In March of 1977, headlines and TV newscasts across the US breathlessly broke the news that GM had been selling some Oldsmobile models with Chevrolet engines. While this may hardly seem newsworthy to our modern eyes, this was made out to be quite the scandal in 1977. I was nine years old at the time, and this story constitutes one of my earliest automotive memories. I clearly remember seeing this story while my parents were watching the evening news.
GM was unique among all the domestic automakers in that each division had its own bespoke V8 engine architecture. Looking back, I’m not sure why this was so important to GM: Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the Ford brands and Chrysler brands all shared common corporate V8 engine architectures.
At Ford, the MEL (Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln) and FE (Ford-Edsel) V8 engines of the late ’50s and early ’60s were the last engine families that were nominally associated to specific brands, but even then this affiliation was pretty loose: The MEL engine was available in the Ford Thunderbird, and FE engine made appearances in various Mercuries. Successor engine families (the Windsor, Cleveland, and Lima V8 engines) were all just branded as “Ford” engines and were more or less used interchangeably throughout Ford’s entire US brand portfolio. No one seemed to particularly notice or care, and sales didn’t suffer. It certainly didn’t make the evening news.
Chrysler Co. was also sharing V8 engines among its brands since the ’50s. While the original A-Series V8 was exclusive to Plymouth when it came out in 1956, its successor the LA engine (along with the B-Series big-block) were used in various forms and displacements in all Mopar branded vehicles. Again, buyers were essentially indifferent to this.
Engine sharing was not even new to GM in 1977. The Cadillac Seville had launched the previous year (1976) exclusively with a fuel-injected version of Oldsmobile 350 V8. GM’s compact and intermediate cars had been sharing four- and six-cylinder engines since the ’60s.
And the 1971 Pontiac Ventura had either a Chevy six or V8 under the hood, as this small picture attests. Clearly there was no iron clad rule about not sharing V8 engines across divisions. And no one had ever complained before, never mind sued.
1977 Oldsmobile Delta 88 with Chevrolet 350 Engine. You can tell by the plain black air canister lid, the oil filler on the valve cover, and the air horn facing the passenger side.
So it came to pass that in 1977, Oldsmobile launched their all-new eighth-generation B-body Delta 88, which was available with a wide variety of engines, ranging from the 231 Buick V6 to the Oldsmobile 403 V8. In between was a 350 V8, referenced in the brochure as just a single engine. In reality, the 350 could actually be one of two engines: Either the Oldsmobile 350 V8, which was sold on all cars with California emissions and cars going to high-altitude states, or the Chevrolet small-block 350 V8, which was only 49-state certified, but conveniently had the exact same displacement as the Olds V8. The only clue as to which engine you were getting was an obscure ordering code: L34 for the Oldsmobile engine, or LM1 for the Chevy. Not helping matters what the fact that starting in 1977 all divisions began painting their engines blue, eliminating the division-specific engine paint jobs (like the former Chevy red).
Although the 1977 brochure identified the engines under the Toronado and 98’s hood as “Rocket”, in the section on the 88’s, there was a conspicuous absence of any reference to any engine specifics. And there was no table of engines at the back of the brochure, as was normally the case. It does appear that Olds was making a point to avoid any suggestion in the brochures about just exactly what was under the hood of an 88.
In March of 1977, news broke in all the major television and print outlets about the fact that GM had been selling some Oldsmobile models with Chevrolet engines. Indeed, more than half of the Delta 88 models produced for 1977 (over 75,000) had a Chevrolet engine and not the Olds engine. So what was different this time?
It all began with Joseph Siwek of Chicago, Illinois. The story goes that while having his 350-equipped Delta 88 serviced, parts his mechanic had purchased for the Oldsmobile engine would not fit. This was of course because his engine was not an Oldsmobile engine at all, but rather a Chevrolet 350 V8. Mr. Siwek felt deceived and defrauded, especially since Oldsmobile was supposedly charging more than Chevrolet for the same engine option. Mr. Siwek therefore filed suit against GM in the State of Illinois for false advertising.
False advertising? There’s no mention of Rocket V8s in the ads or the brochures, regarding the 88. The standard 231 V6 is mentioned, although not its provenance.
But the court concurred and issued an order in March of 1977 requiring GM to disclose the manufacturer of the engine of their vehicles, and this is when the story broke into the press.
1977 Oldsmobile with genuine Oldsmobile 350 V8. Note the separate oil filler neck, and “Oldsmobile 350” decal on the air canister.
Now that there was blood in the water, It didn’t take long for other Oldsmobile owners and various states attorneys general to file suit, which upon GM’s petition were consolidated and transferred to a Federal Appeals court in July 1977, and certified as a class action suit on October 13, 1977.
In an effort to settle, on December 19, 1977, GM offered $200 plus a 36-month/36,000 mile extended powertrain warranty to all the claimants, which by this time had grown to include Buick and Pontiac buyers who had also received Chevrolet engines. However, the settlement seemed to get hung up on GM’s instance that it only be offered to people who purchased Chevrolet-engined Oldsmobiles prior to April 11, 1977, arguing that by then the story had become public and that buyers should have been aware that some Oldsmobiles were being sold with Chevrolet engines, while the plaintiffs disagreed.
As a result, the case would continue to wind its way through the Federal court system for another three years, before being decided by a federal jury on June 28, 1981. The final verdict: Purchasers of Chevrolet-engine Oldsmobiles prior to April 10, 1977, would be entitled to refunds of $550, while those who purchased one afterward got nothing. Furthermore, there would be no punitive damages assessed against GM. Total settlement cost to GM: $8.2 million.
So who ultimately gets the blame here? Was there some profiteering on the part of Mr. Siwek and other owners and their attorneys in attempting to make a mountain out of a molehill? Undoubtedly. But ultimately, much of the blame falls on GM for allowing this mountain to get created from a molehill in the first place by trying to have its marketing cake of divisional-specific engines while eating it too with engine interchange. For years, GM actively marketed not only its hierarchy of brands, but the engines within those cars, training customers that not only was an Oldsmobile better than a Chevrolet, but that an Oldsmobile engine was better than that in the Chevy. You reap what you sow.
In the 1978 Olds brochure, all the available engines were meticulously identified as to their provenance, down to the specific engine plants. GM learned its lesson, painfully and quickly.
Further Reading:
March 15, 1977 New York Times article
Open Jurist: GM Engine Interchange Litigation – Oswald vs. GM
June 28, 1981 NYT article on engine switch settlement
Someone at GM must have been watching BMC rebadging its Morris models up market by changing the grille and adding another carby or Perhaps Rootes group doing similar with their Minx model since time began and figured they could do the same, they certainly gave it a good try, throw more bling on the cheapest thing to build and call it good.
For years, GM actively marketed not only its hierarchy of brands, but the engines within those cars, training customers that not only was an Oldsmobile better than a Chevrolet, but that an Oldsmobile engine was better than that in the Chevy.
GM profited off of this. This became a fraud. Oldsmobile sales literature deliberately omitted this. Guilty.
Great article, thank you. There’s so much to unpack here, much of it surrounding GMs complex marketing and engineering decisions required to integrate six (later seven) divisions, all making consumer products with overlapping features and benefits.
Imho the engine issue was a minor one, blown out of all proportion and frankly, I blame opportunistic litigants. GM obviously shared all kinds of mechanical components across divisions, including transmissions,
axles, electrical components HVAC systems etc. Why focus on engines?
We’ve all come across arcane or obstructive business decisions and marketing practices based on fear of, or the result of litigation. From McDonald’s hot coffee to bizarre misuses of household products, manufacturers are stuck having to anticipate and countless potential pitfalls in their product design and marketing.
I don’t place any blame on GM for this particular engine issue but I can see its a result of inter divisional marketing. I do believe the multi division structure started to lose relevance in 1960 when GM divisions introduced compact cars, but I understand that the division-specific dealer network and owner loyalty prevented GM from reorganizing their business in a more efficient, rational manner.
McDonald’s hot coffee?
It was served at temps up to 190F (try that sometime), gave the victim third-degree burns, McDonald’s had received 700 reports of people burning themselves. McDonald’s admitted that its coffee was a hazard at such high temperatures. The plaintiff was not in motion when the spill occurred. The plaintiff sued for medical costs ($20,000) and was offered $800, and McDonald’s was found guilty in this case for it being the umpteenth time they tried to roll over someone by throwing all their lawyers at it.
McDonald’s multi-million dollar PR campaigns to the contrary, this case is the dictionary definition of “punitive”: Literally punishing McDonald’s for repeated and willful misconduct, tripped up because this was a very rare case where a commoner victim actually beat a huge team of corporate lawyers.
The $2.9M verdict is supposed to hurt. The settled amount from McDonald’s was $600k.
So that’s why their coffee cups read ” Caution contents my be hot”. Note the get out clause “may be”. Just in case some one true to sue them for serving warm coffee.
About the engines. We had the reverse problem in the UK . Due to internal rivalry Triumph refused to junk the leaky Stag v8 for Rovers hassle free one because it wasn’t a TRUIMPH engine. Result Hugh warranty claims. No one really gave a toss who built the engine as long as it held together.
That McDonald’s case to this day makes me irrationally disgusted when people use it as an example of a litigious mentality. It becomes 100% clear said person has zero knowledge of the facts, like how abhorrent McDonald’s was when she horrifically was burned on her crotch, but then refused her medical bills? The big sticking point to me was the jury awarded her that “outrageous” sum of literally only 2 day’s worth of coffee sales The company made per McDonald’s own account! She deserved way more…
I’m amazed at how some people didn’t read my comment. I’m not saying McDonald’s was innocent. I said companies struggle with anticipating the pitfalls and problems of their products and marketing. I fail to see how readers here think I’m saying McDonald’s was innocent.
It was a Chevy engine.
