Auto News 5

Not so long ago, General Motors was able to justify having at least one brand for every day of the week. In postwar America, Oldsmobile lay comfortably in the middle of GM's brand hierarchy as the maker of cars for middle-class folks who enjoyed the latest features but wanted something more reserved than a Cadillac or a Buick. Oldsmobile's dignified customers still appreciated horsepower, as evinced by the famous overhead-valve Rocket V-8 of 1949, but the division's performance image was in decline by the early 1960s. In April 1964, though, just six months after the historic release of the Pontiac GTO, Olds boosted its reputation with its own big-engine package -- the 442 -- for its newly redesigned F-85 series, which shared its platform with the GTO as well as the Chevrolet Chevelle and the Buick Skylark.