1960 Oldsmobile Blog

A while back, I put together the video gallery on the web page...it had some really interesting commercials and a big chunk of the Bing Crosby Show featuring the '60 Oldsmobile. Only problem was they were all You Tube embeds, and while that's normally fine, it's not so fine when the person who posted them takes them down . Sooooo...in order to prevent that in the future, I decided to put any future videos directly on the server. After figuring out how to run a FLASH player with the flv video files, it's up and running...so far so good. There's now over an hour of video there, from 1956, 1958, 1959, and 1960 . I also revamped the look of the video gallery with new buttons and a somewhat different look. Hope it isn't too busy... I think it looks good anyway.
At any rate, if you have some spare time during the cold winter months, grab a cup of hot coco, grab a chair and enjoy!!

Also...if anyone else has any video of your car you'd like to submit, just drop me a line. I'm looking for submissions for a section of member videos. I can use pretty much any digital video format you can send me. Or just post it to You Tube and send me the link...I can snag it from there.

Well, looks like the steering wheel project is going to be shelved until spring... I was really hoping that I'd have a chance to throw some more paint on it before Montana was overtaken by the cold and dark, but it just didn't happen . Oh well...something to look forward to when it warms up again. Soooo...it looks like the saga continues!

On the bright side, as the cold of winter really sets in, I'll be able to get a lot done on the website. I've already made a lot of progress on a lot of projects with it...the Trim Tag Decoder is going to be complete in the next couple of weeks (the trim codes are taking forever...there's a lot of ground to cover there). Thanks to Fred and Mario, the Factory Literature sections has grown a lot over the last couple of weeks, and I've started updating some of the graphics with a slightly different look. The nav bar sports a new updated look...not sure how many other graphics are going to get that treatment, but probably at least a few. There's new Special Features, and a new Article Index so you can easily see all the different features. There's a bunch of other stuff too...I've really gotten a lot done in the last few weeks. And since it will largely be too cold to do much work on the car, I'm sure I'll get plenty more done this winter. It should be a lot of fun!

Surfing Ebay a while back I found a couple of (original) car magazines published in 1960 that featured test drives of the new Oldsmobiles...an issue of Hot Rod and Motor Life. Grand total for both magazines was only $11.

I haven't had a chance to really read them since I just got them, but a few things really pop out at me.
First, go-carts must have been big business in 1960 LOL. There were more ads for go-carts than an issue of Boys Life!! Kind of funny, but they must have been a big deal back then. Second, it's really weird seeing an ad for a new Studebaker. I love old Studebakers, but I gotta say...that '60 Lark really wasn't their best effort. Third...J.C. Whitney hasn't changed at all!!! You could buy that "Engine Overhaul" in a can for $4.95!! How funny is that?? They also had voodoo head gear shift knobs, louvered oil filler caps, car club jackets, and "Cattle Caller" horns. It's really kind of amazing...it looks like the same crap they sell today. Big difference of course is back then it was probably all made in the U.S.A...now it's all made in the P.R.C. . Oh well.
Anyway, I'm going to scan the '60 Olds articles and probably turn them into a "Special Feature" soon...

I've spent an awful lot of time trying to get the steering wheel in my '60 to look the way I want it to...there'll be a tech article on the whole adventure coming soon. It's on it's third or fourth incarnation and I'm still not happy with it...another paint job is coming soon. One of the sources of inspriation for what I want it to look like is http://www.pearlcraft.com.au/welcome.htm, an outfit in Australia that does custom steering wheel restorations. They really do some amazing work...just go poke around their site to see what I mean. After seeing their two-tone steering wheels I decided that's what I wanted to do with mine. I'm going to use the metallic grey from the lower dash for most of the wheel, and the metallic blue/grey from the upper dash for the lower and upper inset sections of the wheel. I'll give it all a clearcoat for durability. This way the color from the steering column will extend right into the steering wheel...it should look really nice. Hopefully the weather will hold out for a little longer...it's starting to turn, and if it gets much colder it's going to be a lot harder to do any painting...
Pearlcraft has done a steering wheel from a '60 (they call it a '59 though). Really a nice looking wheel!

Here's the Pearlcraft wheel:







You can read more about my own steering wheel adventures over here in the forum...
http://forum.1960oldsmobile.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=147