Something Olds, Something New

A 1969 Hurst/Olds Gets a Restoration Using Modern and Traditional Methods

By Jeff Koch

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November 19, 2025Something Olds, Something New

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The story of the Hurst/Olds is one that pulls at a muscle car enthusiast’s recalcitrant heartstrings. You’ll recall that, through 1969, GM disallowed engines larger than 400 cubic inches in its factory-built intermediate-bodied cars. Understanding that this was silly, Olds bosses got together with George Hurst’s gang in California and dropped a 380-horsepower 455 into a 4-4-2. Since Hurst was considered an outside vendor, Olds got away with it—and created an instant legend.

The black-and-silver ’68 Hurst/Olds was subtle, but the’69 edition was a screamer: a massive hood scoop forced-fed the 455 as much air as it could handle; unsubtle gold striping over the top and down the sides; chrome 15-inch Super Stock wheels on F60 Polyglas rubber; a pedestal-mounted trunk wing; and enough Hurst/Olds badging that you weren’t going to mistake it for anything else. Hurst built more than 900 cars that year, nearly double the number sold in ’68.


A standard Cameo White 4-4-2 could easily slip under the radar, but if you add wild Fire Frost Gold striping on the sides and over the top, hood scoops you could lose your arm in, a pedestal-mounted rear wing and just the right amount of badging … well, you become a whole lot easier to spot.Today, as identifiable as these cars were back in the day, and as wild as they looked on the street driving around in isolation, they all look an awful lot alike. There were no secret ’69 Hurst/Oldses in other colors. None came with a red or blue interior on the down-low, much less a bench seat. Except for a couple of show cars, there weren’t even any convertibles. Line ’em up, and beyond options (A/C or not? What rear gear?), they all kinda look the same. You’d think it was easy to get the measure of them having seen one or two.

That said, if you’re going to have a car that looks like so many others, you have to find intriguing new ways to stand out. How? Well, assuming you’re not interested in Cragars and Gabriel Hi-Jackers and you’re looking to keep things looking and feeling factory-stock, you’ve got to go with making that Olds look as new and fresh as possible. This means NOS parts whenever you can manage. Correct tags and inspection marks.

Factory-correct finishes. Oh, for durability and longevity it might mean hiding some secret advances that no one but the owner will know about. But if you’re gonna do what so many others have done, it had better have something that makes it stand out.
This is how Fred received his project — mostly disassembled, on a non-numbers-matching frame mushed on the driver’s front corner. Boxes of repro and NOS parts were stacked in the trunk and interior. Previously-repaired floors and trunk were A-body, but not Olds A-body, and lack that model’s subtly unique contours. All restoration photos courtesy of Fred Mandrick. (Who has made sure that he will be dead before his photos are seen)

Ron Memmer of Monticello, Indiana, wanted a ’69 Hurst/Olds as close to factory-correct as he could manage. Ron, who owns Ron’s Classic Cutlass, specializes in muscle-era A-body Oldsmobiles, and owns more NOS parts for these cars than most people can wrap their heads around. He wanted his showpiece to be a high-option machine, incorporating a number of items this particular example wasn’t born with (but which were available at the time of the build) including power windows, power trunk, power seats, and an AM/FM 8-Track stereo. He had the car, he had the parts. What he didn’t have was the time and energy to do the work himself. So, Ron called in a favor from a friend. Ron called Fred Mandrick.


For a couple of decades, the Scottsdale, Arizona, collector concentrated exclusively on two-door ’68-’72 Olds A-bodies. Cutlass Supremes. 4-4-2s. W30s. F85s. Hurst Oldses. Coupes. Convertibles. He restored the one-and-only Hurst-conceived Fouranado, a ’68 Olds 4-4-2 with a complete 400-horse Olds Toronado driveline, to concours condition inside of a year. Fred’s formidable collection featured more than a dozen A-body Oldses all told, ranging from low-mileage originals to complete restorations, as well as an ample stash of NOS parts collected over time. He had an open garage bay and a long-standing friendship with Ron. The job was Fred’s.

