1985 Oldsmobile 442

This is not my car it belongs a friend of mine. I took this video today. I also have high resolution images if any one is interested. He is asking $20,000. Much more than that into the car, it has been restored in and out only thing they didn't do was drop the frame and do underneath but it is clean under there.

1985 442 with '87 nose w/65k. Some bolt on performance parts under the hood, all rubber and all chrome/ss and all glass replaced. The body was brought down to the metal and redone.


https://www.youtube.com/v/Dwz4XGls13U

Looks like your friend has put a lot of work into his car, but not diggin the DONK look.

The suspension can be brought back down and he still has the original chrome wheels to go with the car. He was going to do an extreme paint job I convinced him to re-do the factory scheme so that one day it may be easily brought back to near factory appearance and appeal to older buyers-to-be. The shop that did his bodywork and paint is going to be doing my Caprice sometime in the near future.

Nice car. you gave good advise thinking about bringing it back to stockish
For $20K I dont know how many offers he'll have from non-older buyer types.

Really nice lookin olds. But he needs to get rid of the ugly donk crap. Cant stand that shit. I bet it also throws off a lot of potential buyers.

That is a real nice car, but to be brutally honest, I don't think he'll get 20K for it, that's pretty high! More realistically he'd get about 10-12 for it, maybe a little more if you found someone that was totally into the car, and it would probably need to be restored to stock ride height with the factory SS2 Olds wheels and all that first. If the car was completely original and unrestored with like 10K miles, anemic 307 and all, the car might fetch like 15-16 grand or so. It's a buyer's market right now with the economy down the toilet and whatnot. I'd still try eBay, you never know. Best of luck to him.

It is true, the donk thing will alienate anyone looking for an original looking 442. A lot of people I talk to really hate them when the subject is brought up, around here anyway. Are donks all over the place down toward RI? I've still only seen a few in my entire life in person, yet I see them all over craigslist down that way. I guess it just offends me because I own a car these people usually target, and they're grabbing all the NOS stuff from eBay that I used to be able to find dirt cheap to build cars with ridiculous paint schemes featuring poorly mimicked candy and fast food logos, TVs no one can realistically watch, ginormous amounts of rolling resistance and high centers of gravity, and wheels that are over 20-22 or so inches tall and therefore have absolutely no performance or handling benefit yet cause suspensions to wear out faster, waste gas, create a punishing ride, and sustain damage constantly.

This is what they all remind me of, spied this prize when I was in FL last month helping redo a trashed apartment-





</rant> Sorry, I'm sensitive to donks.

What kind of engine is that, it looks like an SBC? A lot of people would have said do a 455 (I think the block dimensions are the same) since the people who look for these cars are largely Olds nuts, but the Chevy is gonna be easier to maintain IMO.
I love the 85-87 442s and have always wanted one because someone in my neighborhood had a blue one w/ T-tops when I was little. The body work on that thing looks immaculate. Thank god you talked him into doing the original paint scheme! I'd be bringing my car to them too if I saw something turn out like that, especially anything black in color. That makes the car, they should have made more of the Cutlasses in that paint scheme.

A real 442 should have the Olds engine iin it. A vin 9 307. It's a bit stronger than the vin y version and also has tubular manifolds along with a few extra hard to find goodies. If it has any other engine in it then it better be a big block Olds or that car isn't going to end up with anyone who cares about it. It'll probably get sold to some kid who thinks he can rap

bammax wrote:

A real 442 should have the Olds engine iin it. A vin 9 307. It's a bit stronger than the vin y version and also has tubular manifolds along with a few extra hard to find goodies. If it has any other engine in it then it better be a big block Olds or that car isn't going to end up with anyone who cares about it. It'll probably get sold to some kid who thinks he can rap

That's kind of what I was getting at. Isn't (wasn't) the 307 almost the same exterior block dimensions as a 455 (compared to a SBC vs. BBC anyway)

While I agree with the Donk haters for the most part, I don't really think this thread is the place for it guys... We should be giving positive feedback.

