Repro Pontiac round port/Oldsmobile W30 cyl heads

[supcarbob]

The Parts Place in Illinois has ebay auctions announcing the reproduction cylinder heads for Pontiac 1969,1970 Ram Air IV,1971 455HO and 1973-74 455 SD. Also Oldsmobile W30 heads for 1968,1969,1970 and 1971. The ebay # are 230185575410 and 230185575300.

[tabooo]

Any feedback re:the olds w30 heads?

[retengw31]

Yeah. Just what we need another coupla hundred fake W30's. As if there aren't enough of them out there already.......

[HO455]

……….Send in the clones. This is another sad day for true Oldsmobile enthusiasts. The problem with fraudulent and dishonest Oldsmobile W-30 sellers is already at epic proportions. But it now will become an epidemic. We just have to look at the spring Mecum Belvidere, Illinois auction to see a recent example of this at which time a car broker sold a 1971 black & white W-30 convertible clone for 170K. The car was represented as a legitimate four speed car but had air conditioning, power brakes, a spoiler and the wrong heads-but some unsuspecting buyer did not seem to care. Special thanks must go out to “Parts Place Joe” for helping propagate an already completely dishonest hobby. But I am sure his bank account will continue to flourish in the future with the addition of these new D, F and H Oldsmobile heads. Sadly this hobby has become completely distasteful. Now 99.9 percent of the W-30s for sale or coming through major auction houses are not legitimate W-30s but just well assembled clones. With the new addition of these heads all the pieces for perfect W-30 clones are available. From what I understand there is even perfectly aged counterfeit Oldsmobile broadcast sheets, exact duplicate OW transmission tags, Intakes, Red inner fenders etc… There is really no way to distinguish what is authentic anymore. I spoke with a very well know Oldsmobile restorer collector recently & he stated that almost ever W-30 he has recently seen sold in public was not truly a legitimate W-machine. He said that most of the true & legitimate W-30 convertible four speed cars are in the hands of wealthy private collectors that really have no need to sell their cars. He said if a legitimate W-30 convertible four-speed car does come up for sale it is almost always done in private. He said these cars have become so rare & sought after that they generally move from one collector’s hand to another collector with no public knowledge of the sale. He said there have been sales reaching astronomical numbers for perfectly concours restored 1970 W-30 convertible four speed cars with unquestioned pedigrees. But they have completely escaped the public arena. Sadly for the W-30s and the LS-6 cars without the benefit of a historical service that the Pontiac & Buick community enjoy, the level and quality of fake W-30 and LS-6 cars is just going to increase to an unbelievable level. I guess it does make the authentic W-30 or LS-6 cars almost priceless if you can prove out its pedigree. But sadly it also has made the hobby so dishonest & distasteful that you almost want nothing to do with it anymore. I believe that is why so many Muscle Car enthusiast have gotten away from the whole numbers matching concours aspect of the hobby and have gotten heavily involved with the Pure Stocks etc… But in reality that is what the cars were truly made for anyway.

[wheelhop]

I think you're being a little hard on Parts Place Joe. Sure, he's making a good living but he's helping to reproduce what a lot of us couldn't afford otherwise.

[HO455]

Hey Wheelhop,

I really have no problem with a lot of the reproduction restoration parts. But when we start reproducing certain very rare items such as Oldsmobile D, F and H cylinder heads that becomes a problem. Now we are going to see numerous examples of cars being represented as legitimate W-30s when clearly they are not. In the past the cylinder heads made it at least a somewhat difficult proposition for the unscrupulous sellers to create super accurate clones because it was cost prohibitive and certain items were very difficult to find. With a set of 71 H Olds W-30 cylinder heads for example currently bringing prices north of 15K it made it at least difficult for many to create bogus cars. But now with these wonderful creations of D, F and H cylinder heads for a couple thousand dollars from Parts Joe we will see an incredible influx of very accurate clones being represented and sold as authentic W-30s. That is were the real rub of this comes in. I have NO problem with people trying to restore their cars accurately with high quality reproduction parts but unfortunately that is not where the story ends. Many people who are in this hobby today care about only one thing and that is MONEY. They do not care who they hurt or what they do as long as they come out on top with a lot of zeros at the end of their bank accounts