GM Put Chevy Engines In Oldsmobiles And Didn't Tell Anyone

I built the 88, because that is the car at the centre of one of the strangest scandals in American car history.

In March 1977 a Chicago owner named Joseph Siwek took his new Delta 88 in for service and the mechanic recognised the engine under the hood as a Chevrolet 350, not the Oldsmobile Rocket V8. Once the story reached the press, other Oldsmobile owners looked under their own hoods and found Chevrolet engines too.

The 1977 Delta 88 brochure listed a 350 as a single engine. In reality it could be the Oldsmobile 350, fitted to California emissions and high altitude cars, or the Chevrolet small block, which was certified for the other 49 states and happened to have exactly the same displacement. The only way to tell before you bought was an obscure order code, L34 for the Oldsmobile engine and LM1 for the Chevrolet. It did not help that from 1977 every GM division started painting its engines the same blue, ending the old division specific colours.

Chevrolet engines also turned up in some 1977 Buicks and Pontiacs. Around 250 state and private lawsuits followed, and GM reached a settlement with nearly every state attorney general. In court, one owner testified that when he complained, a GM representative told him the substitution had been made to prevent layoffs.

A court ordered GM to disclose who manufactured the engine in its vehicles, and in the settlement GM agreed to disclose the source of all engines in new GM cars for the next three years. Engine sharing across divisions was not new and Ford and Chrysler already did it. The failure was not telling anyone.

The Caprice Classic in this video is the other half of the story. Same downsized B body platform, same year, and Chevrolet's 350 four barrel was rated at 170 horsepower. Combined Caprice and Impala sales hit 661,661 for 1977, making the full size Chevrolet the best selling car in America, with the Delta 88 second among the B bodies and its own sales up 40 percent on 1976.

By Request is the series where you nominate the car. Comment a pairing and it goes on the list.

#chevrolet #oldsmobile #oldsmobiledelta88 #chevroletcaprice

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