GM B-Bodies used to be the top dog of Beaterville. Our biggest Goodwill store is across the street from Home Depot, so I could always count on one or two or three over there in the parking lot. Not anymore. So when I spotted one recently, I drove across the street to document it. Who know how much longer its heart will still be beating, especially if it has that obscure Pontiac 265 V8 under the hood.
I think this is a 1980 based on the grille, since it drew a blank on a license plate check. Close enough. It was someone’s pride and joy, once upon a time. Which is now over forty years ago. So we’ll give this survivor a bit of grace for just making it this far.
Too bad about the license plate checker drawing a blank, as it would have told me what’s under the hood. keeping track of the ever-changing palette of engines in these B-Bodies ever since the Chevy V8 showed up in 1977 is a bit challenging. So I cracked open my Standard Encyclopedia of American Cars and…what? It says that in addition to the 231 V6 (via Buick) the other standard engine (except in wagons) was a 265 CID V8 with 120 hp. Really? The infamous and almost-forgotten Pontiac 265.
It was used in the Olds 88 only in 1980. You might ask why all of this shuffling around of engines, from one year to the next. Here’s the explanation, left by a former GM worker Larry Coyle in the comment section of that post on the 265:
Hi Paul, I worked at the plant that made the 265 & 301 along with the 2.5 4cyl. long and short block. Worked in quality control. At that time GM divisions were battling each other for the corporate engines business. Pontiac was trying to be the corporate engine builder with the 265 for Cadillac. I remember going to meetings about how we could build the 301 for less. The inferior 305 Chevy was almost $200.00 less to build. We were asked to lower our standard.. (We didn’t) and the rest is history. I hope this gives a little insight.
It does give some insight, in terms of the divisions being asked to bid on supplying engines to the various divisions. A curious way to run a business. But that would all end soon enough.
This is a Royale, meaning the higher of the two trim levels of the Delta 88.
And that means plusher upholstery. Which also gets stained a bit more easily…
And it wouldn’t be a genuine Eugene CC without at least one door card missing.
Actually, it’s not in all that bad of shape. I’d say it’s got another ten years or so left in it, at the rate it’s aging. Depending on your tolerance level, that is.
A former boss of mine had one, a 85 with the 307 Olds engine. Reliable as an anvil, but slower than frozen molasses.
Doesn’t surprise me the Chev was $200 cheaper to build. The SBC as a whole was designed to be a toss away engine from day one.
Tossed away? I’ve seen a SBC 350 go over 1,000,000 km. Production started in 1954 and continues today. It’s powered everything from the Chevy II to a motorhome. With the exception of the 305 in1977 and 1978, the SBC is bulletproof. You have to actually try hard to kill one.
Yet over 100,000,000 of them have been built.
There were actually three Delta 88 trim levels by 1980, with Royale being the middle one. There was a Royale Brougham above it. (and a few years later there would be a Royale Brougham LS above that too).
What made the Chevy 305 inferior to the Pontiac 301?
What Cadillac were they trying to put the 265 in?
Love the gear shift knob.
That’s to cover the split and peeling plastichrome that would slice your hand open. Vise grip window crank is a nice touch on the driver’s door as well.
Hey, Ralphie! That skull and cowboy hat are hanging from my mirror. That is a 350 rocket motor rochester racing carb highway star. Drove it from Medford to Salt Lake City and back but got to admit it did use up almost one-fourth of a quart of oil. Yeah, just an old beater. I love my 88! I call it Mister Car…
Funny I remember the Olds 260 V-8 was a lot more common than the Pontiac 265, and being that this car is an Olds it’s surprising the Pontiac was the standard engine for that one year.
What I find impressive is that it obviously still has a working original 8-track player, judging by the tapes in the aftermarket console on the transmission hump.
1980-ish would be about the end of the line for factory 8-track players I think. Our ’80 Toronado had one, but even then we used a converter to play cassettes in it because 8-tracks were being phased out. Out next new car in ’82 didn’t have the option available, and 8-tracks were shipped off to the attic shortly thereafter.
Nope, GM offered 8-track players at least through 1982, even in the new style flat panel radios that began to be phased in that year, and in three different models no less (mechanical tuner, electronic digital tuner, digital tuner with CB). That last one must be rare!
As for the tape cartridges themselves, the last major label 8-track release was apparently Fleetwood Mac Greatest Hits, from 1988.
Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever come across one. I’d imagine the take rate must have been pretty miniscule by that point.
Yep, a friend of mine in High School had an ’82 or ’83 Grand Prix with a factory 8 track player. He was always claiming that was the last year they offered them. For me and my peers that 8 track was a real novelty, since for us that was a technology that went obsolete before we were born (this would have been circa 1996).
The owner’s manual for my step mother’s 1983 Eldorado had operating instructions for a CB/8-track stereo option. Strange, but true.