Instead of the legendary Rocket engine, you got a Chevy engine. Not a Buick, or even a Pontiac engine – a Chevy. The bargain bin brand. The Walmart of GM. It was bad enough that it wasn’t the famed Rocket V8. It was worse than that. It was the lowest rung of the lowest priced cars. UGH!
It was a big deal. How many lawyers, judges, doctors and executives drove Oldsmobile? Try most of them. How many considered Oldsmobile to be a prestige brand? All of them. It was a big deal.
It would be if you discovered that your Dom Perignon was Mogan David 20/20. OH – but it will still get you tanked, right? It is still a good wine, right? What’s the problem? After proudly serving Dom to your friends, family and neighbors since WWII, you are to explain how you fell for that bottle of Mad Dog?
Seriously?
Brand used to be cherished. This era still had cherished brands. Oldsmobile got torched.
It is a big deal. If you don’t agree, go ahead and tell us how you don’t have a problem discovering that your Bugatti is a Fiat.
The car would have still been an OLDSMOBILE with it’s own styling and respective models and options. Why would it make the slightest difference when you get in and start the engine and go as to which GM division supplied it. If it met the HP and torque requirements, why would it be an issue? GM had been sharing components forever so why should engines be different? FORD and CHRYSLER had universal engines almost since the beginning of their respective divisions and nobody cared let alone made a fuss about it.
I can attest that the Chevy 350 and the Olds 350 sounded very different. Probably most of the buyers did not make this distinction but I could. I would be able to tell from sound alone whether a Chevy or a Rocket was under the hood. Same issue with the Chevy 305 versus the Olds 307. I can tell them apart with my eyes closed. The listed HP and torque were better with the Olds as shown above. I don’t know if the Olds was any better or worse in terms of performance or relaibility.
Yes of course. And Oldsmobile INVENTED the modern V-8 in 1949. It put Oldsmobile on the MAP. They were FAST. Songs were written about the Oldsmobile.
Chevrolet didn’t even HAVE a V-8 until 1955. By then Chevy was FIRMLY established as the BOTTOM rung of GM. By design. The low-priced three. Chevrolet, Ford, Plymouth.
Ford was Ford. No problem. Plymouth knew its place and competed on value or engineering.. But arrogant GM though each person would go Chevy to Pontiac to Oldsmobile to Buick to Cadillac. Forever and ever amen. But consumers were smart. If you liked Chevy, you just stuck with Chevy. Chevy sold great. The idea became Chevy II/Malibu/Impala. But Chevy was GOOD and sold the best. Then it became same size, but better. So Impala/Caprice/Caprice Classic, etc. You see the issue here. Nothing is the same, everything really IS the same.
Old boring Ford, however, realized this didn’t work. In 1960 the boring Falcon was its creation. Not the Corvair,, not the Valiant. In a fit of GENIUS, Lee Iacocca, knowing the market very well decided the crazy young folks just wanted an inexpensive car that was fun. Or a sporty car. Or a secretary car.
All LOOKED great. All started out cheap. But performance and goodies ere only as good as you were willing to pay for. Didn’t matter. There was no “stripped” Mustang. The image sold the car anyway. And it looked fresh, hot and sexy. EVERYONE wanted one! So it took the boring old Falcon (that had its own small V-8 by ’63, created a sort of new car.
It was the FORD MUSTANG! Genius then, perfect for the kids, perfect for EVERYONE!
Ford innovated, GM sat on its laurels. All good long ago. But GM has an iffy reputation. Ford does fine. Great trucks, SUVS are not a joke. But only Ford has the MUSTANG!
Now do you see how important it is? Olds is long gone, GM was arrogant. The Mustang is an ICON. Ford is scrappy. You know the rest!
The only reason this would cause an issue would be when the time came to order an oil or air filter, accessory drive belts, spark plugs or a distributor. All these commonly replaced parts, except the distributor, were different on the 2 350’s. The Olds distributor rotated counterclockwise while the Chevy rotated clockwise when viewed from the top. This made the vacuum cans point differently when coming off the distributor. The Chevy used the 5/8″ hex tapered seat “peanut plugs” while the Olds used the 13/16″ hex plugs with the metal gasket ring right through to the end of production.
I have also heard that the Olds V8 was somewhat cleaner running than the Chevy V8 and as a result would meet tougher emission standards.
I have no problem calling GM out on their many missteps, especially during this era. However, this is a case of making a mountain out of a mole hill. Using the Chevrolet V8s in place of the Oldsmobile V8s in the Delta 88 was really not an issue in my eyes. Sure there is a small percentage of the population that wants their Oldsmobile to be 100% Oldsmobile, but come on, realistically for the average suburban Joe that bought a ’77 Delta 88, would he even know the difference tween the engines had it not been pointed out? Clearly Mr. Siewek had no idea until it was brought to his attention by his mechanic.
There are a few things that I also think should be mentioned. Under Alfred Sloan, GM use a highly decentralized structure, unlike Ford with its high centralized structure. Sloan allowed each of its Divisions to operate very autonomously, which resulted in unique engineering for each division. Eventually, the body sharing occurred to save on costs, but chassis and engines still remained under the sole control of each division. This system worked fine, when each division made one size car and there was not as much overlap in engine and vehicle sizes. Of course this eventually all went out the window, especially by the 1960s when there was extensive overlap. That model overlap is how GM divisions all ended up producing essentially the same size engines by the 1970s.
Nevertheless, GM is a big heavy ship to turn and its system had been in place for years, so to all of a sudden switch to a corporate engine policy wasn’t going to happen overnight. By the 1977 model year, as the article points out, there was some exceptions to the divisional engines. Another not mentioned was the use of the Pontiac 400 by Oldsmobile in the 1975 model year, but this was a “credit option” so I guess it was more acceptable. It seems by 1977 though GM had started to put in place the steps to move to a corporate engine policy. There was a reason 1977 was the first year that all engines became painted what is known as “corporate blue”. This was the first step to starting to removed the identity of divisional engines. At this time it seems there were other steps that had been taken. Pontiac and Buick V8s were winding down production and by the end of the decade were almost done. Pontiac only continued briefly in the 1980s with the new short deck V8s, the 301 and 265, while its traditional V8s finished production in the 70s. Clearly evidence shows steps were in place to start phasing out divisional engines in 1977 and move to corporate engines.
On top of that, there was a big shortage of Oldsmobile V8s because of the popularity of the Colonnade Cutlass. It was easier to adapt the 350 Chevrolet to the new Delta 88 production line, then to the existing Colonnade Cutlass lines. The whole engine code thing is a moot point too IMO. GM had been using these RPO engine codes for many years. It wasn’t as if they were trying to secretly hide anything by using these codes. So from GM’s perspective, it didn’t seem like a big deal to use a Chevrolet 350 in place of the Oldsmobile 350. They both made pretty much the same power and had about the same fuel economy. In fact, if anything, the LM1 was actually a stronger engine than the L34 in the real world. The LM1 was probably one of the best performing mid-sized engines of the late 1970s. Nevertheless, it was a lowly Chevy.
Interestingly by 1978 all the B-Body Oldsmobiles had Olds V8s again. By then though, the new A-Body Cutlass used the Chevrolet V8 in its lineup which reduced demand for the Olds V8. Olds went on after this to never use a Chevrolet V8 again in its full-size cars, and pretty much exclusively used Olds V8s until the 1991 Custom Cruiser. There were exceptions, such as the A/G-body cars, and the Canadian cars. For the most part BOP cars tended to stick to BOP V8s after this debacle, again with the exception of the Canadian Pontiacs/Oldsmobile/Buicks and the US market Parisienne. Cadillac also went to an Olds V8 in the Brougham for 1986. It seems GM tried to keep the “premium brands” using the Olds V8s, while Chevrolet pretty much stuck to Chevy V8s other than rare exception (Olds 307 in late 80s Chevy B-body wagons, and the odd Caprice sedan). By 1991, all V8 cars from Cadillac to Chevrolet were Chevrolet powered.
Up here in the great white north this was a nothing burger. We were used to our Ponchos coming with Chevy V8s for many years and nobody really cared if an Olds had a 350 Chevy. The reality is that customers like Mr. Siewek believing the Oldsmobile V8 was superior to the Chevrolet V8 was simply caused by years of good marketing and not actual facts. This whole thing was just blown out of proportion by Mr. Siewek. His noise lead to others jumping on this band wagon of ridiculousness.
“this band wagon of ridiculousness”
Well put. Olds had also been using six-cylinder Chevrolet engines in the Cutlass for around a decade or so by 1977.
True, but any Olds buyer knew that Oldsmobile had not made its own six since the late 40s. And those few 6 cylinder F-85 buyers probably didn’t complain in the late 60s about the switch because the Chevy six was so much more pleasant than the paint-shaker Buick V6 that had been used since 1964.
Plus there was undoubtedly a kind of shame attached to owning a 6 cylinder Oldsmobile so that those people would probably not have outed themselves by filing a lawsuit. 🙂
Excellent observation. The shame of it all….. a plebeian six in an Olds. Best to keep quiet about it.
I think the same dynamic is at work with premium German cars. Or was. If I paid big money for a BMW, am I really going to let him know my 3-series needs a head gasket at 58,000 miles? That would be pathetic in his lowly Cavalier!
Fortunately, I got it used for the price of a new Saturn SL1 (a base car), and the factory warranty paid for the head gasket. But it shook my confidence in BMW. And taught me to ALWAYS have a good independent mechanic inspect any car within one month or 1000 miles of the end of the warranty.
Tom,
I saw you had a Canadian MK2 GTI for sale on BaT. Like all kids who grew up on VW, as an adult I’m chasing my highschool cars and unfortunately didn’t win your exceptional example. Something about having it back, original and unmodified keeps drawing me to the MK2’s and being French Canadian is just pure nostalgia with this car. Please shoot me a message if you’re still interested in selling, especially to someone who still appreciates what the car was, is and represents. Hope to hear from you!
