1979 Hurst/Olds W30

The Hurst/Olds was back. Unlike the last one, a 1975 Cutlass Supreme with Hurst-built T-tops, the 1979 H/O was more than an appearance package, but it wasn't put together by Hurst. This was an Oldsmobile-built car with a real Hurst Dual/Gate shifter, and the only A-body General Motors car to come with Oldsmobile's L34 350-cu.in. V-8. To get one, all you had to do was check option W-30 when ordering your Cutlass Calais coupe. For about $2,000 (retail) over the $5,800 for a base Cutlass Calais, the 350, Dual/Gate, graphics, power brakes, TH-350 automatic and a few other bits would become part of your car. Color choices were limited to two-tone black and gold, or gold and white, and body options were T-tops, or not. We'd say that makes it a "real" Hurst/Olds--with the added benefit that you could delve into Oldsmobile's endless other options on top of the H/O goodies.

Buying one today, the news is either all good or all bad, and there's no middle ground. If there was ever a car where you wanted someone else to have had the fun of doing a restoration, this is it. As Rick Schmidt, owner of our black feature car and vice president of National Parts Depot said, "There's not much of an established parts scene besides what you can get down at NAPA." Still, we haven't yet found anything in the drivetrain, brakes or suspension that isn't available at a parts store, and mild-to-wild upgrades are out there, too.

Sheetmetal and exterior trim is extinct, however. NOS pieces do turn up--at a price. If your car needs bodywork, you may as well start looking for a Western parts car right now. The good news is that other Cutlass guys will probably finance your parts car by buying what you don't need.

The deep option list--and cars with $3,000 in options on top of the W-30 package are out there, with Rick's car stickering at $11,125--means that interior needs may be the hardest of all to provide for. Gene Miller, owner of our white feature car, bought two parts cars for his restoration, one just for the seats. Need deluxe luggage compartment trim? Deluxe seat belts? Door edge guard molding? Fire up your computer, make your reservations at Hershey for a few years in advance, and get out your walking shoes.

Since they share the same floorpan, much of what we wrote in our 1985-'87 442 Buyer's Guide in HMM#32, May 2006, applies to the Hurst/Olds.

Stumble into a good one, and you've got what was the epitome of high performance in '79, with credible Hurst/Olds heritage. Given the rebuildability of the suspension, engine and transmission, the best deals we've seen are in the 100,000-plus mile range. They're still cheap enough that it's worth paying extra for a never-seen-rain, always-garaged example.

Hydraulic lifters largely compensate for a non-adjustable valvetrain, but a high-mileage rebuild may require adjustable rocker arms, shimming and pedestal work, or adjustable pushrods

And even though there's no sheetmetal ready-made, it can be fabricated, so make a good interior your top priority. You'll be much happier, pay less and get on the road far faster in a cosmetically good car with a bad engine.

ENGINE

With this variant, for the first time, there was no 455 offered in a Hurst/Olds. The Delta 88's standard L34, R-code Rocket 350 was the only choice, and it wasn't available in the Cutlass Calais: no other A-body GM car came with a 350. The Oldsmobile's version features a harmonic balancer, and many parts do not interchange with other GM 5.7s.

Deep in a slough of years when the 200hp mark was as exciting as 500hp is today, 160-170hp from the 350 was memorable, and gave the H/O a 16.63-second e.t. at 82 mph. Not mindblowing, but faster than a 350-equipped Cutlass from 1975. Credit a 700cfm Rochester Quadrajet carburetor with allowing it to get enough air for even that much power. In good tune with a reasonable rearend, mileage in the high teens on the highway is possible. A healthy 275-lbs.ft. of torque helps balance high gearing off the line.

Hurst/Olds use a model-specific exhaust, with a Y into a single catalytic converter, single muffler and dual outlets behind the rear wheels. The block should be metallic blue in a gold engine bay, adorned with blue metric bolt heads. You'll find no script atop the plain black air cleaner.

In general, plan on a complete rebuild of any high-mileage engine. Rock Auto's premium rebuild kit, including pistons and rings, runs $773.99.

