Oldsmobile, throughout the early years of the muscle car era (despite some powerful entries), suffered from an image problem. The issue was it had a tough time gaining popularity with America’s young people and general “hot rod” culture. Oldsmobile wanted to change that, and to make it happen; it employed George Hurst of Hurst Shifter fame to make a car that used one of Plymouth’s higher-powered engines to date with the 455 cubic-inch Rocket V8.
It’s important to grasp that the 1968 Hurst Oldsmobile was built off the body of the third-generation 442, but It didn’t have the straight-lined design of the original ’64 442. It had been updated with a new body type shared with the Oldsmobile Cutlass of that year. Even with the body upgrade, the Hurst Olds delivered on what would become the ideal look for a muscle car with its wider body and low overall profile that implied “this car is fast.” It didn’t lie.
As a sort of specialty third-party vehicle, the ’68 Hurst Olds was in a class all its own, but looking back, it was one of the signature muscle cars of the era.
[Image by SsmIntrigue via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]