Shane
207 712 9925
shanerrado@gmail.com
GM had many if their divisions of engine sharing between Pontiac olds buick and Cadillac it’s no surprise that the b body delta 88 had a Chevrolet engine because most of GM letter cars from all divisions were manufactured at the same plant the buick lesabre and delta 88 and Pontiac Bonneville and caprice share the same platform
I respectfully disagree. GM branding marketed their V8 engines as unique, and a significant number of buyers expected a rocket in their 88 and 98 Olds, as you certainly got one in your collonade Cutlass Supreme when you chose the V8. A well-run organization would have anticipated the potential debacle of not disclosing which division produced the engine in your vehicle. Instead, corporate arrogance prevailed.
I’m with you. People had chosen the Oldsmobile car because it was thought to be superior to the Chevy. Therefore they would have expected Oldsmobile engineering would have been superior, especially after all the years of publicity about the Olds ‘Rocket’ V8. To the average man in the street, the Chevy V8 would seem a step backward (even though in engineering terms by 1977 it probably wasn’t).
To put a ‘thought-to-be-inferior’ engine in a more expensive vehicle, without informing the customer – no. How could that not seem like a bad idea?
I beg to differ. Olds had made the “Rocket V-8” a hallmark of its advertising campaigns ever since it’s introduction in 1949. The message was that the Rocket V-8 was something special; something better; something to pay more for. A reason to buy the more expensive Olds over a Chevy. The engine was just not some random, generic part that was interchangeable. It was the essence of the car. Olds itself said so over decades of advertising.
So in 1977 GM starts slipping the Chevy 350 into Oldsmobiles and says nothing. Now a corporate wide engine policy may be reasonable for GM to pursue, but it chose to keep this a secret. It wanted it both ways and thought no one would notice. Mr. Siwek, God bless him, called GM out on it.
Absolutely. Well said.
It is easy today to think of this as a big bowl of nothing, but in 1977 Oldsmobile had been convincing buyers about the merit of its “Rocket V8s” for close to 30 years. Those engines had a unique sound when starting and running, for anyone who paid attention.
Add in GM’s long and successful history with the Sloan Ladder and it is not hard to understand the guy who paid more money for his Olds 88 expecting to get a genuine Oldsmobile. Because everybody in the entire world knew that an Oldsmobile was better than a lowly Chevy. I remember this story breaking and my longtime Oldsmobile-driving mother (who was by then slumming in a Pontiac because she couldn’t find an acceptable Olds when she was shopping) sympathizing with those angry customers. Had she bought one of those cars she would have been PISSED!
GM would have done better to have gone about it the other way – increase production of Olds or Pontiac or Buick 350s and put them in Chevys before doing the hard-core consolidating that they were starting. An engine from a “better” Division would have allowed GM to argue that buyers were getting a free upgrade, and most GM buyers of the time would have lapped it up.
I understand Oldsmobile loyalists like your mom would have been “PISSED”, but at what exactly? At a false notion that the Oldsmobile was inherently better. This notion certainly wasn’t based on any credible facts. It was just a bunch of fluff that the Olds PR people had spouted for years as a ploy to move people up the Sloan ladder. Using Mr. Sivek as an example, he had no idea his engine wasn’t a Oldsmobile V8 until it was pointed out to him. The vast majority of loyal Olds customers would have fell into the same boat.
I think production going the other way, BOP engines in Chevrolet, wasn’t going to happen. Chevrolet had the most production capacity, and it also probably had the best overall V8 engine design. By the late 1970s the Buick and Pontiac were clearly not going to be the future of GM engines. The Olds was a decent V8 and it was the next logical choice to move forward into the 1980s, but ultimately GM eventually went with the Chevrolet V8 exclusively, which I think was the right choice. It is pretty impressive that a 1950s design was able to still be a viable engine into the 21st century (Gen 1 Vortec 350 used in GM vans until 2002).
Regardless of the truth of the notion, it existed and was promoted by GM to get you to pay more money for essentially the same product. That is the sin here, and they were properly deemed liable.
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/22/archives/gm-topline-prices-of-1977-auto-mobiles-49-above-76-cars-move-means.html
“However, figures were available for individual car models. They showed, for example, that the base price of a 1977 Chevrolet Impala four‐door sedan would rise by $270.95, or 5.6 percent, to $4,900.65. The Oldsmobile Delta 88 four-door sedan jumped by $199.95, or 4 percent, to $5,204.65.”
“At a false notion that the Oldsmobile was inherently better.”
This is evident now but was not evident at all in 1977, and certainly not to the typical buyer. And that you sort of recoil at the idea of an Olds V8 in a Chevrolet sort of makes the point – those Divisions had deeply loyal customers back then, who at least felt like they were getting more for their money when they moved up the ladder. This is why GM owned the middle price field for decades, because Mercury buyers or Chrysler buyers knew that their cars were much the same as the “cheaper” brand.
The point has been made here repeatedly about the many superior design features of the Chevrolet V8. And no Corvette or performance Chevy buyer would ever have settled for an Olds powerplant in his car. But for the average buyer there was no real-life difference between the engines at all. An Olds V8 in a Caprice would not have been the cause for a scandal. As you note though, I doubt that Chevy management would have taken the switch lying down, and for the same reason Oldsmobile management swallowed hard and tried to hide the switch in their literature.
I *get* that this false notion was ingrained in GM customers, and I get why people would be upset. But I guess what I think is ridiculous is that people are gullible enough to put so much value in this marking PR. Sure people were lead to believe Oldsmobile was better than Chevrolet and therefore the Rocket V8 was better than the SBC, but the reality was that it was not. Both the Chevrolet and Olds V8s were good engines despite the fact many falsely believed the Chevrolet V8 was a lower grade engine. Like I said, did the Chevrolet 350 in a Delta 88 really cause any real difference to the average customer in how the car operated? Can’t people look past their perceptions of reality to see that there was really nothing to get worked up about? I have never been one to put much value on branding which is why I think this whole think was ridiculous.
I also understand that what is evident now may not have been to the medium price buyer in 1977. You would think the courts could see through this fluff for what it was, but then again that is far too much to expect from a civil litigation. I suppose I can see the extra charge for the 350 in an Olds over Chevy as being hard to swallow, but other Olds options were surely more expensive as well.
I don’t think my response is a recoil at the thought of an Olds in a Chevrolet, more that it didn’t make any practical sense. Chevrolet had the production capacity and arguably one of the best GM V8 designs. Impending emissions and fuel economy standards meant that antiquated designs should be left behind. It would make no sense from a production or engineering stand point to put a BOP engine in a Chevrolet at that point in time. I do understand your logic of offering the Olds in Chevy as being a perceived “upgrade” but it just doesn’t make sense on any other level – that is my issue with that idea.
FWIW, many 1987 Chevrolet Caprice sedans,seemingly mostly Canadian market cars, had 307 Oldsmobile engines. No one cared, other than a few enthusiasts like me, who knew the 307 was sub-par compared to the LG4 305 in performance. If the Olds 307 was better than the 305, I would have had no issue with a Caprice having that engine. But the reality was the 307 was a real, not perceived, downgrade.
“You would think the courts could see through this fluff for what it was, ”
I think you give courts too much credit. Those judges and jurors were the same people who had been happily paying more money for Oldsmobiles for years. 🙂
I think our different backgrounds may account for our different views on this. In addition to your very engineering-centric approach, you grew up in Canada where the Chevy was hugely popular when compared with the other brands and where it seemingly carried no social stigma.
I grew up in a middle class/midwestern US world where a Chevrolet was seen as an inferior car – not because it was bad, but just because. This wasn’t something consciously investigated and deduced, but was just “institutional knowledge” passed down from generation to generation. Upgrading from a Chevy was a milestone to be celebrated, but the opposite was not. I think the remnants of this attitude have been a drag on Chevrolet for the past 30 years, even as Ford slowly morphed into a car free of any class-associations.
My grandmother Cavanaugh’s last car was a Monte Carlo, bought after decades of Oldsmobiles. She felt it necessary to explain that she only bought it because she was trying to save money.
“where a Chevrolet was seen as an inferior car – not because it was bad, but just because. This wasn’t something consciously investigated and deduced, but was just “institutional knowledge” passed down from generation to generation”
That, gentlemen, is the power of marketing in a nutshell.
Fact is you paid more for an Olds and part of the package was the reputation of the Rocket engines. So yeah I’d be pissed and everyone should be pissed that they paid extra to get an Oldsmobile only to find out it had the same engine as a lowly Impala.
“I think you give courts too much credit. Those judges and jurors were the same people who had been happily paying more money for Oldsmobiles for years. 🙂
I think our different backgrounds may account for our different views on this. In addition to your very engineering-centric approach, you grew up in Canada where the Chevy was hugely popular when compared with the other brands and where it seemingly carried no social stigma.”
My comment on the courts may have been dripping in sarcasm…
I think you nailed it there JPC about our different upbringings. In my family, as immigrants, we put little value on perceived brand value. If a Chevrolet, Ford or Plymouth did the job as well as a higher priced car, why pay more? We owned both low priced and mid priced cars in our family and no one saw the medium priced cars as intrinsically better. They were judged on their actual merits, and more often than not our best cars were the low priced ones.
Responding to JP
“I think the remnants of this attitude have been a drag on Chevrolet for the past 30 years, even as Ford slowly morphed into a car free of any class-associations.”
Ford hit a grand-slam home run when it went Front Wheel Drive with the Taurus. People still perceive Ford cars better than Chevy cars for this reason. Cavalier, Celebrity, Citation, Cobalt, and Lumina are best forgotten outside of Lumina’s appearance in NASCAR.