TRANSMISSION & DIFFERENTIAL

Four-speeds have long been rumored, but as far as the Hurst/Olds Club is concerned, they're a fairy tale. Instead, it's the M-38 TH350 (the beefy TH400 was only available in the full-size Olds that year) three-speed automatic with Hurst-Campbell Dual/Gate shifter. Also called "His and Hers" and "Street/Strip," the shifter is mounted in an Oldsmobile sport console and has a traditional automatic pattern on the driver's ("His" or "Street") side. The right side has an adjustable, positive-latching gate with neutral lockout. The shifter came with a lifetime guarantee; B&M tells us they will honor it, but only for original owners.

Owner Rick Schmidt

The M-38 Turbo Hydra-Matic 350 is durable and versatile. In general, TH350s used with bigger engines had stronger internals, and the R-code 350 was the peppiest offering from Lansing hooked to it that year. GM used TH350s all over the place for 15 years, and it is a straight-up swap with like transmissions from Buick/Oldsmobile/Pontiac (BOP) 90-degree V-8s, and the Buick 90-degree V-6. BOP units are identifiable by a valley at the 12 o'clock position, where Chevrolet TH350s have a peak; the units also use a different bolt pattern, but are internally identical (some TH350 cases have a universal bellhousing to fit both Chevy and BOP patterns). Transmissions built for V-8s have more clutch plates but are visually identical and can be rebuilt at home or any local shop.

Hurst/Olds had GM's common and sturdy 7½-inch, 10-bolt axle, with limited-slip available as a $50-ish option. California cars used a 2.56:1 rearend, and 2.73:1 gears were standard everywhere else.

WHEELS & TIRES

The only thing unique to the Hurst/Olds about its 14 x 6-inch "cast aluminum sport wheel with die-cast ornament" was the gold paint. On a Cutlass, it was option code N78 or N76; on a W-30 car in 1979 or 1980, the gold wheels were part of the package. W-30 gold wheels may be hard to find, but non-gold versions were introduced in 1978 as an option on the Salon, Supreme, Supreme Brougham and Calais, and remained available through 1981. Later Buicks use the same RPO N78 for a multi-spoke alloy wheel, though of a different design. You should be able to refinish a natural aluminum wheel from another Cutlass to match, although Transwheel does offer a remanufactured wheel for $166.79 at Rock Auto. As with any alloy wheel, mistreatment or winter use can lead to pitting.

Stock tires were the now sought-after Goodyear PolySteel white letter radials and for the time being, 14-inch radials are still easy to come by. Coker Tire's reproduction BFGoodrich T/As are the closest you'll come to a period look.

Chromed lug nuts are standard, but aren't reproduced. If you have a good set, use a fiberglass-lined socket to remove them: "The chrome is so thin, you will see rust the next day," said Gene.

BODY

Hurst/Olds production was low--only 2,499 cars--but the sheetmetal is all stock Cutlass Calais. That's not precisely good news, as no sheetmetal is presently reproduced. There's a small trickle of NOS parts on the market, especially high-visibility items like the twin grille pieces or taillamps, but you will pay through the nose for them. Any restoration will require a parts car or, more likely, cars.

In addition to normal trouble spots in fenders, wheel wells and rockers, watch out for rust under the moldings along rockers, doors, fenders and quarter panels. If you can, take them off and inspect underneath, because you'll find trouble there. Water also likes to get under the chrome trim at the quarter-window and just eat through the car.

You'll find surprising interchangeability within the entire 1978-'87 Cutlass lineup, so an interchange manual is a good investment. A small but undetermined number of Hurst/Olds, Buick Regals, Monte Carlos and Grand Prixs had aftermarket Hurst Hatch T-tops; 537 H/Os had factory Fisher T-tops. Like Haley's Comet, seeing weatherstrip for either is an unusual occurrence. If the car was ever used as daily transportation, there's a good chance of rust along the windshield header and in the A-pillars. That's a car requiring a complete restoration, including cutting and patching of those complicated and structurally important areas

Fusick Automotive Products makes one of the few exterior pieces, the gold Hurst H/O badges, from retooled molds. Hurst/Olds and W-30 striping, decals and stickers are available, but vary in quality.

