Tag: rocket

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Christmas in July – 1958 Oldsmobile

This tinsel-covered ’58 Olds was my hands-down favorite at the local car show a few weeks ago:

Photo credit: Delaney Tracy

The Oldsmobile was completely re-styled for 1958 and sported loads of chrome. It had a recess-type grille with thin aluminum louvers and a contour bumper with parking lights at each end.

Photo credit: Delaney Tracy

Inside was a yuuuge steering wheel. An option was a “Trans-Portable” radio that could be removed from the car and used elsewhere (running on dry-cell batteries that provided 160 hours of playing time).

Photo credit: Delaney Tracy

It looks like it would be slow, doesn’t it? Not really, since it came equipped with a 371 cubic-inch Rocket engine. The entry level Dynamic 88 featured an Econ-O-Way dual carb and 265 hp, but the Super 88 and 98 came with a quadri-jet carb and 305 hp. Better yet, available as an option was the J-2 Rocket with a six-pack and 312 hp. The gas cap, which you would be accessing often, was found behind the left tail light.

Photo credit: Delaney Tracy

The Jetaway HydraMatic Drive was touted as smoother for ’58, and a true air suspension called New-Matic Ride (I love these names) was another option. It cushioned the car on four chambers of compressed air, one at each wheel. Oldsmobile’s name for this whole beautiful package was “Oldsmobility”, and it is a gorgeous remnant from the rocket age.

Photo credit: Delaney Tracy
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Oldsmobile Rocket

Well, it sure DOES pay to go rooting around in old barns.  Just look at what we found in Kansas recently:

Yes, these are an original pair of wire looms for a 1950 Oldsmobile 303.  The 303 was the first mass-produced overhead valve (OHV) V8 in 1949.  These are 1950 wire looms because they are gold with red letters, not natural metal with red letters like the 1949 version.  A quick search on the internet reveals many arguments over whether the Oldsmobile was the earliest example of American muscle (that’s right) or whether something like the Ford Mustang deserves that title (and that’s just wrong).

Oldsmobile appropriately called their short-stroke, high-compression OHV engine the “Rocket”, and it sure made the automobile industry sit up and take notice.  The other manufacturers were producing their own versions by the mid-1950s, but not before Oldsmobile impacted the record books by winning NASCAR championships in 1949, 1950 and 1951.  Even though the Rocket is a great name, Oldsmobile engineers originally wanted to name the engine after Charles F. Kettering, the retired GM research VP, but GM policy prevented that from happening.  Too bad, because Kettering more than deserved the honor.

Nicknamed “Boss” Kettering, his is one of those uniquely American stories that starts with very humble beginnings on a farm in Ohio in 1876 and ends with an estate worth more than $200 million upon his death in 1958.  In between, he spent his life seeking solutions to the problems of everyday life even when, or especially when, others were claiming it was impossible.   He made valuable contributions in the fields of medicine and aviation, helped develop new types of fuel, and even developed the refrigerant Freon.  He co-founded Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (better known as Delco) and invented the electric starter for Henry Leland of Cadillac, making Cadillac the first automobile without the dangerous and laborious hand crank.  Delco, of course, was later purchased by GM.  Upon his retirement from GM, Kettering held more than 140 patents.  He was a philosopher as well as an inventor and the source of some of my favorite quotes such as, “If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.”  In light of current affairs, however, I think I’ll end with this particularly relevant quote:   

“We have a lot of people revolutionizing the world because they’ve never had to present a working model.”