There is some irony that Ford “intends to stop” building cars (sedans) before Chevy. Because as far as I’m concerned the last USA Built Chevy sedan worth more than a plugged nickle rolled off the assembly line in 1996 (Caprice/Impala). Everything else has been rental car fodder engineered with “Factory to Dealer Rebate” baked-in to the recipe, or “stolen” from other divisions.
(2008 Chevy Malibu was the Saturn Aura)
(2014 Chevy SS was the Holden Commodore).
Interesting. As a Midwesterner and member of a car-loving family, we never thought Chevy as “bad,” just less fancy. The “sloan ladder” was standard equipment and size, not quality. I think there was a perceived difference with Cadillac, but the rest were about the same. My wife’s Grandpa was a small town banker in Nebraska, and he always drove Buicks, mostly because he didn’t want to put on the airs of a Cadillac owner and distance himself from the farmers. The little lady got an Olds. The farmers in the family bought Chevy’s, because they were considered easier and cheaper to work on, but still an upgrade from Fords.
@JPC engineering wise the Olds is a superior engine for a number of reasons I detailed below.
The Oldsmobile loyalist would be pissed at the idea that they were purchasing and Oldsmobile, with a presumed Oldsmobile engine, at an Oldsmobile price, when if fact they were being sold a generic Chevy motor instead. While enthusiasts may understand that the differences were minor, and in many ways beneficial overall to the buyer, it was not disclosed in a way that alerted the buyer to what was being sold. GM’s own history of not sharing motors is what did them in, as they did not disclose the change iin a meaningful way.
Look at it this way, generic drugs work as well as the name brand, but people will pay for the brand name unless there is a compelling cost benefit. In this case, Olds didn’t lower the price for the installed Chevy motor, but it did substitute the generic for the name brand, so to speak. People expect to get what they paid for, and in the case of these Oldsmobile buyers, they expected an Oldsmobile rocket motor in their 88. Instead, they got a generic equivalent, but at full price. When they found out otherwise, they had cause to be upset.
The fact is people paid more for an Oldsmobile than a Chevy and Olds had put in considerable effort for a couple of decades touting the superiority of an Olds Rocket.
As far as the Olds engine being better I do think it is a better design, if for nothing else that it would be much less likely to have leaky valve covers thanks to using more than 4 bolts and for having spark plugs you could see and access.
Of course we were all taught that a Rocket 88 was superior. That is what marketing does.
If you examine the Chart above, the Rocket 350 has 10 more HP and 15 more Torque at, a lower Compression Ratio. The Chevy 350 was inferior.
I was all of 13 when this little brouhaha got legs in the media. Maybe because I was car centric it seemed like there was a lot of coverage, or maybe there really was. GM was still the largest company in the United States in 1977. GM made news all the time, and this was a bit juicer than most corporate news.
Years later, when aware that sharing GM drive-train components among the divisions was something that went back to at least before WWII, it was hard to figure how this became a thing.
This article does a terrific job of explaining the finer details that went into making this case what it was.
Having owned two Rocket 350s (I’m sure, they were in ’73 and ’76 Cutlasses) I think I can understand the disappointment, however irrational, of the shortchanged Delta 88 buyers, the vast majority (as in 84%) of whom ponied up for the premium Royale trim with lots of options. And, virtually all were V-8s. This was a premium car, sold with a premium image, and getting an Impala engine was no bueno.
In March 1977, I missed this whole thing (though at some point I learned of it). I thought a 350 was a GM motor, like a 351 was Ford, 360 Chrysler, and so forth.
I do know that I wished our Nova derivative, a 75 Ventura had the 305 instead of the 260. The 260 was both thirsty and anemic, with but 110 hp. It was however very durable and smooth, two qualities I would have appreciated more as a mature adult.
I was kind of like you – as a teen I had not understood the difference, although I knew that an Olds had a unique sound. When I was about 11 or 12 there was no ID plate under the hood of our 64 Cutlass, so I naturally assumed that it was powered by a 283. 🙂
Olds V8s from the ’60s and ’70s (and even into the ’80s) most definitely had a unique sound. I can’t really put in it words but I can hear the 350 and 307 in my head right now. The Chevy versions sounded generic by comparison.
As Paul and I discussed in the comments thread of one of the “dealer postcard” posts a week or so ago, compacts were considered a separate thing from F/S cars. A Ford was a Ford, and a Falcon was just a Falcon, not a Ford Falcon, so maybe that’s why putting cross-divisional engines in them was not an issue?
And perhaps related… Pop was an Oldsmobile Man. Got out of Chevrolets as soon as he could afford to, in part due to the reputation of the Rocket V-8. It is said to be the first “modern” V-8, and at least well into the sixties, it was held in high esteem due to it’s (real or perceived) robustness over Chevrolet’s V-8. Although I was too young to drive in ’77, I was already a car nut, and was well aware of this “engine swap” issue as it happened. I understood that there were plenty of old-time “Oldsmobile Men” still out there, people who bought an Oldsmobile partly based on the reputation of the “Rocket V-8” and would have been disappointed to find a small-block Chevy under the hood of their newly-purchased 88.
A Rocket on the Docket. There were detail differences, and perceived differences, but were there substantial differences? I recall discussions of Oldsmobile engines having more nickle content in the blocks, thus making them more durable, but were they really? Or was it all just GM Hype by that point? This from a Chevy man, who learned to drive with a small block 283 and Powerglide.
I always had the real-world experience (certainly anecdotal) that the Oldsmobiles were more durable, mainly because I almost never saw an old Oldsmobile belching blue clouds or sounding like it was running on 7 cylinders. That was not uncommon on worn-out Chevys, but beaten-down Oldsmobiles still seemed to be runners, whatever their other problems.
I have seen the high nickle content theory elsewhere, but don’t know if it was true. And, of course, this is not to say that there might not have been other factors, such as sheer numbers or differences in how the brands were taken care of when new.
I think some of that was due to the better engineering of the Olds engine, including the high nickel content blocks.
However I think a lot of it is the demographics of the buyer, with the Olds buyer more likely to spend the money (and have the money to spend) on keeping the car properly maintained and fixing the little things before they got worse. So less likely to miss an oil change, let it run low on oil or coolant because they didn’t get the leak fixed, ect. Once they left the original owners I bet the scales tipped even further in favor of the Olds getting better care. Yes by the mid to late 70’s that was starting to fade but in the 60’s and early 70’s there was a much bigger demographic spread between the Olds man and a Chevy guy.
However I think a lot of it is the demographics of the buyer,
We actually agree on something here! 🙂
JPC’s observations of smoky old Chevys undoubtedly has a whole lot to do with the fact that old Chevys were always extremely popular with young guys of modest means for their cheap performance potential, regardless if that potential was ever realized.
How many young guys were picking up cheap old Oldsmobiles from the 50s and 60s as their ride of choice? Almost none.
If anything, this shows just how strong the appeal of old Chevys was, going back to the huge demand for used tri-fives start right in 1958 already.
In any case, it’s a very subjective observation from someone who is a well known Chevy…non-lover, shall we say. 🙂
I simply refuse to acknowledge that an Olds V8 was inherently longer lasting than a Chevy V8 until someone can show me facts and evidence. Too many truckers, for whom operating costs are everything, bought Chevy gas trucks for many decades, year in, year out, for me to think that they were willing to put up with an inferior engine.
Isn’t a lot of this directly attributed to ubiquity? Chevrolet being the low cost high volume brand meant there were inherently more 55-57 Chevys on the used car market, and more SBCs for hot rodders to pilfer from, and the aftermarket to cater speed parts towards to make a meaningful profit, and more imagery of hot Chevys or Chevy powered cars to leave an impression on young car guys.
I wasn’t really thinking of the hot rodders, or would be hot rodders, though they certainly accelerated the demise of many a SBC and the sheet metal it was wrapped in.
I was more thinking the person who just needed a car to get to work and were on a tight budget.
“In any case, it’s a very subjective observation from someone who is a well known Chevy…non-lover, shall we say. 🙂”
I acknowledge the Chevrolet’s excellent design attributes, but must rest on the proposition that no mass-manufactured engine is going to be best at everything. I do not argue that the Chevrolet V8 suffered from poor durability. But I think “it’s the most durable postwar V8 ever built” on top of its many other attributes (performance, cost, weight, etc) is overselling it. It was certainly in the top half among American V8s (which was a pretty enviable place to be) but my suspicion and anectodal experience is that there were other designs that stood up to hard use and poor maintenance better and longer. Cadillac, Olds and several Chrysler designs come to mind.
Your professional trucker example likely got good maintenance on average, and nobody disputes that a Chevy maintained properly would go for a long, long time.
While the Olds engine’s design being inherently longer lasting than a SBC is certainly debatable. However what is not debateable is that in practice the typical 1977 SBC had a fairly high likelihood of needing major engine repair long before the typical Olds engine. As Shurkey pointed out below this was when cam failures in the SBC were way too common.
Our family’s 77 Caprice with the 305 ate its cam in 81 with around 50k on it. My Dad bought in new and he was more likely to change the oil early than to let it go over, even by ~100 miles.
Later as a mechanic I changed many flat cams in SBCs made in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
Of course in 77 the buyer would have no way to know that would be a problem as older versions of the SBC didn’t have that issue.
All this talk about which engines were more durable is fun to chew on, but utterly irrelevant to 99% of new car buyers. Who kept their new cars until their engines actually wore out? That may have been an issue back in the 1940s and earlier, but not by this time. The Chevy taxis at the big Yellow cab co. I drove at were racking up 300+k miles on their engines in the 70s. What pirate new car buyer drove that long back then? 1%? 2%?
As I said, it’s an endless subject of debate, but essentially meaningless.
What percent of cars that end up in the junkyard do so because the engine actually wore out? And even if it was the engine, how many were one-owner cars?
“I acknowledge the Chevrolet’s excellent design attributes, but must rest on the proposition that no mass-manufactured engine is going to be best at everything.”
