1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass S, W-31

[Stefano]

1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass S, W-31, 4 speed.

Here is an example of a car, where’in the originality of the car can be used to authenticate the car beyond any reasonable doubt. (I’ll share the details).

So many of the cars for sale / recently sold do not have the provenance to establish authenticity . I am aware of many collectors who acquired W-31s for their collections only to later discover they had purchased faked up cars.

The Key external bolt / paint on components / stripes can be added to just about any non a/c, non power disk brake Cutlass / F85 and you have a car which looks just like a W-31.

Just like many other muscle cars, 4 speeds were not as likely as the automatics to have retained their original engines and not many examples exist today with both documentation and original engines.

1970 W-31 Production numbers:

1,029 Cutlass S Holiday coupes like this one.

116 Cutlass Sport Coupes.

207 F85 Sport Coupes

1,352 W-31 in total produced for the 1970 Model year in both 4 speed and automatic are the generally accepted numbers.

The 350ci engine was rated at 325hp and 360tq and was quite a performer.

[Stefano]

1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass S, W-31, 4 speed.

[RPOLS3]

Oh Ryan............

[Ryan1969Chevelle]

Oh Ryan............

Great car!!

I’ve been following this car for a little bit, so cool that it’s a 4 speed!!

Ryan W31

[tom M]

would be nice to see it redone,not just flipped all over the place.
saw it many years ago,asking price was out of touch at that time.

[Stefano]

Yes it would be but this is an ambitious project. You really need to want to have a W-31 in order to take it on .

"flipped all over the place" That is part of what I do to earn a living. However, this is not a For Sale thread. I think these W-Machines are especially Kool and not many people know a lot about them. The vast majority either have no docs or are complete Fugazi's.

[TimG]

I'm an Olds guy and I never heard of a W-31 until about 15 years ago or so. The closest thing I knew about was the Rally 350 Olds as I built a model of one in 1970.

[Stefano]

So a good point of discussion regarding the small block Oldsmobile Cars.

The Rallye 350,introduced for the 1970 model year only was a marketing package geared at the Young / budget buyer and its main target was the base Roadrunner which was a 383ci Muscle Car.

All Rallye’s were Sebring Yellow similar color to Daytona Yellow and had the stripe package. You could get them in auto and 4 speed and were available in the base F85 body style as well as the Cutlass S. 3,547 is the accepted total production of all variations and none were convertibles.