It’s small wonder that I like Olds Omegas…I grew up in one. We had the 1975 with the bent-nose, a Chevy straight-six, and the cool floor-shift automatic. My brother and I rode in the backseat of that car for years until it was deemed too old to use as a daily driver…the Omega met it’s untimely end and it was replaced with a 1989 Toyota Celica that required two six-foot-plus teenage males to undergo amputation to properly fit inside. I always resented that Celica just a little bit for that reason. When I first saw the Omega, I was seven years old and I remember thinking that it was something special, something tough, the kind of car that would excite the driver every time it was fired off.
Oh, how wrong I was. No 250-six was ever going to make that happen. But that doesn’t mean that the potential isn’t there. In 1975, the X-body cars got the front suspension from the second-generation Camaro. The engine bay fits small-block Chevrolet, Pontiac and Oldsmobile engines, the transmissions are the robust old-school three-gears and the body shape, even if you deride 1970s cars, isn’t the worst. In fact, the last of the rear-drive X-bodies did railroad bumpers fairly well compared to others. And now that restoration parts are starting to enter the market for Novas as well as the common GM components, that makes this Omega an attractive project point. Get a Rocket 350 built to run, get all of the suspension goodies you can get your hands on and clean up the exterior and interior some. Short work for a car that can be a hell of a lot of fun, wouldn’t you say?
I think that you are making a big mistake telling the readership that the engine bay fits small block engines. I have seen plenty of big block engines from every GM division installed in these cars. One of the cleanest was a 500 cubic inch Cadillac that you would swear was factory stock.
I keep telling people…the Xbodies, are the next big thing on the collector cars market. Finding clean ones like this, are becoming, increasingly rare. Most are turned into short track Racers, been cannibalized for their suspension, used as demo cars.
In fact find a clean Buick Skylark…it maybe the hardest of all of them.
Stay away from the 350 Olds engine. They had a nasty habit of blowing water pumps every 30k miles or so, among other issues. Stick with the Chevy mouse motor, or if available, the 350 Buick or a Pontiac V8.
Buick Apollo……not Skylark.
Buick Apollo – 1973-74
Buick Skylark – 1975-79
X bodies are definitely COOL! A ’77 Buick Skylark V-6 dog (not fair… It was ragged and smoked when I got it, but it was cheap and very reliable. “Fill up the oil and check the gas!”) and a $50 ’78 Pontiac Phoenix I got from a young kid who said it “turned over but won’t start”, which it did… Just not fast enough! Everything checked out, and after I ran the battery way down and grabbed the new battery out of my ’73 Monte and dropped it in, it fired right up and purred! 305, 3 speed auto on the floor, buckets, Poncho mags, it was sweet! Drove it for 4 years until some drunk caved in the passenger side one night in the apartment parking lot and took off. Neglected but drove it, eventually spun a bearing (no oil), and sold it to the junk car guy for $225! WIN, WIN, WIN!
The world needs a Murder Omega, flat hood, everything hidden except Cal-Tracs, Drag Radials=FUN reasonably cheap–yep, that’s a plan