I agree with you, the SBC has great design attributes and engineering but its not the best at everything. The SBC certainly had shortcomings, and these late 70s versions had more quality control issues than other iterations. Not only the camshafts failures, but also crack prone cylinder heads were common during this time. The Olds V8s also did have higher nickel content blocks, which could help reduce bore wear. However, there are plenty of other reasons for engine failure besides bore wear.
That said, both the 2nd generation Olds V8 and the SBC were good engines. Each have there on advantages and disadvantages. Few new car owners kept either long enough to wear them out anyway. I also agree with the other comments about demographics having playing a role. As someone who has owned a number of both Chevy and Olds V8s, I can say that each are durable long lasting engines if looked after. I like both and don’t have a problem owning either engine, despite the badge on the grille.
Didn’t Oldsmobile make changes to the 1977 version of its V-8 (primarily aimed at reducing weight), which made it less desirable than earlier versions?
Geeber, in 1977 all Oldsmobile small block (short deck) V8’s adopted a “windowed main” block. This was where the main bearing supports in the engine had large holes added to lighten the block. All 1977-90 Oldsmobile V8s have this style of block, except for the diesels. Big blocks (tall deck) engines ended production in 1976, so none of those blocks had this change. While these blocks are not desirable for performance builds, realistically, they are fine for a bone stock low-performance engine. Follow the link for a pic.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/comment-image/423648.jpg
Scoutdude, the small block Chevy camshaft failures were well known and it was a fairly significant problem (although some of it was blamed on the wrong type of oil/maintenance of the owners). However it was not guaranteed that all SBC engines would have a cam failure. We probably had about half a dozen SBC engines that fell into the problem years of the late 70s and early 80s in our family, and not one of them had a camshaft failure. Almost all were kept to 100K miles or more, including one 350 that I still have. I agree a cam failure could potentially ruin the rest of the engine if the subsequent repair was not done right. I know the guys at my old dealership that worked during that time said they would most often do a full tear down if a SBC cam in with a bad cam under warranty.
TomLu86, the Gen 1 SBC was used until 2002 in the Express and Savana vans. It was also available in the Forward Control GMC trucks until 2003. It is still produced by GM today as a crate engine in Mexico.
Yes, by the 1960s/70s, given proper maintenance, the odds were very high that your stock GM V8 and in line six would last the life of the car.
The brilliance of the Chevy small block was that is was designed to be low cost, and yet despite that, it stacked up very well against ANY mass produced V8. Being among the best, for less, is a win.
That said, I think people more knowledgeable than I might successfully argue the Olds V8 was “better”. But the difference was so minor as to be of little or no consequence in real life.
The Chevy was excellent, cheaper, and had the most production capacity. In a market that needed fewer V8s, GM logically pulled the plug on the Pontiac and Buick first, and the Chevy last, as it was in pickups and the Camaro thru 1998. Maybe more with the van
Good enough to be served up for FORTY THREE model years, spanning the pre space age to the internet and flip phone—that was one brilliant design CHEVROLET came up with.
@TomLu 86 I think there was a definite consequential difference in 77 to those that ended up with the bad cams in the Chevy engines. All that metal circulating while the cam was failing but the problem wasn’t noticed didn’t do anything good for the bearings. As I mentioned the one in our 77 Caprice ate the cam at 4yrs and ~50k for a significant repair bill and then was traded in with a rod knock at 7 years old and ~90k on it. Ours was not an outlier failed cams were way to common in this era of SBC.
The failed SBC camshafts were no outlier. The details are fuzzy to me after 30 plus years, and I can’t find anything online at this point, but I’ll try to explain what I remember. Because of the camshaft failures, there was a class action lawsuit against GM, which resulted in a settlement between the Federal Trade Commission and GM, which was administered by the Better Business Bureau. There was no secret warranty, GM flatly denied any existence of a settlement to me. I had to dig up a copy of Consumer Reports to find out how to file a claim. Your car had to be less than 10 years/50K miles old. My ’82 Camaro’s 305 only had 40K miles. Maybe I have some of the details mixed up, but the failure was real, and I was completely reimbursed for the repair at the dealer.
With the cost cutting that was emerging at GM at that time, it wouldn’t surprise me if the bean counters neutralized any design superiority that the Olds V8 originally might of had.
@Vince, I never said that all of the cams failed in this era SBC, but it was fairly common. So yeah if you had the Chevy it was more much likely that you would need what I consider major engine repair. The one weak spot that sticks out on the Olds of this era, was a not to common, rocker bridge failure. Which, while still being unacceptable in my opinion, at least was a quick and cheap repair.
I ran a fleet of taxis, all of which were either Oldsmobile or Chevrolet.
There was zero difference in durability between an Oldsmobile engine and a Chevrolet. In fact, the Chevrolet 305 was better than the Oldsmobile 307 on every metric. It used less fuel and had better power.
the specs on that 1978 chart show the olds 350 4bbl having more hp and torque than the chevy 350 4bbl.
Exactly. I lived in Lansing, MI in the 1980’s with extended family working for Olds; not GM. Good Will, is not just an accounting term for Corporate value. It is real, albeit difficult to quantify accurately.
This is a hoot from the NYT article. Does anyone here want to write up a comparison of the Olds 350 and Chevy 350? Surely there weren’t THAT many differences….
“The damages sought included two cents a mile for alleged inferior durability, design and drivability of the Chevrolet engines”.
I was 7 in 1977 and infatuated with cars. I do remember this on the news, 60 Minutes in particular IIRC.
On a side note, my grandmother’s 1984 Pontiac Bonneville she bought new had a 4 barrel Chevy 305. Nothing wrong with that engine choice! That thing would fly, especially compared to my dad’s (my first COAL) 101 hp BMW 320i or mom’s 60 odd hp 240D.
Does anyone today actually believe that the Olds 350 was a better engine? I recall the issue at the time, but pretty much any car-oriented person back then seemed to agree that… if anything… the Chevy engine would be their preference.
Marketing hype caused this for certain.
Yeah it is a better engine design in a number of ways.
Valve covers that don’t leak thanks to using enough bolts and actually putting them in good locations.
Oil fill that goes straight down the block into the pan, instead of what Chevy was doing at this time, putting it in the valve cover so it leaked as it was trying to find its way down the drain back holes.
High nickel content in the blocks that made them more durable.
Spark plugs that you could access.
The rocker arm design is better in a number of ways and doesn’t require adjustment.
The pan style intake gasket keeps oil off the underside of the intake so less coking of oil occurs due to the exhaust cross over.
A bypass hose that keeps coolant moving for better warm up/reduced hot spots, especially when used with a heater control valve that blocks off flow to the heater core, like on cars with AC.
So yeah the Olds engine is much better engineered.
How about the 10 more hp and more torque at a lower compression ration on the Olds 350? No one likes to pay the same price and get less.
The 160 hp rating is the CA emissions version. The far more common Federal version had 170 hp. Contemporary road tests of the time show that the LM1 was probably the best performing engine in its size class. See the chart below on the 1977 Chevrolet engine specs sourced from original GM documents:
Car oriented people weren’t buying Delta 88s, clamoring for cheap ubiquitous speed parts to soup them up. Nobody will deny that the Chevy 350 was an excellent modification platform, but as a stock engine used to haul around a comfy barge, at best they’d have no preference at all, and at worse feel misled by marketing, and have the same frustrating maintenance experiences of parts not fitting Mr Siwek experienced.
No big deal and instead, a manifestation of Alfred P. Sloan’s marketing and ‘shared platform’ manufacturing strategies.
A friend of my dad’s bought a used 88 with the Chevy engine, that he said he got a deal on because the original owner traded it in in disgust. He was laughing about how dumb it was to think it mattered.
As a lawyer myself, this whole thing smells of being 90% ginned up by the plaintiff’s bar as a fee-generating wheeze.
Safe to say, more people in the general public were disgusted with the badge engineering that was now rampant with each of the Big Three.
One other thing about that 1977 brochure. While a cutaway diagram was provided for both the Toronado and 98 (both of which clearly depict an Oldsmobile V8 engine), no such diagram was provided for the 88 (which would have had to depict one engine or the other).
As shown in the photos in my article, there were quite obvious visual differences between the Chevy and Olds engines. GM was walking a very fine line here.
Can’t let a discussion of Olds Rocket 88 without listening to this:
It was originally credited to Jackie Brenston on the label, and Ike Turner was miffed about it.
I was an adult then and I think the outrage was real, more at GM’s cheapening the brand than at any inherent issue with the motors. The name “Rocket 88” was iconic, even among non car people. However a few years later when I bought my 305 Chevy powered, California-only Firebird, I was glad I was getting a real SBC and not some weird 301 thing. Chevy motor with Pontiac WS6 suspension, wheels and steering was better (on the paper that Car and Driver was printed on) than the Z28 offering.
When this story broke, I was totally surprised about the size of the uproar. By this time, GM was putting Buick 231 V6s in the Nova, Apollo, Omega, and Ventura as well as the Cutlass, Regal, and LeMans. The joke in college was that GM stood for Generic Motors.
The excitement must have traced back to “Greatest Generation” marketing that each division had their own engine design. Yet, all the divisions were using the same Turbo-Hydramatic automatic transmission.
Today, it doesn’t matter if an Intel or AMD processor is in your HP laptop, as long as it works, who cares.🤔🤔
The 75-79 Nova never had the 231 V6. Never. Always had the 250 in line six.
As did the 6-cylinder Pontiac Ventura for 75-76.
I believe the 79 (half year) Nova and the base 79 Impala/Caprices were the last GM cars (not trucks or van) to offer the Chevy sources in line six.
The 1980 cars went to either the 231 V6 or the 229 V6 which was a SBC minus two cylinders
Until the even firing crank, the 231 V6 was a shaker.