Considering the extra complexities of Pontiac’s engine: cast front cover, oil filter adapter, valley pan… it would make sense that production cost might be higher.
Maybe click a pic of the VIN if it’s a big enough deal to ID engine?
I’m surprised that I STILL see a certain number of 70s – 80s B-bodies around Central Indiana, but you have to go to the right (poor) neighborhoods to see them. On a recent junkyard run over on Indy’s East side I saw not one but two being driven, one of them an early 77-79 car iirc. At this point of course they have transcended mere bottom-dollar durable and easy to fix transportation, they are often done up as rolling art in said poor parts of town. They are also a regular sight at the local paved oval track, living out their final days in a blaze of glory in the Thunder-car/street-stock class.
I had forgotten (again) about the Pontiac 265, and certainly never knew that it was standard in the 1980 Olds 88. I was so turned off by the 1980 restyle on the 88s that I never bothered to read about engine availability. Which is funny, because the Cadillac looked so much better after that 1980 update.
I’m amazed to see the upholstery is holding up so well. Even steam cleaning couldn’t rescue that fabric. But it could be cleaned then dyed a darker color. That vise grip on the window regulator must be part of a gag, those window cranks are a corporate wide design commonly available. Overall it’s a pretty nice survivor. For the right person, old beaters can save the owner a lot of money. Two of my drivers are over 25 years old, I keep them up but they are cheap to run. Besides you can always just rent a car for a long road trip.
My family used Delta 88’s for taxi use. The durability of the interiors was a major reason for using them. The 307 was just a perfect motor for a cab. Under-stressed, plenty of torque and never, ever needed any work.
You read my mind! A thorough Hoover portable steam cleaning and (after it drys out) 3 cans of medium brown rattle can fabric dye would make those seats look as new.
I worked as a detailer at a local car wash while attending Community College. The sharpest example I ever saw came into our car wash. This was 1989 or 90. It had to have been an “84 model as it had the amber rear turn signal lenses. The car in question was white with a maroon top and interior and immaculate. It was fully optioned…Brougham, Royal…whatever… even to include the wire wheel covers and a power glass moonroof. Just a Gorgeous car that I still remember all these years later. Somehow, the Delta 88’s seemed to my eyes to possess a certain flair that the boxier Caprice and LeSabre did not have.
Interesting comment about the Chevy 305s low cost. The SBC architecture was designed later than many other V8s and used their development lessons with an eye to lower cost. The valve train in particular was a very inexpensive design without the costly rocker shafts or machined pedestals of other designs. A simple adjustable rocker nut replaced that complexity, and two little ears on the arms relied on the valve stem to maintain valve train placement. Elegantly simple and inexpensive but perhaps not the most durable or efficient arrangement.
Well that and Chevy had by far the biggest production capacity, which means the greatest cost efficiency due to volume.
That will do it every time…
The Pontiac V8 began production in 1955, just like the SBC. The second generation Oldsmobile V8 replaced the first in 1964, and remained in production almost a decade later than the Pontiac V8. The Ford Windsor engine arrived between the two, and the Mopar LA showed up around the same time as the second generation Oldsmobile engine. I can’t think of any V8s being produced in 1980 that were earlier designs than the SBC, which was only cheap because it was designed to be the absolute minimal viable product. Chevrolet actually overshot that target early on, as the first ones didn’t have oil filters.
@ Eighteen Charoits
Not to be too pedantic here, but it was Pontiac that developed the pedestal (ball-stud) valve train. I am not sure if it was developed for the original 268 V-8 that was shelved as being too small in 1953, or if it was developed for the eventual 267 V-8 introduced in 1955. This development has been attributed to Pontiac engineer Clayton Leach.
Rumor has it, that once Cole saw the valve train that Pontiac was developing, he lobbied GM Engineering to be able to use it on the Chevy V-8. If it’s true and it was allowed, then the old rule of one year exclusivity among divisions was ignored.
As I say, it’s rumored that Cole lobbied Engineering, this could be similar to the overheard conversation at the dinner party/garden party that was so costly to Chrysler.
As I’ve heard it, Pontiac had spent four years developing the ball-stud valve train, and let Chevy adopt it too. I don’t know exactly how that went down, but there’s no doubt that once Ed Cole saw it, he was determined to use it too, as it was one of those milestone improvements. Everyone adopted it eventually. it would have been kind of absurd to force Chevy to use rocker shafts/arms for one year, and then switch.
I suspect that it was an inevitability, due to its significance in cost savings and other benefits. GM corporate would have seen that too, if it came to that.
“…two little ears on the arms relied on the valve stem to maintain valve train placement.”
Not originally. The valve-stem-guided rockers didn’t show up until ’86.