Looks like a car that has had a very nice freshening. I have a soft spot for those cars for some reason. I wish your friend luck selling it, but i do think he would have better luck with the suspension back to stock and a set of period wheels on it. Without that factory look it is really not worth anywhere near what a stockish version would be to me. If he wants the most money he should take it back to stock and sell of the wheels seperate, I think that would yield the best bang for his buck.

I wish him luck with the sale,

Doug

Matt Trakker wrote:

bammax wrote:

A real 442 should have the Olds engine iin it. A vin 9 307. It's a bit stronger than the vin y version and also has tubular manifolds along with a few extra hard to find goodies. If it has any other engine in it then it better be a big block Olds or that car isn't going to end up with anyone who cares about it. It'll probably get sold to some kid who thinks he can rap

That's kind of what I was getting at. Isn't (wasn't) the 307 almost the same exterior block dimensions as a 455 (compared to a SBC vs. BBC anyway)

Olds didn't make small/big blocks. All their engines are the same size, but for "big blocks" the deck height was raised to give a longer stroke. With the exception of the rods, timing chain, and the intake manifold all parts interchange between all the Olds engines.

This car has the original never removed or rebuilt 60k 307 H.O. engine. I think he will get close to what he is asking for the car as-is. He had another cutlass, a 4-door just a regular hacked up cutlass with factory paint stupid M&M stickers all over it and it was basically junk but he had 24's on it and got $10,000 for that car.




If this unrestored hacked up cutlass supreme can fetch 10k...

He should have no problem getting close to 20k for this real 442.















This car has had all the doors hood trunk and glass and all trim removed interior and everything stripped down to the bare minimum and restored. Anything that had wear a crack or a dent was replaced with NOS parts or freshened up. There was nothing wrong with the car to begin with, no accidents no rust no dents he just wanted to redo it. I am going to be throwing it on ebay, there has to be someone out there that has GOT to have this car for close to the asking price. I understand you guys don't like this style of car, but there is a huge market for them, regardless of the economy there are people out there with 20k burning a hole in their pocket.

Hah, I don't think I'd seen a 307 before without all the emissions stuff on it, and for some reason I thought the distrubutor was in the front at an angle. (guess the Buicks only did that, incl. the 3.8 )

What is that applique on the dash/steering wheel/door panel inserts? Is that paint? Also, what kind of exhaust system is it running?

The woodgrain has been done over with a paint process that makes it look like marble and then it was pin striped to match the exterior stripes. For exhaust it has long tube headers to flowmaster mufflers. I think it is 2.5".

GasTT wrote:

The woodgrain has been done over with a process that makes it look like marble and then it was pin striped to match the exterior stripes. For exhaust it has long tube headers to flowmaster mufflers. I think it is 2.5".

That is dam clean. Was this a New England car?

Yes I think it has been a New England car. It was just not driven much (low miles) and probably garaged its whole life. In the 3-4 years my friend owned this car he maybe put 1000 miles on it and it was garaged 100% of the time he was not driving it.

Here's some basic info on the engine from online. Last year for the traditional engine

LG8
The LG8 was a modern 307-cubic-inch (5.0 L) High-Output derivative of the LV2 produced from 1983 to 1987. Performance modifications included a "hot" camshaft (compared to the base model 307 camshaft), stiffer valve springs, a larger vibration damper, a Y-pipe dual-outlet exhaust system, and richer secondary metering rods in the carburetor. It was offered in the Hurst/Olds version of the Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais and in the 442 version of the Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon. Output for 1983-1985 was 180 hp (130 kW) and 245 lb·ft (332 N·m). Revisions to the engine for 1986 included roller lifters with a slightly smaller camshaft, new heads with smaller, swirl-port intake runners, floating piston pins, and larger piston dishes for lower compression. These changes increased torque to 250 lb·ft (340 N·m) but lowered power to 170 hp (130 kW), while lowering the RPM at which peak horsepower and torque was achieved.