Besides the 1979 Nova, Impala/Caprice Classic, the Camaro also offered a 250 cu in. I6 as well for the final time until it was replaced in 1980 by a V6. I am not sure whether its a 229 or a 231 though?
Hmm. This HP has an Intel badge on the keyboard – think I should open it to check it really is? 🙂
Nice one Old Pete 😁
Rip ‘er open and find the truth…oh, wait, the parts themselves now tell us who made them when we look up system specs. 🤣
Nice one Old Pete 😁
Rip ‘er open and find the truth…oh, wait, the parts themselves now tell us who made them when we look up system specs on our computers! 🤣
Irregardless of whether it’s true or not, for decades GM marketing had been promoting the idea through the Sloan ladder that as one moved up the cars were superior in quality. I can understand why some customers were PO’d by the discovery that their Oldsmobile had a Chevrolet engine and somehow they had been defrauded. Significantly, when GM started the practice there was no mention of it too the public until it was discovered by accident. True, GM had been interchanging parts on their vehicles for years, but it was almost never mentioned to the public.
Meanwhile some Buick and Pontiac buyers were slipped Rockets.
False notion? Nothingburger? Baseless marketing-induced lawsuitry? I don’t agree. Take a look at that last image, of the engine specs. I have to think ten more horses and 15 more pound-feet would have been very noticeable in the driveability and performance of the car, especially in cars with taller axle ratios, as the greater torque was available at a lower engine speed.
And at least from the pics here, it appears the Olds engine got the “forever young” A6 air conditioning compressor, while the Chev motor got the A4—noisier and leak-prone, with an appetite for shaft seals, but cheaper. What other parts and accessories were cheaper on the Chev motor? Donno, but I do think it’s notable GM put Chev engines in Oldsmobiles, but not the other way round. They didn’t build Caprices or Impalas with Rocket 350s. Now, why is that? All the cars were built by GMAD, all the parts were in the house and all the parts would fit, and yet the cheaper-brand car never got the costlier-brand engine. That finishes off, for me, the argument that there was no real difference and it didn’t really matter.
Daniel I am not sure if your response is directed at me, but I will respond. I should point out that the 160 hp rating for the LM1 was the CA emissions rating. The far more common 49 state rating was 170 hp and 270 ft-lbs of torque, essentially the same as the Olds 350. However, based on the actual road tests of the day and the police car tests, the LM1 punched above its rating and was a better performer than the Olds 350. A LM1 Caprice was a strong performer for its day. We owned a ’78 Olds Delta 88 with a 350 Olds. It wasn’t a slug, but it was no rocket either (pardon the pun).
https://www.gmheritagecenter.com/docs/gm-heritage-archive/vehicle-information-kits/Caprice/1978-Chevrolet-Caprice.pdf
See page 21 for hp ratings for 1978 (as posted above). 1977 ratings were the same.
You raise a good point regarding the compressor, but the Olds motors also got the A4 too. Other than that what else is there? Both use the same basic ignition, both the same crappy bead style catalytic converters, similar Q-jet carbs, etc. Oh and they did put Olds motors in Chevs. The 1986 1/2 to 1990 Caprice wagons as well as many 1987 Caprice sedans used 307 Oldsmobile V8s.
I obviously disagree with your opinion, but I take no issue in it differing from mine.
No, Vince, I wasn’t directing anything at you, I was responding to a fairly big group of people. Thanks, though.
(I don’t consider ’86-’90 cars relevant to this discussion; they came many years after language like “GM cars are equipped with engines made by various GM divisions. See dealer for details” started appearing in small print at the bottom of ads.)
I apologize Daniel for making that assumption. It was only because you used several of my phrases that I came to that conclusion. I don’t disagree with you on the 1986 to 90 cars, I was just pointing out a little known fact. FWIW, there was no shortage of SBCs in 1977, which is why a Chevrolet didn’t use a Olds at that time. In the late 80s there was a surplus of 307s, which is why some Chevrolets got them.
On the A/C compressors, both the A6 and A4 shows up in parts catalogs for these late 70s Oldsmobiles. We had a 78 and a 79 Delta 88 both with L34 V8s but neither had A/C, so I can’t reference them.
A Delta 88 with no AC! Yep, your’e from Canada alright!
Personally , I was always a big proponent of AC even as a kid, always bugged my dad to get it. We finally did in ’72, a Comet (Maverick) LDO. On the prairies, it was becoming very common in medium-price cars by then, and showing up in more cheaper
models, too. (think Impala, Galaxie, Meteor etc)
I or my parents haven’t been without it since. My reasoning was, a car has a heater, so why not a cooler? Same thing with radios. to me, an AM radio was half a radio, all the good stuff was on FM in the 70s, and as soon as I started buying my own cars, I made sure I had it, even if I had to buy one and have it installed (as I did with my ’76 Omega), which incidentally had a 260.
A lot of people slag on this engine, but even on the baby V8, it’s still had that throaty Olds snarl when fired from cold. Power? Not so much, it would still do 100 MPH indicated.
And 29 MPG highway, thanks to the super rare B&W T50 5-Speed OD, which turned out to be not worth a crap anyway.:(
” both the A6 and A4 shows up in parts catalogs”
Axial 6 cylinder compressor = A6. Radial 4 cylinder compressor = R4.
The A6 was bulletproof, but took lots of power to run. The R4 was a hand grenade especially in the early years; but with less horsepower required to run the thing (until it died). Later R4s were considerably improved but never achieved “bulletproof” status.
The pictured A6 equipped Rocket is not in a downsized B.
Who remembers that the era’s Rockets ate rocker arms/stands and rotted away their intake manifolds?
Chevrolet owners were deprived of that bonus.
You’re right, good point; that A6-equipped engine isn’t in a downsized B-car.
Wasn’t the Olds 403 block and the 350 block the same size, just had a difference in bore and stroke?
You know what else I see on the chart that we rarely get to pick anymore? Axle ratios! That 403 with the 3.23 axle would have been pretty peppy in comparison to the 2.41 axle, which saved gas while still having enough torque to merge onto the highway back in the 55 mph days. I wouldn’t have wanted the 2.41 on the 260 tho, it would have downshifted with every little incline and raised bridge.
The 260 on the other hand… Who would order a 110 HP Slug with 2.29 Rear? Has there been a lower available rear end ratio?
But by this point, hindsight is 20-20, right?
As to the engine swap, you can’t have it both ways. The Olds had been hyped as a superior engine. Then to be told by GM “Oh, it doesn’t matter!” was a slap in the face to people such as my FIL, an Oldsmobile man of then about 25 years. He loved his first Olds, a used 1950 he bought in 1952. He continued to own Oldsmobiles until about 1979.
Live by the hype, and die by the hype. I didn’t feel bad for GM.
Also, the Chevy V8s of this era had “soft” cams and lifters along with valve guides that wore prematurely.
Anyone remember the valve guide knurling kits that were used to gain a few more miles out of oil burning Chevy V8?
Maybe the quality suffered as the production was increased to meet demand?
“Then to be told by GM “Oh, it doesn’t matter!” was a slap in the face…..”
Effectively GM was admitting that they were a pack of liars.
Whichever engine was actually superior by 1977, in service in these vehicles, GM had been raking in profits for decades on the alleged superiority of Oldsmobile. And they were surprised when it came home to bite them?
If they’d been honest in the first place and told people their Olds might be built with a Chevy motor (and maybe given a small discount) – well, we can guess how that might’ve played out.
Anyone know whether the used value for these cars was affected by which engine they had?
.
Something not touched on in the article is the real reason that GM was forced to sell Cherios. Olds demand was through the roof, thanks to people deciding that hair shirting it for fuel economy above all else wasn’t for them. Many decided it wasn’t worth it and they wanted something nicer, but they didn’t totally forget about economy. So for about the price of that full size Chevy they could walk to the other side of the lot and get a Cutlass for about the same money, get a better appointed car and a little better fuel economy.
So the Cutlass became the best selling car and it exceeded the capacity of the Olds engine plant. Meanwhile Chevy all of a sudden had extra capacity thanks to the Cutlass knocking the full size Chev off of the podium.
So they had to do something to meet the Olds demand.
Record demand for new Oldsmobiles in 1977 led to a shortage of Rocket V8. Also, one engine line at Olds in Lansing was shut down to be converted to production of diesel engines beginning with model year 1978. A great example of GM being caught with its pants down.
The diseasel. Which did so much for Olds’ engineering reputation.
Bore wear tends to be higher on Chevy small-blocks than on comparable B-O-P-C brands. The cast-iron seems to be of a lesser grade on the Chevy. Whether this had to do specifically with “nickel” is beyond me. Chevys of the era (and several years newer) tended to have soft camshafts and considerable problem with flat cam lobes and wiped lifters. GM had “secret warranty” policies covering Chevy engines with cam problems for 5 years, 50K miles.
At the time, I thought the owners of the Chevy-engined cars were the lucky ones. Today, I’m in the camp of those who brought the lawsuit. The terms for the owners were not generous enough; the court erred in not assessing additional compensation.
Blue engines for ’77? Interesting. My mother bought a ’77 Concours (Nova) in the fall of ’76. The engine is orange. Perhaps a calendar-year change rather than a model-year change. I still have the car, original 305 engine. Total turd. When the A/C cycles at highway speed, the cruise control has to yank the throttle open; the lag between the compressor engaging and the cruise pulling the throttle results in a back-and-forth slow-down-speed-up that’s obvious and hateful. The original TH200 transmission gave up right on schedule: A 50K mile transmission that failed at about 48K–49K miles.
Higher nickel content = longer-wearing iron blocks. Chrysler blew trumpets about it in ’63, for example.
I think you’re probably right about calendar vs. model year engine colour change; I looked at a 10/76-built ’77 Caprice in original condition with an orange-red 350.