SUSPENSION & BRAKES

Smallish 14 x 6 inch wheels limit the ultimate size of brakes in a stock setup: 10½ inch discs up front, and 9½ x 2-inch drums in back. It's perfectly adequate and reliable, and parts are as easy to come by as the nearest parts store or donor Monte Carlo, Regal or Grand Prix. The rear wheel cylinders are fastened to the drum-brake backing plates with clips, rather than bolts as with earlier models. These seemed prone to failure, allowing the cylinders to rotate and then blow out. GM issued cage-type retainers as a fix, and most of these cars probably have them by now.

The rear suspension is not usually a problem of itself, but if the car is looking to the sky, the stock coil springs (and probably the shocks) have failed. Heavy-duty replacements are called for.

INTERIOR

Hurst/Olds interiors were built on the stock Cutlass Calais pattern, in a limited palette of colors. White and gold cars got Doeskin Derma Grain vinyl in Oyster White or Camel Tan, or Camel Tan Lochland velour. Black cars had black or tan Derma Grain vinyl or the same cloth. The vinyl isn't hard to come by, but the cloth was last made almost 20 years ago--if you need fabrics, you will need a donor car just for that. Seats are Cutlass Calais-specific reclining buckets and have a bright chrome cover over the hinge area--it looks great, but is easily cracked and scratched. Cracks in any corner of the tan gauge surround are also common, and taking the dash out is not fun. Check for sun damage to the rear seatback and package shelf as well, where you'll need at least two yards of material for repair or restoration.

PERFORMANCE PARTS

You can build up a small-block Oldsmobile as much as you can afford. High rpm performance applications will require improving the stock oil pan and oiling system, and it's likely that a car that's been run above 5,000 rpm for an extended period will have suffered from oil starvation. Converting the strong Diesel 350 block to a stroker gas engine is popular. CJ Batten made alloy heads (though the company is now out of business, the heads can still be found), while Edelbrock now makes alloy heads as well as intake manifolds, Mondello has forged pistons, Dave Smith custom tunnel rams and anything else you want is out there for the buying.

Owner's view

From a strictly objective viewpoint, consider this: In 1979, you could walk into the Pontiac dealer and order a brand-new Trans Am with the Pontiac 400-cu.in., 220hp engine package, a four-speed stick, and WS-6 suspension package that included four-wheel disc brakes, for less than $7,300 out the door, if you kept the options light. For that money, you got flat handling, big braking, 15.3-second quarter-mile acceleration, Smokey and the Bandit styling, etc.

The Hurst/Olds certainly had super looks as well, but after that, you really had to be a diehard Olds fan to pony up $7,800 or more for one of these W-30 Hurst/Olds. So they were rare cars from the get-go, which makes them all the more special and endearing today.

One hint if you're in the market, and come upon a "survivor" for sale: The factory built white and black cars into Hursts, and sprayed the gold paint off-line. They did a terrible job of it--they would have been better served with a bucket and a broom. So if you're questioning a seller's claim of "all original paint, never wrecked," keep in mind that the god-awful gold finish on the hood is likely the factory job!--Rick Schmidt

Owner's view

Even though they built almost half a million Cutlasses in 1979, it took me almost 10 years to get the parts together for this particular car. I knew I had purchased a bona fide piece of Olds and Hurst history, which was certainly worth being restored.

Not only that, but this is one heck of a nice ride! In combining the gold-anodized hatches with the Hurst Dual/Gate shifter, the fully functioning AM-FM/8-Track/CB radio with the rebuilt and tweaked 350, it is a treat to drive.--Gene Miller

What to pay

Low: $5,000

Average: $7,500

High: $12,500

Parts prices

Stripe and decal kit: (complete) $565

Engine rebuild kit: (premium, complete) $774

Door seals (pair): $76

Headlamp bezel (NOS): $130

Exhaust pipe, muffler back (each, NOS): $350

Tail lamps (pair, NOS): $250

Bumper insert (front, NOS): $175

Grilles, front (pair, NOS): $1,000

Oiling kit, 7-quart upgrade: $549

Flexplate (new, OEM): $119

Rocker arm kit, adjustable: $349

Head gasket (set): $135

Brake drum (each): $45

Catalytic converter: $109

Distributor cap: $30

Door handle, exterior (each): $22

Wheel, gold (each, reconditioned): $167

Shifter (rebuilt): $140

Club Scene

Hurst/Olds Club of America

H/OCA Membership Coordinator

3098 S. Point Pleasant Road

Decatur, Illinois 62521

Dues: $25 • Membership: 600