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.