The Cutlass was a huge seller for Oldsmobile in the early seventies and beyond. These cars provided reliable, daily transportation for thousands in sedan, coupe, and convertible forms. Performance versions of the Cutlass can be exceedingly rare and this car is no exception. The seller advertises this as 1 of about 1,000 W-31 Cutlass Models produced. There are some issues but this car could be the real deal. Low mileage and original paperwork make this one worthy of checking out. Find it here on craigslist in southeast Kansas with an asking price of $22,500. Thanks to Barn Finds reader MattR for the tip!
Photo quality and details are not the best in the ad. From the front, it is clear this is not a normal Cutlass. The W-31 package included some exterior upgrades like the scoops on the fiberglass hood with chrome hold downs, body striping and W-31 fender emblems that are apparently hard items to find, check out this article from Hot Rod about W machines expert Stephen Minore. He has put in years of research to authenticating these cars. Exterior upgrades were just the beginning, the W-31 package gave you upgrades to the suspension and most importantly the engine.
Under the hood, the Oldsmobile 350 received several W-31 specific upgrades like a special camshaft, connecting rods, heads, aluminum intake with a 750 Quadrajet along with changes to some internal parts and the balancer that are all specific to the W-31. All of these tweaks gave the W-31 325 HP and 360 lb-ft of torque. The engine is a very special piece to the package with some hard to find parts so let’s hope its all there. A good prebuy inspection to check for these parts would be worthwhile. The engine is said to start and run.
W-31 cars could be equipped with an automatic, 3-speed manual or an M20 4 speed like this car with a factory-installed Hurst shifter. Consoles were optional and this car seems to be not equipped with one. Albeit worn the interior looks complete and original with the exception of the gauges mounted on the lower dash. The seller says the car will move but the clutch is bad, possibly this car suffered a clutch failure earlier in its life and was then put away for a long period of time because the mileage is said to be original at 49K.
Original paperwork is great to see when dealing with a rare machine like this. The invoice shows us this car was sold in Ohio for $3,690 before fees. Other things to note on the invoice is the 3.42 axle ratio with an anti-spin diff. Rust is of concern on this one, the seller tells us the car has rust but the floors and trunk are solid. If the rust is not terminal and this can be authenticated as a genuine W-31 with the original drivetrain and low mileage, it would be great to see this one saved. I would be inclined to give the car a mechanical freshening, give the seats some love and drive it as is.
I have an OEM W31 cam still in the box along with a steel timing chain and gear somewhere in the house that I bought in the late 70s. Have to look for it.
Low mileage?
49K?
Put down the pipe.
The cassette stereo head unit, aftermarket gauges, and Cooper Cobra tires suggest some use at least into the 1980s. So that would render the mileage claim unlikely, as would the overall condition of the car.
Did anyone notice the dealer $5.00 documentation fee on the original invoice? I’d like to know how that became the $400-$500 documentation fees that we see today.
Nice car.
That’s when it really was the fee to register the title, not another profit center for the dealer.
…all that plus inflation. But,I get your drift. So many charges on cars and all utilities are ridiculous. IMHO, this car is worth about half the asking price. There is so much work to be done. For instance, did you notice the corrosion under the hood? It has not been cleaned up inside in the engine bay, no rear seat pics, no inside of the trunk pics..Good luck, bro. Ur gonna need it.
Getting the spark plug wires off the headers would do wonders for how the engine runs. As heavy as they are these old cars will really move. This one deserves a good rebuild and paint.
Someone gotta have deep pockets for what this one needs.
Seems to a mostly complete car in decent shape but If the seller wants $22.5k for it, he needs to replace the clutch. Not doing so leaves prospective buyers wondering what else could be wrong if they can’t test drive it.
These were a way to try to beat insurance rates.
I have had many 60’s and 70’s 442’s but only one W-31 Cutlass , it was a 69 , 4 speed car . The only 442 I had that ran better than it was a 70 W-30 . The W-31 revved like a DZ-302 and pulled hard . That car is a bad ass in sheep’s clothing .The worst thing about my W-31 was wheel hop but a set of ladder bars fixed that and made it drive like a buckboard . I wish I could have kept that car .
Like the rare Olds W-31, a car I could never find for sale ever in my youth, seen so so few of these in person, like two. This one is not that bad at all, better interior than my ’68 Chevelle I used to drive people nuts with, right color for me and it’s got headers which I’m sure help the rev happy 350. This thing needs to get back on the road but I just can’t do it, thirty plus years ago this car would’ve been mine. When did they stop calling that 350 the Ram Rod?
Car is in Cleveland, not Kansas.
The CL listing map shows it in Westlake KS. right by the Oklahoma border …………..
CL posting is from Cleveland Craigslist (I assume you could post in any city you want, but why would you?). Westlake is a Cleveland suburb too. I wonder what the real story is.
I grabbed the first W31 F-85 coupe that we received from GM for a demo at the Central Chev High Performance Center. The only option – a 4.33 posi!! Pulled out the velocity throttles and got it down to 13.60. A real sleeper back then!
I thought the inner fenders were supposed to be a red orange poly.
I don’t think the W-31s had red inner fenders, just the W-30s
Yea this 350 has been worked over from Factory. Bigger intake valves , big carb. Stiff crank and rods. High lift an duration cam.
JS.
Black interior blue paint.
Pretty car when new.
I like the Body style.
These are under-rated, IMHO. They loped when they idled and were BAD-ASS. I had a ’66 Caprice 396 that ran H/Pure Stock, one week a college kid showed up with a ’69 W31 convertible that was running 13.9’s, .8 tenths faster than me. I asked to see his motor, it was filthy, never touched. I went back to tech and ran H/S that day and won against two other cars that didn’t understand leaving on the last yellow, but I learned to watch out for these sleepers!!
W-31’s run very very strong. This would have been a beautiful car new. Looks like a terrible repaint. 22.5k? Good luck.
Great car to restore to prior glory. The seats look like they have more than mileage stated. Olds engine colors always tripped me up but on the wife’s 71′ I believe the complete engine was blue. I thought that gold paint covers the 73′ and later Rockets. And I remember red, maybe that was from Wildcats.
My Mother in Law gave her 71′ 455 4 barrel blue on blue CS to my wife when we got married. Buckets, council, automatic and factory Olds mags,was a nice comfortable car for my wife. To bad an iced bridge and front end damage, bent frame rail ended the 71′.
I really liked that car as I did no major repair on the car. And in hindsight the frame could have been repaired. But back in 78′ it was a two thousand dollar car.
Add 100k to the odo.