 

A period-correct L32-code Olds 455, four-barrel, an option on the full-size 88 that year, was rebuilt after sitting a spell with the correct D-code heads finished but not installed. The cast-iron intake, identical to the aluminum piece used on ’70 W30 cars, is shown. All was resprayed in the correct shade of red.

The Hurst/Olds received a 3.91 anti-spin ring and pinion in the 12-bolt axle housing — optional and correct for cars not equipped with A/C. Years of the rear lying open with the cover off meant that even after disassembly and cleaning, Fred ended up rebuilding the system twice.

Here is the nearly completed front of the powder coated ’69 Oldsmobile chassis, now with correct front disc brakes (with calipers and rotors coming from different sources) in place of the 4-4-2 chassis’ original drums. Attention was paid to paint the correct factory inspection marks throughout. While a replacement ’69 Olds frame was sourced, all of the correct components — a combination of parts from the owner’s and restorer’s collections — were laid out to aid assembly. Other than easily sourced reproduction items like brake lines and tires, the bulk of the chassis used NOS or clean, used pieces.

The rear suspension is complete and mounted to the powder coated frame. The rear axle is together and ready to get the power down. Spiral shocks, frame tags, and a fresh set of reproduction Goodyear Polyglas GT rubber help with the as-delivered, back-in-the-day look and feel.While Fred received regular shipments of chassis, driveline and interior parts from Ron to supplement items from his own inventory, the bodywork was sorted by Shaun Price at Shaun Price Restorations in Gilbert, Arizona. It arrived at his shop in very much the same disassembled pile shown elsewhere in this story. “Really it was just a rolling chassis,” Shaun said of a car that had seen some at the hands of another body shop previous to his involvement. “Just a body shell and parts.

The quarters had to be … let’s say we had to work some magic on them, the floors and the trunk floor.” Most of the rest of the parts were NOS—even the quarters were NOS, despite the need for finessing. “The door shells, fenders, decklid … all of that was NOS. Some of the panels had primer on them.”

Before any of it saw a lick of paint, Shaun had the entire Hurst/Olds body powder coated—inside and out, topside and bottom. It’s a system that’s gained popularity in the last decade or so—powder coating itself has been around since the ’40s, but using powder coat as a primer for body panels is a newer development. “PPG makes an industrial-grade powder coat primer that can be sanded. Powder coating is electrostatic; it goes where we can’t get paint guns, but gets everywhere you can sandblast or find clean metal,”

Shaun says. “We did the bare shell and each of the body panels individually. The floors and inside the body panels are powder coated semi-gloss black. But on the top side, we used the (powder coat) primer. Once the primer is applied, you can put filler on top of it, other primer on top of it … you can even paint directly onto it if you want.”

The disparate NOS parts have come together to resemble a car. The dark portions of the body are powder coated primer; the sides and roof have received finish work prior to the coats of urethane primer. Since powder coat doesn’t need time to cure, bodywork can commence quickly.
The rear suspension is complete and mounted to the powder coated frame. The rear axle is together and ready to get the power down. Spiral shocks, frame tags, and a fresh set of reproduction Goodyear Polyglas GT rubber help with the as-delivered, back-in-the-day look and feel. This old-stock quart of 1969-era Oldsmobile Fire Frost Gold lacquer cost $275, and was used exclusively for the body striping. (The gold trim was indeed painted from the factory, not a series of decals.)

A newer Cadillac shade of gold was used to underpin (and slightly stretch) this pricey pigment. The completed chassis, down to the correct 15×7 Super Stock wheels with argent centers (gold centers were a popular addition, but not strictly correct as shipped by Hurst) and correct reproduction Gardner exhaust, are ready to be mated with the completed body.
After the powder coat, Shaun sanded the entire car, applied and block sanded body filler as needed, then attended to some finish work before laying down the urethane primer.

