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Classic YouTube: Front-Drive Performance Before It Was Cool To Have, Courtesy Of An Oldsmobile Quad 442


Classic YouTube: Front-Drive Performance Before It Was Cool To Have, Courtesy Of An Oldsmobile Quad 442

About the time I was in high school was right about the same time the popularity of front-drive performance imports exploded. While I thought I was doing alright in a 1987 Monte SS, I had to hear all about it from plenty of CRX and Celica owners that attended my school. They all thought they had the second best car in the lot, because if there was one thing they could agree on, it was that the kid whose dad bought him a 1999 Honda Civic Si had the car. I knew the kid well…mouthy little mother. I wasn’t dumb enough to think that a well-worn stock G-body was going to take the Civic, but damn if I didn’t think about adding a small bottle of fun onto the 305 just to see what would happen if we did square off.

Well, it so happened that another kid at the same school had the same issue with the Civic owner. He had a little red Oldsmobile, and one day he shot his mouth off right back and demanded a stoplight roll. Leaving school, they squared off and the Olds did more than spank the Civic…it wasn’t even close to fair. I wanted to laugh, but my jaw was firmly on the sidewalk. That was a 1980s front-driver Olds…WTF did I see go down?!

In the late 1980s, Oldsmobile was on a technical-speed kick with concept cars like the Aerotech series of concept vehicles. One of the Aerotech cars was a March Indycar chassis with a sleek skin on top, powered by a very built Quad 4, that A.J. Foyt drove to well over 250 MPH in testing in Florida back in 1987. The Quad 4 wasn’t the smoothest thing going but those little four-bangers could do some interesting things when tuned right.

What you’ll see below is just how far the GM N-body could go. This is an Olds Quad 442 W41 homologation special meant to go racing in SCCA competition. Getting the W41 kit earned you ten additional horsepower, boosting up to 190, a 7,400 RPM redline, reworked drive gearing and the ability to run a high-14 second quarter. Remember, this is a hot Calais, a car that on it’s best day would cut a quarter-mile in maybe under 20 seconds if a tailwind was pushing it along.


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4 thoughts on “Classic YouTube: Front-Drive Performance Before It Was Cool To Have, Courtesy Of An Oldsmobile Quad 442

  1. PJ

    I had that exact car in highschool. But it was maroon. Kicked the crap out of a lot of cars, including Camaros and Mustangs.

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