Today being the last day for production of oldsmobile. I was thinking and wondered what was the fastest production oldsmobile made? Also what was the biggest engine oldsmobile offered in its whole life. What was the most HP and torque any Oldsmobile came with from factory??

Well my dad's friend bought a brand new 69 442 W-30 and did 12.9 all stock with some carb and tire presure adjustments. The 70 models got the 455 and were suppose to be faster. My vote would either go with a 69 or 70 442 W-30

Biggest engine-455 cid V8
Most hp-455 cid V8 in 1970 with 375hp
That is the biggest I found
That was a 1969-1970 Toronado

dang 12.9 is pretty quick for a 69-70 time period. the 442 must weight clost to 4000lbs as well, imagine lightening it up...

And for HP and torque i saw classic muslce car or some show along those lines and they were talking about Hurst olds and they threw in engine bigger than they were allowed to, and classified it smaller than it actually was but i forgot the size it was close to 455 cid though. the HP was in the high 300's or low 400s and the torque was mid 400s to high 400s

We also have to remember that hp figures back then were seriously underrated

lol this is very true! I believe a 455 cid could push out 500ft-lbs, thats just a MASSIVE engine!!!

yea, I'm sure that there was a stock 455 with over 500 ft-lbs of torque

1970 Olds W-30: 8-455 4v 370hp/500 ft lbs

68-70 Toronado:
Displacement/Type 455ci 4bbl V8 455ci 4bbl V8
Horsepower @ RPM 375 @ 4600 400 @ 4800
Torque @ RPM 510 @ 3000 500 @ 3200
Transaxle 3-speed auto. 3-speed auto.
Availability Standard Optional


just to name a few....

dammm thats retarded amounts of torque, i think my upper dog bone would snap if i had 500ft-lbs lol. Those are acual values right? not underrated:P

torque is probably right since insurance companies cared about hp, but the hp is underrated.

W-31 350 was no slouche either, they rated that at about 325 at about 5200 rpm, but this guy over at ROP said while that is true, what they didn't say it kept making power up to 6000rpm making about 360-370hp, not bad for a little olds rocket 350

Hi psyco, Hi All
You nailed it, 1970 442 W30, was the quickest and fastest Olds ever.
Insurance companies were involved before that but muscle car was a status symbol and for that reason owners would just pay the surcharge.
The real Killer was various government agencies imposing stiff regulations on the mfrs. The biggest was dropping the compression ratio to use unleaded gasoline.
'66 was the year the GTO guys can't remember as the Oldsmobile442s with the long stroke 400 sporting 3 rochester 2 barrel carbs totaling 900 CFM were king of the hill in the stock classes..
Mfrs started lowering HP ratings when they discovered winning races on Sunday sold their product on Monday. NHRA set up stock classes using shipping weight divided by advertised HP. They lowered their HP ratings to gain advantage in a given class. Prior to that they raised ratings because advertising higher HP was selling cars.
In '72 (I think) our friends in federal government directed that HP ratings would no longer be gross, as had been from the begining of time, but would hence be net. That meant the mfrs had to run the tested engine with water pumps, generators, mufflers, ect, that were never used in testing before.
BTW, HP is derived from a mathematical formula based on real torque. Change one of the factors and you change the rating.
If I'm wrong about anything in the HP gross vs net, I hope someone will correct me.
Wasn't this more than you wanted to know?
Regards, Norm

Oldsmobile Aerotech. It never made it to production, But I thought I'd still throw it in here nonetheless.

Hi license2il, Hi All
If Aerotech were production it would certainly be fastest, but still not quickest.
Regards, Norm