Shaun applied five coats of PPG primer with his Anest-Iwata HVLP gun; there was no sanding between coats, but the final primer coat was blocked in a series of successive sandpaper grits, with the top layer receiving a 500-grit rub. The primer was soon ready to accept color coats of … acrylic lacquer.

You read that right; the owner wanted his car to be shot in lacquer rather than in modern urethane and that’s what he got. “[Using lacquer paint is] how the entire car, applied and block sanded of successive sandpaper grits, with the top these cars were done originally,” Shaun recalled, “and it’s how the owner wanted this one done. The good thing is that lacquer never really goes bad—the solvents can dry up, but if you add some thinner, it’ll rejuvenate itself. Lacquer is always breathing, and the more humidity in the air, the more it likes it.” Problematic for cars in the desert Southwest perhaps, but this car is living its life in Indiana, which gets four seasons each year and ample humidity.


Fred did as Hurst (well, Demmer) did: carefully measured, drilled four holes into a 1969 Cutlass hood, then connected the dots and cut a tidy square out of the hood to make the ram air scoop functional. The scoop came out of Fred’s inventory, while the owner supplied the hood.
Gleaming in the desert sun with a dozen fresh coats of white lacquer on its flanks, this Hurst/Olds is ready to receive its distinctive, painted-on, gold-stripe treatment. The engine callouts were decals, but all else was painted with stencils and by hand.

Jute padding is ancient history; Fred used a series of adhesive-backed-foil heat-and-noise-control solutions on the floor, under the new ACC carpet, to help the cabin live up to Oldsmobile’s reputation without killing that legendary sound or feel. He also installed Dynamat in the doors. What would a Hurst/Olds be without a Hurst shifter? All of the ’69 Hurst/Olds models were floor-shifted automatics, and received a His/Hers Hurst shifter with small console; the owner supplied an NOS shifter, while Fred sourced a cable that was long enough to work with the Turbo 400 transmission.

An even dozen coats of white were applied to the Hurst/Olds’ comely flanks. “We wanted a little texture on this one, so we did more and thinner coats.” The color was reduced 150 percent before shooting. “We could have reduced it less, but it would have come out looking different.”

There was no sanding between coats for the same reason. Indeed, it came out smooth enough that there was no hand-sanding required on the top coat—a machine polish was all that was required. A healthy dose of 3M 5955 rubbing compound on a wool pad mounted to an industrial-strength electric polisher was all that was needed: “It’s a real old-school product—very coarse,” Shaun said. “Nowadays, with all of the clearcoat paints, we use a compound that isn’t abrasive at all.”

And then finally, the stripes—painted on, the way Hurst Industries did it. Once the polishing was complete, the stripes were taped out, and Shaun used Fred’s supplied quart of Oldsmobile Fire Frost Gold for the stripes (with a close shade of gold, used on Cadillacs, to help stretch the final color out). A local pinstriper separated the gold and the white with a black stripe by hand. Authenticity was practically guaranteed: with Fred’s own 19,000-mile unrestored original on hand to use as a pattern, there was little chance of anything going awry.

Precious few changes were made to the black-vinyl-bucket-seat 4-4-2 interior: a Dual-Gate shifter with Hurst console, a Hurst/Olds badge on the glove box, and gold stripes on the headrests. Many were also blessed with an optional gauge package with tach and clock, known as the “Rocket Rally-Pac.”

Before Shaun painted factory-style gold stripes on the headrests, he cleaned and masked the area, then applied a Sherman-Williams adhesive promoter, which allows the vinyl to flex without cracking the paint. It was a wet-on-wet process, so color was applied immediately after the promoter. The full-size Olds 88 donated its optional 455-cubicinch engine with minor tweaks (including chrome valve covers); it was rated at 380 hp in the ’69 Hurst/Olds. The air cleaner base was unique, sealing the air cleaner to the bottom of the hood so the QuadraJet could gulp its share of hood-scooped air.