Before that, the “low performance” heads used oblong holes in the cast-iron of the cylinder head to guide the pushrods, which kept the rocker arms on-target. “High performance” engines got stamped-steel pushrod guideplates held to the head via rocker studs. The steel guideplates required hardened pushrods.
Ford used valve-stem-guided rockers years before Chevy; I think Ford called them “Rail Rockers”.
When the rocker is guided by the valve stem, it’s a real beetch to stick a feeler-gauge in there to set solid-lifter lash. So the stem-guided rockers were only used on hydraulic-lifter engines.
The Pontiac 301 and 265 had horrible crankshafts. There were only two counterweights–front and back. All the other counterweights were gone. The deck height was lowered, the ports in the cylinder heads were screwed-up, there were other obvious cost-cutting design changes intended to carve every cent out of the production cost. The engineer’s story about holding fast to their “standards” doesn’t make sense. Even “Pontiac people” disavow the 301 and 265.
The folks had an emerald-green 1978 they’d bought new, but one of this era made an appearance many, many, many years later – early 2000s. They lived in a one-way-in subdivision that was slated to undergo some massive and lengthy roadwork; so my Dad bought one of these– no vinyl roof but otherwise strikingly similar– as his commuter for the duration so as not to take the Lexuses “off roading” on the moonscape. I think he actually sold it at a profit 2 years later.
Maybe I’m showing my age (or rather lack thereof), but I’m always surprised to see manual crank windows on Oldsmobiles and Buicks from this era. I mean, I know power windows weren’t standard equipment back then like they are now, and I wouldn’t be so surprised to see manual windows on a Chevy or Pontiac. But even this many rungs up the Sloan Ladder, on a car that’s supposed to be a bit more luxurious than your basic Chevy, on a higher trim level even, and it still has manual windows unless you paid extra?
@ wildabeest; that’s the way a lot of olds/buick buyers wanted their cars. They wanted the oldsmobile/buick quality, sometimes the better engine, slightly different interior/exterior, and different dealership experience but back then a LOT of people didn’t want electric options on cars, stating that they would only expensively break down the road. Cars used to have very individual options then and it was possible to order or find a car with only the options you wanted and no more. You could get tilt without cruise, power windows without power locks, etc. One friend of mine in college in 1995 insisted on manual windows because she had a fear of the car falling off a bridge into the water and being trapped if the electric windows shorted out. Options weren’t in logical packages like they are now or even logically ordered, but have you ever thought, I want a sunroof, or memory seats, but I don’t want $3000 worth of other doodads? I won’t purchase a minivan with electric doors and tailgate cos it will break expensively down the road.
In all my B-body days I never saw an 88 with the Pontiac 265. I drove a Lemans wagon once with the 265 and it was a dog. I driven a 1980 Chevrolet Malibu with both the 3.8 V-6 and the 267 V-8. Other than the thrumming from the odd-fire Chevrolet V-6, the V-6 car felt faster, which isn’t saying much. That said, in a lightly optioned Malibu, the V-6 didn’t feel that slow.
These downsized V-8 motors didn’t last long, since they had no more power the a smaller and cheaper V-6.
I do get the hate for the SBC. They have been around forever and in everything. I’ve seen them under the hoods from grain and gravel trucks to Cadillacs and boats. They are in fact hard to kill.
“In all my B-body days I never saw an 88 with the Pontiac 265.”
For a few days now I’ve been wondering if I ever saw saw same. Don’t recall it, anyway.
Under my 88’s hood is a 350 Rocket with Edelbrock intake fed by a Rochester Quadrajet racing carb, supplied by it’s 28 gallon gas tank. 140,000 actual miles, no rust, original paint, and the original working AM/FM 8-Track. Now, Mr. Niedermeyer…may I call you Paul? Paul it is. Did it occur to you that posting a photo of someone’s license plate might well be an invasion of their privacy?
David, posting a photo of a license plate is not an invasion of privacy. Photographers have been shooting cars (and their license plates) on the streets for well over a hundred years. License plates are meant to be seen in public; that’s the whole point. Exactly what privacy is invaded? What can be learned from a license plate?
Did you enjoy examining the inside of my car? I don’t want attention. I’m a cancer patient, and you should not put someone you don’t even know under public scrutiny. Do you live around here, Paul? Picture some catchy phrase, with someone’s name attached to it in 3 foot tall letters on some wall, to be read and talked about by passersby. Any suggestions for the catchy phrase? This could be fun!
Yet you’ve chosen to post a picture of your car here, with its license plate visible, as well as giving us details of the engine and such.
No harm was ever intended. This is what we do here and have been doing for many years. None of us had any idea who this car belonged to until you decided to share your actual name as well as your health status. You’re concerned about your privacy yet you share all of this on a large public website? It doesn’t compute, David.
I wish you all the best on your health challenges.
Are you still selling??
Send me email robrgallaeci@gmail.com
Roberto Gallaeci