When Chevy was selling “stock” blocks for high-performance use, they had a specific part number for the recommended block that had additional TIN. From the Chevrolet Power books of decades ago: “p/n 366246 as a “350 CID Iron Cylinder and Case Asm. Bare, 4″ bore, 4 Bolt Main, High Tin Alley” (sic) Of course they meant “High Tin Alloy”.
Chevy never talked about NICKEL in their cast iron; and I don’t know of any Pontiac/Olds/Buick/Cadillac advertising of nickel-alloyed iron. And yet, the Non-Chevy divisions of GM have a better reputation for cylinder bore wear than Chevy, at least in the carburetor era.
There’s a hundred things that can be mixed-in with iron that can make it harder/more durable/stronger. And then we’d need to talk about heat treatment, or the lack thereof. If the casting cools quicker, it becomes harder. I bet none of these blocks were *deliberately* heat-treated, but incidental heat treatment is–potentially–another story. Perhaps the casting line(s) that made Chevy blocks allowed a longer/slower cooling process than the other divisions.
Modern Diesels have the tops of the cylinder bores–the first inch or two–hardened by a special process. The treatment is visible with the naked eye. But this does not apply to the gasoline small-blocks of old.
https://www.dieselworldmag.com/diesel-technology/what-makes-the-duramax-so-great/
https://www.dieselworldmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/DW-2006-GMTECH-03.jpg
I forgot this was in the peak years for bad cams in SBCs.
A Chevrolet LM-1 will go 1,000,000 km and never need a set of rings. I have seen this from personal experience.
If you pay a premium for a product you’ve been told is special for something, and other people got that one and you didn’t by luck of the draw, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be upset by the fact. If you bought a iPhone 11 Pro Max and it turned out yours is actually a iPhone 8 hardware with cosmetic updates because demand exceeded capacity, would you brush it off as “eh, all the stuff it is lacking is marketing fluff anyway, I wont make a mountain out of a molehill”.
I don’t disagree that it really doesn’t matter in the context of now but divisional engines was one of the last things that GM really could stand above the competition with their claims, and the complete lack of honesty towards consumers is frankly as reprehensible as much more impactful deadly sins. Customers didn’t have the wool pulled over their eyes with Chevrolet 6 cylinders, and nobody really cared since that was the cheapskate engine choice in Oldsmobile’s anyway, there’s no marketing fluff or history of ”Rocket V6s”.
I dispute the claims of superiority of the Chevy V8 too, ubiquity is its strongest asset, followed by its weight, not its engineering. All GM V8s had their strengths and weaknesses.
In response to the uproar over “The Chevymobile Affair”, GM starting with the 1978 model year and continuing for several years installed a disclaimer in ads and brochures about engines: “Chevrolets (or Oldsmobiles, Buicks, Pontiacs, GMC Trucks, Cadillacs) are equipped with engines manufactured by various GM divisions, affiliates and worldwide subsidiaries. See your dealer for details.”
We used to call ’em a Chevmobile.
ChevrOldsmoBuAc.
So a Cadillac powered Pontiac would be an Acac? 🙂
What is even worse was the 231 Buick v6 which was underpowered and failure prone. I remember driving these and the 231 and 260 old’s could not get out of its own way and got horrible gas mileage due to you had to floor it all the time. I really think the better alternative was getting a Ford. Or at least getting nothing smaller than a 305 under the hood.
So that’s why their coffee cups read ” Caution contents my be hot”. Note the get out clause “may be”. Just in case some one true to sue them for serving warm coffee.
About the engines. We had the reverse problem in the UK . Due to internal rivalry Triumph refused to junk the leaky Stag v8 for Rovers hassle free one because it wasn’t a TRUIMPH engine. Result Hugh warranty claims. No one really gave a toss who built the engine as long as it held together.
Yes, the contents of a 231 Buick V6 may be hot, especially if it’s been running for a bit.
Wasn’t Caddilac sued for fitting the Olds 350 in to the Seville ?.
North of the border did any one sue Pontiac for fitting Chevy chassis and drive trains for years. Litigation culture for you.
I was under the impression the whole reason this got going was because if you were to order one, there was no discernible way to do so and specify which 350 you got. It showed up as is. The whole “inferior” thing stemmed from the fact that Chevrolet put their 350 into their platform of the “same” car for less money. Regardless if true or not, the argument went that was GM’s admission that there was, in fact, a difference between the two that would justify a consumer to choose an Oldsmobile in the first place. You never heard complaints corporate divisional engines were used prior because it was the only choice there was *in that size*, no luck of the draw, and no ability to say the identically branded product was in fact, demonstrably not the same.
There was only the “Rocket 350” listed in the Olds Brochures so it is a reasonable assumption that one would get a Olds engine if one checked that box. After all Olds had been referring to their engines as “Rocket xxx” for several decades.
I’d be very interested in reading a detailed analysis of engineering strengths and weaknesses of Chev vs Pontiac vs Olds vs Buick small block 330/340/350 V8s, say from 1964 to late ’70s when the divisional engine phase-out began. I’ve heard anecdotes, and have owned some of them, but would be interested to see how they actually stack up data-wise and in real use. CU used to publish reliability stats, and I’d bet there were internal GM reports if they could be accessed somehow. To me the engine has always been the most interesting part of the car.
Same for the various GM division’s “big blocks”. As someone said all US V8s had their + and -, it’d be very interesting to really see them compared in detail.
Where’s Ate Up With Motor when you need him?
Two observations..The actual Olds V8 in the 307 form stayed in production right up to 1990 and powered all the B-body wagons with a four barrel carb. It was the only carb V8 that at least GM had that could meet emissions. And you can tell an Olds V8 from a Chevy V8 in seconds by looking for the oil filler tube at the front of the intake manifold. If it is there, it’s an Olds.
First thing I noticed in the Under Hood shot. Valve Cover Oil Fill.
I think the lawsuit was worthwhile just because it put GM in a position where they would have to argue that there was no material reason to spend extra for any of their premium products. If there was anything superior about the powerplants they had spent decades marketing as special, then they were guilty as charged. Their arrogance and cynical marketing put them in this lose-lose position.
LOL its almost too funny reaching for a lawyer because of options, post war 2 all our Mecuries were Fords with nicer trim both cars came with the larger Mercury engine nobody complained untill hoons began pulling them apart to hot them up or repair them nobody even knew,
our Pontiacs were Cheviacs nobody cared a new car was a new car a new American car was cool as, people swore blind a Humber 80 was an upmarket car from Humber only partiazlly resembling the Hillman Minx sold from the other Rootes dealer nearby when it was in fact the exact same car GM got away with minor changes to small Vauxhalls Isuzus Opels etc and called them all Aussie Holdens since the late 60s and Aussies still dont know.
I can still recall the look of bemusement on my buddy’s face when we went to jump the battery on his 2 month old ’77 Buick LeSabre (his wife left the radio playing over the weekend) and noticed the Chevrolet 350 V8 engine under the hood of his much more expensive Buick.
We both did a WTF mumble and stared at each other.
I wonder how that would that have looked in print in the Oldsmobile sales literature?. “And you can have your choice of two V-8 engines. The Chevrolet 350, or the Oldsmobile 350 Rocket”. I’m sure that had most customers known, they would have chosen the latter. This was a deliberate omission by Oldsmobile.
At lease the customer could have known about their choice when shopping, and before ordering. Knowing to pick the right option code is one thing, but when that’s all you have to go off of, then that’s not right. Then there’s the folks who made their selections off of the dealer lots and thought they were getting Olds power. Folks who never thought to check the direction the air cleaner snorkel was pointing, or where the oil fill was located. I understand them being upset.
I remember when I worked at a full service Texaco and a customer brought his Chevy powered Delta 88 in for an oil change, and him telling us not to mistake it for and Olds 350. He wasn’t too happy about it either.
Just prior to 1977 I was selling parts at a Canadian Chevrolet – Oldsmobile Dealer, where Chevys and Olds were being sold side by side, and of course there were Olds buyers and Chevy buyers. The installation of Chevy engines in a full size Olds was a huge deal for a repeat Olds buyer that expected a Rocket engine with it’s unique exhaust note. I’m sure that dealership management would not have ordered the Chevy engine in any Olds, if that was even a choice for early production full size 1977 Oldsmobiles in Canada. I can only say that the Rocket engine was a great engine, and was marketed at the time as superior, and the buyers up to that point believed it too.
I never saw anything other than a Rocket V-8 in a Canadian Oldsmobile of the era.
I keep reading about how the Olds engine was marketed as superior to Chevy engines by GM. Where? Of course the Olds brochures and adverts made the Rocket V8 look good, but Chevy brochures made the SBC look good too. Please, someone, point me to anywhere GM compared the Olds 350 vs. Chevy 350 directly and marketed the Olds as being superior, at least in the 1960s and 70s. Other than charging more for the upgrade from the 305/307.
I was 13yo at the time, and my impression then was that there wasn’t much quality or price difference between the Caprice, Bonneville, Delta 88, or LeSabre in quality, opulence, features, or performance. I didn’t pay much attention to engines then, and didn’t realize each brand had a completely different engine made by each division. I perceived the Pontiac being a tiny step up from a Chevy, and the Olds and Buick another tiny step up but similar to each other. Only Cadillac was obviously a higher rung on the by-now-collapsed Sloan ladder. And most of the added prestige Olds and Buick had over Pontiac was from offering the longer, fancier C bodies (98/Electra) that Pontiac lacked. But when comparing just the B bodies, my family and I considered them all similar with the choice boiling down to which one’s styling and design (inside and out) we preferred. After shopping all four brands, we wound up buying a ’77 Bonneville Brougham. It may have been the plushest of the B body sedans since Olds and Buick put their plushest interiors only in the C’s. I do recall my dad occasionally referencing the new-that-year Pontiac engine, but I don’t recall the different engines being a factor in which brand we chose, and certainly no sense of a Pontiac engine being better than a Chevy engine but not as good as an Olds engine.