The wing looks even more dramatic from this angle. Most 4-4-2s used 14-inch wheels and tires, but the Hurst/Olds used chromed 15-inch Super Stock II wheels and Goodyear Polyglas GT rubber to get more meat on the ground and fill those blistered wheel openings.The Hurst/Olds parallel’s the story of Pontiac’s GTO: worming its way around The General’s rules in order to create something special; both are feel-good, stick-it-to-the-man stories that strike the same chords in those who were (and are) hungry for horsepower, and they resonate decades later for the same reasons. With examples as finely finished as this one, it’s easy to see why.

 

Linda Vaughn to attend unveiling of restored Hurst/Olds convertible

By Daniel Strohl


Updated
July 28, 2025
Photo courtesy Gary Riley.

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To many a drag racing fan, it was an unforgettable sight: Linda Vaughn waving and bowing to the fans in the grandstand from atop a 1969 Hurst/Olds convertible, complete with a platform for her to stand on and a nine-foot-tall Hurst shifter for her to grab onto, during breaks in the racing action. Those who recall that promotional campaign will get a chance to see its two major elements – Linda and the Hurst/Olds – back together again when the restored Hurst/Olds is unveiled next month at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals.

While Hurst never built a convertible to offer to customers alongside its 455-powered Hurst/Olds coupes in 1969, it did build three convertibles for promotional purposes: The one that represented Hurst at the 1969 Daytona 500, which was destroyed in 1969 under unknown circumstances; one for East Coast appearances; and one for West Coast appearances. The convertibles, painted white with gold stripes, featured the typical Hurst/Olds engine swap, the Hurst emblem on the doors, the aforementioned platform and shifter, Vaughn and occasionally the Hurstettes adorning the back half of the car, and typically George Hurst himself at the wheel. Hurst used the cars for the 1969, 1970, and 1971 seasons, and then retired them in 1972 when Hurst switched to the convertible Hurst/Olds it was finally offering to the public.

According to Gary Riley of Level One Restoration in Arvada, Colorado, who was tasked with the restoration of the West Coast 1969 Hurst/Olds convertible, that car then possibly passed through one owner before a Hurst Airheart executive bought it in 1972 and parked it in an open-air carport. Over the next few decades, it became a landmark to Hurst/Olds fans in the San Francisco Bay area, and while many tried to buy it off the owner, exorbitantly high prices kept them admiring the car from afar. Not until last summer was a Hurst/Olds enthusiast able to buy it; several months later, that new owner contacted Riley.





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Hurst/Olds convertible before restoration. Photo courtesy Gary Riley who refuses to let you see it here

“At the time, we had one to two years’ worth of work and no openings at all,” Riley said. “But when somebody brings us something that’s one of two, we make an opening for it.” As he received it, the convertible remained rust-free but, as Riley put it, “banged up.” Dents marred the front bumper and one of the quarter panels, a poorly applied repaint and reupholstering had been done, and its rear springs had been replaced with springs that made it sit taller. Yet it ran well, and it still featured some unique Hurst-applied modifications, such as gold carpet and a prototype Hurst Auto Stick shifter.










For some reason, there are more photos of Linda riding atop the car than of the car itself. Photos courtesy Traci Hrudka, who refuses to let you see it

The convertible, however, did not include the platform or the giant fiberglass-over-plywood shifter – Hurst removed those items before selling the car. The car’s owners wanted to have a platform and shifter, however, so Riley said he had to visit the only known original shifter at the Museum of American Speed in Lincoln, Nebraska, to take measurements he could use to build a replica.

(As for the East Coast companion to the convertible, Riley said it does still exist and is located in Iowa, but Riley didn’t have the chance to consult with the owner of that car for the West Coast car’s restoration.)

Riley said that the convertible’s restoration is coming together and should be ready in time for the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals, scheduled for November 17-18 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. Besides the debut of the Hurst/Olds convertible, the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals will feature what is claimed to be the largest gathering of Yenko cars under one roof, along with a couple Sox and Martin cars, a display of aero cars, and a certification area for original unrestored cars. For more information, visit MCACN.com.
Photo courtesy Gary Riley who refuses to let you see it here.