaning, but the front bucket seats had to be recovered.
New options for the 1975 H/Os
While colors other than black and white were offered for Hurst/Olds interiors during the 1975 model year, Andrews’ car features the white interior with the “Compaticolor” swivel front bucket seats. That meant the reversible seat-back cushions were white vinyl on one side and a black-white patterned cloth on the other.
Andrews’ car also features an optional tachometer mounted on the console in front of the Hurst Dual-Gate shifter. Hurst/Olds badging appears on the tach, the console and on the rear quarter trim panel.
Exterior color choices were limited to black or white with gold accent stripes. But for the first time, buyers could mix and match vinyl top colors (e.g., a white vinyl top on a black car). H/O hoods featured the same louvers used on that year’s 4-4-2 models. The cars also featured the Cutlass Salon grille, sports styled exterior mirrors and 15-inch Super Stock III wheels with raised-white-letter radial tires.
While almost all H/Os featured a hood ornament with Oldsmobile script, Andrews’ car features the ultra-rare oval ring with a Hurst logo in the center. Andrews says he’s only seen one other example of the emblem and it was not on a car, but displayed on a seller’s table at a swap meet.
1975: More show than go
Of the 2,535 H/O cars produced in 1975, fewer than half were equipped with the W30 option of the 455-cid V-8 (standard was the W25 350-cid V-8). The 455 engines in ’75 were weakened versions of the 1968 offering; while the ’68 455 produced 390 hp (gross) and 500 lb-ft of torque, the 1975 455 compared with 190 hp (net) and 350 lb-ft of torque.
While horsepower became measured with accessories in place by 1975, resulting in lower horsepower figures, the 1975 Olds 455 did produce fewer gross horsepwer than in 1968 due to emissions requirements that included lower compression ratios: the 1975 455 engines had a meager 8.5-1 compression ratio. A Rochester four-barrel carburetor rested on a cast-iron intake of the 1975 455, and all 1975 Hurst/Olds cars had automatic transmissions. While the 1968 H/O cars turned in quarter-miles times in the 13.7-second range at 102 mph, the 1975 models reflected the power-starved performance of mid-1970s cars with their comparably tortoise-like 17.7-second at 81-mph quarter-mile times.
The Hurst/Olds partnership
In the era of Hemi Chargers, SS 396 Chevelles, GTOs and Boss Mustangs, automakers worked with aftermarket performance shops and a few dealerships to create higher-powered models to meet the marketplace’s need for speed. For example, Chevrolet worked with dealers such as Yenko Chevrolet in Pennsylvania to produce 427 Camaros, Pontiac worked with Royal Pontiac in Michigan and Ford worked with Tasca Ford and Carroll Shelby to produce iconic performance Mustangs.
As these dealers have become synonymous with the car makers that they partnered with, Hurst has become associated with Oldsmobile, even though the aftermarket supplier also worked with other makes. That connection began when Hurst and Olds partnered to create the 455-cid V-8 Hurst/Olds of 1968. The Hurst/Olds was a way for Oldsmobile to get around General Motors’ edict that no engines greater than 400 cubic inches could be installed in the corporation’s mid-size A-body platform. It worked, and as far as anyone in the GM board room knew, Hurst was installing the 455s in Oldsmobile’s A-body Cutlass platform while all along, it was actually Oldsmobile itself.
The first Hurst/Olds in 1968 set the pattern for the model: Take a 4-4-2 and replace the 400-cid V-8 with a 455-cid V-8, add comfort features that would make the car stand out from the more low-option muscle cars at dealerships, add a Hurst shifter and exclusive paint scheme and voila! — you have a high-end performance car for the discerning enthusiast.
The 1975 Hurst/Olds was the sixth H/O model since 1968 and was based on the formal-roofed Cutlass Supreme model instead of the Colonade-roofed Cutlass as in 1973 and ’74. The Oldsmobiles destined for the Hurst treatment were assembled at Olds’ Lansing, Mich., plant, then transferred to the Hurst Performance Research facility in Brighton, Mich., for the H/O modifications that included installation of the unique vinyl top and trim pieces, gold stripes, Hurst shifter and H/O badging. On 1975 models optioned with Hurst Hatch T-tops, Hurst also completed that installation in Brighton. The completed H/O models were priced almost $1,100 more than the Cutlass Supreme models.
The Olds family connection
Andrews was raised in an Oldsmobile family. He says that his father died when he was 10 years old, and shortly after that, his mother bought a full-size Oldsmobile.
“I called it the ‘Big Yellow Boat,’” he says. “When I was in high school, she bought a ’72 Cutlass. I loved that car.”
In 1983, Andrews bought a 1975 Cutlass Supreme and drove the car until 1998, which is about the same time that he bought his 1975 4-4-2.
While a 1975 Hurst/Olds may not be as fast as the pavement pounders of the late 1960s, it is a unique and handsome reminder that performance wasn’t completely dead during the disco era. And after the 1975 edition, performance Oldsmobile fans would have to wait until 1979 for the next Hurst/Olds model.
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