I bought a 68 Olds 98 for $200 from an old guy who didn't want to replace the starter. That heavy, big car with the 455 Rocket would just scream. It was fun driving a big 4 door family car and blowing the doors off of some Mustang or Camaro.
I remember the original owner telling me he'd get it up to 130mph, at least he thought it was 130 because the speedo went to 120 and he'd bury the needle at some point above that. I sold it for $110, but it was so rusted out at that point I was happy to get rid of it.
I recall opening the hood and the engine, which was huge, looking relatively small in the engine compartment because the thing was such a boat. This was before all the pollution controls and whatnot cluttering up the space. Cars must have been a dream to work on back then.
They were. Most cars you could climb into the engine compartment to work. Easy tune-ups. Replace easy to get to spark plugs. Pull the distributor cap, replace points, condenser and rotor. Lightly sand distributor cap terminals. Done.
I.bought a 69 Cutlass w/350 rocket 4bl.carb , turbo 400tranny (no homo ) and 12 bolt posi , in 1980 for 400 bucks. That was possibly the best damn car I ever owned. 3 wrenches and a couple screw drivers and you could fix 90 % of any problems. The cam shaft could be machined 3x if you had to. Man , I wish I had that car today.
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