This was the beginning of the end of Oldsmobile. Sales of that brand continued to drop until it was discontinued. To claim that this wasn’t a real problem overlooks this. Oldsmobile was supposed to be special and when it was revealed to not be special, it lost market share. This Oldsmobile ruse propped up the brand in many respects. The Rocket Oldsmobile engine was as strong a brand name as there came. The Oldsmobile LOGO was a rocket, right? So the fact that Oldsmobile was revealed to use Chevrolet engines was a huge blow to the brand credibility from which Oldsmobile didn’t recover.
This disaster struck at a time when a generation of Oldsmobile buyers were faithfully theirs. From since the end of WWII until 1977, Oldsmobile cultivated a generation that expected near-Cadillac quality for the middle class driver. Their most popular car – the Cutlass – was the personal luxury car in a league of its own. Only the Cordoba could command as much street credibility as the number one car brand during these years.
Until it was revealed that Oldsmobile dropped Chevy engines into them, Oldsmobile was a serious brand in the US market. When the time came for this generation to buy a replacement for their Oldsmobiles, they went elsewhere.
To pawn this off as a silly misunderstanding doesn’t take into consideration the realities of that time. Loyalties were crushed. Sales were lost. A brand was branded as a fraud.
Oldsmobile sales held relatively steady from 1977-79. They dropped with the onset of a serious recession in 1980, and then rebounded from 1983 through 1986. Sales then dropped steadily after 1986, but that was well after this particular public relations fiasco.
About the time the burned buyers were back in the market.
There is essentially zero evidence to suggest this incident had any effect on Olds sales. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of the buyers really didn’t know the difference and couldn’t care less.
Other GM cars had used engines form other divisions going back almost twenty years. The typical car buyer had no reason to think that one division’s engine were materially better than another’s.
By the late 70’s the energy crisis and emission controls made life so much more complicated for all carmakers…In 1972 Buick had just two engines in their cars…a 350 and 455 in various tunes. No 6 or 4 cylinder engines. When your division is selling over 500,000 cars per year and you only use two engines you can afford to have each division make their own.
The engines were all different too…Similar displacement but different bores and strokes giving different horsepower and torque ratings.
That is one of the things that people continually over look when they say how strange it was that GM offered so many different V8 engine families. At the volume they were moving they needed many production lines to meet demand. So when you figure you’ll crank out several million over the expected life of the engine family the cost of design was minimal on a per unit basis as was tooling more than one design.
I agree with Scoutdude, et al., that the Olds engine was better engineered, and in in my repair garage days it became clear to me that the Olds engines lived longer, better lives than the SBC’s. Beyond that, how long would a Dieselized Chevy have lasted, considering that the Olds was known for its robustness, and even then required several rounds of upgrades before they became an even marginally good Diesel engine? Nope, Olds engines were definitely better engines in my book.
I hadn’t thought about this one in years–fun to relive it all. GM says cost of manufacture was about equal, and I’m in no position to argue which engine was more durable, etc. etc.
Interesting sidelight mentioned in the lawsuit writeup is that Olds had switched from TurboHydraMatic 350 to the lighter-duty “200” in the Delta 88 cars (regardless of which 350 it had)—I don’t remember that at all.
Not that it’s relevant, but I’d be curious to know GM’s parts-counter list prices at the time for the two 350 engines; were they effectively saying they were unequal in value?
Of course the price of replacement parts isn’t necessarily tied to their cost to produce and more to what they can sell them for, but it would be interesting to see how much a new replacement Olds 350 and Chevy 350 retailed for at the dealer.
In the aftermarket for a rebuilt garden variety engine the Chevy was the cheapest of any V8. Some of course is due to volume, the Chevy engine simply had the most units in operation. That meant for the rebuilders it was their loss leader and it also meant that there was a similar loss leader pricing on the parts needed to do the rebuild. I don’t know if you can still do it but you used to be able to buy Chevy lifters in flats of 100 instead of boxes of 16.
Now if you do want to talk about cost to manufacture the Olds is the more expensive engine.
The higher nickel content added cost to the raw material but the finishing of the raw block and head castings was more expensive for the Olds.
For example the front of a SBC is flat and it just takes a single operation to finish the front of it. The Olds on the other hand has an extension on the front of the block to form the area for the timing chain. That means a more complex casting that needs machining at two levels. It also needs the oil fill hole machined and a steel baffle inserted to contain the oil slinging from the timing chain. So on the way to being ready to start assembly it has to stop at more stations and see more tools.
For the other major casting, the heads, again the finishing of the raw casting requires more machining steps. The rockers are bolt down so those holes have to be tapped vs pressed in studs on the Chevy. Because those rockers are fixed and not adjustable the head needs precision machined pads for those fulcrums. Then you have 6 extra valve cover holes to drill and tap. So again more stops and tools on the way to being ready to assemble.
When it comes time to dress those heads the fulcrum for those rockers is a much more involved piece to machine whether they are the separate style or the individual pieces with the stamped steel bridge. On the plus side that does mean that assembly is easier and quicker since you just bolt them down, no adjustment needed.
Then there are a couple of other details that add cost over the Chevy. That oil fill tube pressed into the block, additional part and step vs the hole in the valve cover as used in the Chevy of this era. The water outlet with the pressed in bypass tube means more machining, additional parts and assembly steps. The valley pan style intake gasket that keeps oil off the bottom of the intake is more expensive than the Chevy style though it does eliminate the heat shield on the under side of the intake so that could be a wash.
So if you ignore the amortization of the design the Olds is the more expensive engine and when you add in the fact that development of the Chevy engine was amortized over much more volume gives it another edge in true cost of the engine.
The 1977 Olds/Chevy V8 is a fascinating automotive ‘scandal’. As mentioned, Chrysler and Ford had been interchanging drivetrains between divisions since the beginning of the sixties and absolutely no one cared.
LIkewise, the Pontiac Ventura had gotten a Chevy six since its introduction, as well as the Cadillac Seville getting an Olds 350. But there are some differences:
Ford and Chrysler were much smaller, with fewer divisions. The Ventura was a bottom feeder car, just one rung up from Chevrolet. And the Seville? The Olds 350 it got was fuel-injected and exclusive to that car.
But putting the Chevy 350 in the full-size 1977 was a bit of a different ballgame. Here was a standard engine from the lowliest GM division going into a mid-tier division car. It didn’t really matter if one engine was perceived as being better than the other. And not just ‘any’ Olds, but the premium full-sizer. As mentioned, GM had, in the past, made a big selling point of each division getting its own, exclusive engines.
But, worst of all, was the way they went about it. Keeping the engine info out of the 1977 Olds brochure definitely looked like they were trying to hide the Chevy engine. If they had simply kept the engine line-up in the brochure like they had in the past and, in the fine print, stated that “engines may come from other divisions”, no scandal, and certainly no grounds for a lawsuit.
Of course, in the end, it was all just a bunch of much ado about nothing that the media made into a much bigger story than it really was. The lawyers might have tried, but I can’t imagine any hard data that proved conclusively that the SBC was worse than the Olds engine, or that Olds owners suffered any kind of real monetary damage.
So, GM coughed up a modest sum (for GM) to settle, but, in the end, Oldsmobile sales dropped not a whit.
I have driven them all, at length since my family ran a taxi service using GM B Bodies.
The only V-8 of the entire series was the 305 used in 1978. They were notorious for soft cams and bad timing gears.
The Chevrolet 350 LM-1 was a sweet running machine. It was torquey and fun to drive and it had enough power, 170 hp, to scoot. In a no a/c stripper an LM-1 would feel plenty fast even today.
The Oldsmobile 350 feels like it has more low end torque than the LM-1 but a lot of it is to due the Oldsmobile’s motor having more induction noise. I bought a 1978 Delta 88 from a priest, believe it or not. It was a total stripper, but it had the Rocket 350 and it went mighty fine, too.
The Pontiac 350 feels just like the LM-1 except it’s heavier. The only one that feels significantly different is the Buick 350, which has better low end torque and less top end, due to the long stroke design.
The average owner isn’t going to know the difference with either motor and they’ll be perfectly happy. The original complainant in the Great Engine Scandal didn’t even know until it was pointed out.
This describes 1977-1979. The cars after this were a totally different ballgame.
Chevrolet 305 4bbl- definitely the hottest of the lot, it felt just line an LM-1 because the 1980 car was lighter. The ratings are very close.
Oldsmobile 307-a dog boring lump of cast iron that was impossible to kill. I never saw one fail. They just run and run and run. They are, ahem, not very highly stressed, which is why they last forever. They made decent torque and even a loaded 88 Royale Brougham never felt slow due to there being 255 ft/lb at 2000 RPM. I do admit I never drove one in the Rockies.
Putting a V-6 in any B body of this era was total sacrilege because they are horribly under-powered and don’t use any less fuel in the real world.
I don’t know if it has anything to do with this article but now I see videos of souped up Olds V8’s on dynos and in modified Cutlasses and 442’s on Youtube after reading it.
I never heard soft cam issues on a Chevy 350, just the 305’s.
There was one magazine (Motor Trend? I can’t locate it online anywhere) that editorialized that the Olds owners should be glad they got the Chevy 350.
The A6 compressor was still being used in at least some of the downsized B bodies as my 77 Delta with 403 came with the A6 from the factory and also my 77 that I owned many years ago. They may use a lot of power but it’s not really noticeable with the 403 at least.
I have hazy recollection of a car magazine article where an Olds 350 owner had a fantastic quarter mile win streak in spite of constant tech challenge teardowns. Was the story myth or actually true I don’t know. The story ends with discovery the owner had installed the rods reversed to cause 366 cubic inches.
Sorry, but that makes no sense. It doesn’t work that way.