As I have grown as an enthusiast, I’ve developed nuanced perspectives that I didn’t have when I was younger. Most of my appreciation was for the peripheral and superficial, and maturity has brought me closer to a more sophisticated appraisal. Our Pick of the Day is like that—a car that requires nuance to understand its place in the muscle car world. This 1969 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 W30 convertible is listed for sale in ClassicCars.com by a dealership in Morgantown, Pennsylvania.
When comparing muscle car performance, we often focus on quarter-mile ETs for a showroom-stock vehicle. Glancing at old road tests, it’s often difficult to know how stock a vehicle was when there have been instances of tomfoolery from either the manufacturer or publication or both. Of course, the famous one was the 1964 Pontiac GTO tested by Car and Driver in its comparison with the Ferrari GTO—around 34 years later, Pontiac adman Jim Wangers admitted the car featured a 421 HO massaged by Royal Pontiac. Magazines also had different reputations with their 1320-feet sprints, with some being hot shoes with tuning and shifting, while others evaluated cars with two aboard. It could even be suggested that there were periodicals that lied about ETs depending on their relationship with the automaker’s PR rep.
And then there’s the nuance: several muscle cars were built to be modified. The Camaro ZL1 may be the most obvious example, but there are others. What about the Boss 429? Likely true, as the race-inspired big-block still carries a reputation that its stock configuration featured somewhat underwhelming performance—Hi-Performance Cars titled its road test “Boss Loss” though that’s absurd considering the test car ran the quarter in 13.34 seconds.
The 1968-69 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 with the W30 package is another such animal. Thanks to General Motors’ edict restricting cubic-inches to 400ci in a mid-size car, Olds had its hands tied and couldn’t use the 455 (enter the Hurst/Olds, but that’s another story), so Olds took another route with a radical camshaft featuring 328 degrees in both intake and exhaust, with 108 degrees overlap. Talk with many Olds folks and they’ll say it was too much cam for a stock engine, but it stands to reason that Olds recommended headers, which would also take advantage of the new separated center exhaust ports. Why compare apples to oranges when come cars were built to be modified?
Of course, being a W30, Oldsmobile included unique Force-Air Induction system that routed air to the carburetor via “mammoth functional air scoops” mounted under the front bumper. Red plastic front fender wells were another subtle identifying trademark of W30s of this era.
The 4-4-2 was heavily facelifted for 1969 and included a split grille and a hood with two planes from cowl to the front edge. 4-4-2s came standard with pinstripes outlining the planes but could be specified with W42 “dual hood pain patches” (included with the W30 package). Out back, the former horizontal taillights gave way to trapezoids that wrapped vertically from the trunk lid to the rear bumper. Of course, this being a 4-4-2, it featured a notched rear bumper with exhaust trumpets poking through.
W30s sold decently considering how impractical they were for the street: 1,389 built. That’s more than the number of Ram Air IV GTOs Pontiac built! When it comes to the convertible, only 121 W30s were built, with 30 featuring the TH400 automatic. This Saffron Yellow 1969 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 W30 is one of those. Other features include the Rally Pack instrumentation package, Deluxe pushbutton AM radio, rear speaker, power steering, three-spoke steering wheel, bench seat, head restraints, Super Stock II wheels, whitewall tires, Anti-Spin axle (required with W30), 3.91 gears, and heavy-duty radiator.
In the Oldsmobile world, you’re going to need documentation to prove W30 status if you’re going to spend the big bucks—this car has it, plus it has also been given a blessing by Steve Minore and his Rocket Report. Simply put, if you’re into the bumper-scooped 4-4-2s, few can top this W-Machine, with the asking price of $165,000 reflecting this.
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