I figured, but that was the only OLDS phantom I could think of right away (or at all).
Grand Prix 2+2 Notchback ?
- Thread starter HI85WH1
- Start date
- Status
I figured, but that was the only OLDS phantom I could think of right away (or at all).
for 69hurstolds : My favorite anecdote about my Rallye....one day on my way home (I was dailying it), I pulled up to a stop light, and on my right waiting for the left-turning traffic signal was a 69 H/O. I thought how slim the odds would be on the '69 H/O and the almost '70 H/O being that close at the same time on an average day.....in 1994
I dunno about GM in the US, but when I worked sales for a Opel dealership, GM Europe, we could order all kinds of weird stuff not on the official price list, including third party bodywork and third party high performance engines.
You should have raced it. 🙂
KCP it used to be that way "back in the day" in the U.S. as well. I recall going to check out a rock stock 2nd owner 1970 Holiday Coupe W-30 one time back around 1986. Gold with black stripes. Everything checked out on it along with the tinny trunklid and no insulation. It had a column shift TH400 automatic with bench seat and that Kermit the Frog bright green vinyl interior with dark green floor mats. OMG!!! He had all the paperwork with it and the build card which backed up what was there. There wasn't much in the way of fake cars back in the 80s as the muscle car industry was just getting started. Just weird as all get out. First one I ever seen with that paint/interior combination. Hopefully the last. I came so close, oh so close to taking that car home. He was asking something around 7500 for it, can't recall exactly, but it's chump change as compared to what it might be worth today. I also recall he had what I believe to be a before-black 82 or thereabouts silver/black with the big BUICK logo on the quarters GN parked in the driveway. I wasn't interested in even looking at that car as I already had a fairly new 85 442 I had to feed. Not like he was selling that car anyway, but now it's kinda considered rare too. Looking back on it this guy had a nice little collection of very valuable cars.
Back in the early 90's my buddy Lou had a pretty nice 82 Cutlass someone had graced with 442 decals. He paid the seller a premium to buy an 82 442. All my friends could say was "uh, you know that's not real, right?" On the non G-body front, my brother bought a 71 Cutlass parts car for his 71 convertible around the same time. Assumed it was mostly made up I remember seeing the car running around town in the 80's had W25 hood, cutout bumper, dual gate and buckets and a thick enamel repaint in metallic blue with W30 stripes. It also had a W31 sticker on the front fenders. I remember thinking, yeah right, that 's fake. Problem was under that enamel sat Titanic style rust with bondo and newspaper bridging the gaps. The PO kept the hood, bumper, dual gate and air cleaner. The driveline went into the engineless convertible and I snagged the gas tank for my 72 Skylark. Above the tank was a legible build sheet listing all that stuff as factory, I swear the engine code was listed as W31. I can only assume they kept the engine code on the lower compression 350 even if it wasn't advertised on the car. Today with the prices of A bodies I would imagine the car would be worth restoring.
That's a sweet car...
I like the brown /tan dash.
True that the 2+2 has a riveted rear deck/ window mount which is actually fairly easy to remove. (Once the glass is out)
So a conversion back to a standard hardtop would be "relatively easy" an aerocoupe is actually spot welded together so a little more difficult.
Now, unless the car I saw "New", was done prior before I saw it on the floor at the dealer, then it was very well done. As I watched this car age and fade you can see touch ups obvious (especially in silver) and unless they did a complete repaint it was pretty obvious this car faded evenly.
So I guess I need to go on a search for this car again and see if I can find it again and seek the SPID if they'll let me get that close to it. Its been about 5 years since I saw it last. I did note that the car in the article has the wing painted, versus the one I know of the wing is the flat black. (Maybe his was painted when he resprayed the car)
My search for the car will begin again.... I'll keep everyone updated if I can find it.
I was fairly certain the Aerocoupes are converted with rivets as well, or at least some of it is riveted together. I had one as a short term project and only had it for a little while, so maybe I'm mis-remembering.
The more I think about this car the more BS it seems. Really.
Reason I say this is that GM PAID that company for *** number of cars. They had to be up to snuff to GM specs, and if they weren't, they didn't deliver them. If this indeed happened, someone would have lost their job, and every car magazine out there would have covered this with the higher ups.
I don't believe this horseshit about running out of parts and then building a half-*ss car. Planners don't plan job orders or send the cars through if they don't have sufficient quantity of all the conversion parts on hand to do the job orders. That's part of the production process long before the cars arrive. If they ran out of key parts, they ran out of cars. The fact that the car may have left the conversion facility as an aeroback, and then was reconstructed later to a notchback by someone else seems more plausible.
Documentation isn't noted with a pen and ink addendum to a request. I have never heard of any of the GM historical entities that dealt with helping owners ID their cars send a mommy note to explain how they ran out of parts. If that were true, they'd have documented that with a typed letter on letterhead.
GM does NOT run out of parts when they produce cars. This doesn't mean they don't have production delays or cancellations DUE to lack of parts and such (the mid 80s Corvette rear fascia debacle comes to mind) but they have never to my knowledge have simply sent a car missing key parts to the dealership and put their name on it. I do grant you that quality back then made for some poor *ss examples, but something like what is being claimed just didn't happen.
Someone change my mind. Give me some documentation, interview from GM press release, etc., or official something to tell me these bastardized cars were supposed to exist.
Reason I say this is that GM PAID that company for *** number of cars. They had to be up to snuff to GM specs, and if they weren't, they didn't deliver them. If this indeed happened, someone would have lost their job, and every car magazine out there would have covered this with the higher ups.
I don't believe this horseshit about running out of parts and then building a half-*ss car. Planners don't plan job orders or send the cars through if they don't have sufficient quantity of all the conversion parts on hand to do the job orders. That's part of the production process long before the cars arrive. If they ran out of key parts, they ran out of cars. The fact that the car may have left the conversion facility as an aeroback, and then was reconstructed later to a notchback by someone else seems more plausible.
Documentation isn't noted with a pen and ink addendum to a request. I have never heard of any of the GM historical entities that dealt with helping owners ID their cars send a mommy note to explain how they ran out of parts. If that were true, they'd have documented that with a typed letter on letterhead.
GM does NOT run out of parts when they produce cars. This doesn't mean they don't have production delays or cancellations DUE to lack of parts and such (the mid 80s Corvette rear fascia debacle comes to mind) but they have never to my knowledge have simply sent a car missing key parts to the dealership and put their name on it. I do grant you that quality back then made for some poor *ss examples, but something like what is being claimed just didn't happen.
Someone change my mind. Give me some documentation, interview from GM press release, etc., or official something to tell me these bastardized cars were supposed to exist.
So don't quote me on the rivets... 1986... since Aeros were limited and conversions.
I know the 87's I've seen were spot welded in place. I've never seen an '86 Aero in person.
Just reading the posting by 69hurstolds parts running out during conversion would of been a never happened as parts production quotas would include extra parts for parts catalog stock, defective parts found before assembly, parts damaged during assembly. Then for the older crowd, an example of ending production due to lake of parts look at the '77 Can Ams. The rear spoiler mold got damaged & GM cancelled the car. Another thing to think about is that rear window should of been the same as the one used on NASCAR cars.
- Status
Similar threads
