Art courtesy of the Automotive History Preservation Society.
Though Oldsmobile didn’t field as many muscular models as its GM siblings Pontiac and Chevrolet, or competing automakers Ford and Chrysler, the Division certainly made the most of what it did have. For example in 1969, there was the Hurst/Olds, the 4-4-2, the 4-4-2 with W-30, the 4-4-2 with W-32 and the Cutlass S or F-85 with W-31. All of these performance packages were applied to Oldsmobile’s midsized A-body.
The Division presented its W-30 and W-31 entries (sans the W-32) to the muscle car market via an extraordinary, highly stylized 8-page brochure that was published in some car magazines of the day. And same-themed 1-page ads were also regularly found in most of those periodicals.
The Dr. Oldsmobile campaign with its classic horror movie vibe of a mad scientist creating a monster for the street was so visually arresting that it remained powerful in black and white, which also stayed true to the Hollywood era it was depicting.
Submitted beneath the exaggerated characters, smoke and vintage laboratory props were detailed specifications regarding Oldsmobile’’s W-Machines. The combination of comprehensive powertrain and chassis engineering and lots of horsepower wrapped in a stylish and modern-for-its-era A-body, made the 4-4-2 a hot contender for attracting the performance-craving 1960s youth market.
Though all of the automakers of the era used specific concepts in their advertising, you have to admit, this one is pretty outrageous (in a good way) even for the late 1960s. Do you remember the W-Machine ads? Can you recall other car manufacturers’ ad campaigns that were as eccentric as this one?
See original article at" http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2016/01/14/spooky-1969-olds-literature-dr-oldsmobile-creates-a-w-machine-or-two/
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