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| George Hurst and the "Hairy Olds" |
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| Written by Aaron Severson |
| Saturday, 06 March 2010 00:00 |
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Page 1 of 4 In our history of the Olds 4-4-2, we mentioned that it was not exactly the leader of the pack when it came to Supercar performance. To rectify that problem, Oldsmobile joined forces with Hurst Performance Products to create the ultimate high-performance Oldsmobile: the fearsome Hurst/Olds. THE HISTORY OF HURSTNo history of American muscle cars would be complete without at least a passing mention of George Hurst, who became one of the era's most successful aftermarket manufacturers.
Hurst grew up in Pennsylvania, dropping out of school at the age of 16 to join the Navy. When he was discharged in 1954, he became very active in the drag racing scene in eastern Pennsylvania. In the mid-fifties, he and his friend Bill Campbell started a garage in Abington, where they built aftermarket engine mounts for performance cars. Although Hurst had little formal training, he had a strong intuitive grasp of automotive engineering, and he was a natural showman, with a flair for clever promotions. After some early setbacks, Hurst and Campbell formed a partnership with Ed Almquist and Jonas Anchel, the co-founders of the speed shop Anco Industries. They developed several new products, including a revised engine mount design called Adjusta-Torque and a floor-mounted shift linkage for three-speed manual transmissions. At the time, manual transmissions were at low ebb in America. Since the advent of Hydra-Matic in late 1939, American buyers had shown a marked preference for fully automatic transmissions, and development of stick-shift technology had languished. In the fifties, many automatics were still too inefficient and too fragile for serious hot rodders, but the available manual gearboxes left much to be desired. The typical "three on the tree" was clunky and cumbersome, with a vague, ropy linkage that was rarely sturdy enough for aggressive driving. The Hurst linkage, which George Hurst first installed in his own '56 Chevy, was a vast improvement. Although it was rather stiff by modern standards, it allowed clean, fast, accurate shifts, and it was very durable. Hurst and Campbell asked Almquist and Anchel for $90,000 to market their new linkage, a lot of money at that time. Almquist and Anchel balked, so Hurst and Campbell went out on their own. In 1959, they obtained a $20,000 loan to found Hurst-Campbell, Inc. in Warminster, Pennsylvania. The hot rodding and drag racing scene was booming in the late fifties and early sixties, and Hurst-Campbell found a ready market for their shifters and shift linkages. Whatever Hurst's mechanical abilities, his greatest talent was concocting news stunts and gimmicks to market Hurst-Campbell products. Hurst sponsored drag racers, offered new cars as prizes for race winners who used Hurst products, and hired a buxom beauty queen named Linda Vaughn as "Miss Hurst Golden Shifter," paying her to attend racing events in her gold bikini, suggestively caressing giant replicas of Hurst's signature product. Some of Hurst's promotional stunts were in dubious taste, but they were undeniably effective. By the mid-sixties, Hurst-Campbell revenues were more than $20 million a year, and Hurst shifters had become almost de rigueur among serious enthusiasts.  In the sixties, this badge was a mark of distinction for any car with performance aspirations. It's seen here on a 1968 AMC AMX 390. THE SHIFTY DOCTOROne of the key selling points of Hurst products was their lifetime warranty. In the early sixties, Hurst hired a young man named Jack Watson, who had previously worked at General Motors. At first, Watson's role was minor -- Ed Almquist described him as a gofer -- but he subsequently became Hurst's traveling repair technician. Armed with a portable machine shop, he traveled to various drag racing events to perform on-site repairs and adjustments for Hurst products. The role eventually earned him the nickname "Shifty Doc," or just "Doc."
Watson still had connections at GM, and in 1961, he helped Hurst get a meeting with Pontiac general manager Bunkie Knudsen and chief engineer Pete Estes. Estes had seen a favorable write-up on the Hurst shifter in Hot Rod, and had been impressed. He was also impressed with Hurst and his obvious marketing acumen. Hurst, Estes, and Knudsen struck a deal to use a Hurst linkage and shifter in Pontiac's new limited-production Super Duty Catalina. The deal was a great achievement for Hurst-Campbell; Detroit tended to ignore the aftermarket, or look on it with disdain. It was also the beginning of a long and mutually profitable association between Hurst and Pontiac. Over the next few years, many high-performance Pontiac models would carry Hurst shifters as standard equipment, including the highly successful Pontiac GTO. Pontiac's association with Hurst did great things for its credibility with hardcore performance cognoscenti, helping to cement the division's status as the hot American car. To cultivate more relationships with the major automakers, Hurst opened the Hurst Performance Center in Detroit in 1965, appointing Doc Watson to run it. Much of Watson's business was with Pontiac, where Hurst now had a strong relationship, but he eventually made deals with other many automakers, including Plymouth, Dodge, AMC, and Oldsmobile.  One of Pontiac's marketing coups in the mid-sixties was the fact that all manual-transmission GTOs came standard with a Hurst shifter. Starting in 1967, automatic GTOs could also be ordered with a Hurst Dual-Gate Shifter. THE HURST FIREBIRDIn the mid-sixties, Hurst built a number of customs cars for exhibition use, including a Plymouth Barracuda wheel-stander called "Hemi under Glass," and the "Hairy Olds," a 1966 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 funny car powered by two big-block Toronado V8s. In the summer of 1967, Hurst approached Pontiac ad man Jim Wangers, who was also in charge's Pontiac's promotional campaign, about the possibility of a production carrying the Hurst name.
At that time, GM had strict limits on engine displacement and advertised horsepower for most of its cars. The safety and anti-smog lobbies were gaining strength, and senior management was well aware that GM a prime target. As a result, corporate policy prohibited all compact and intermediate models (except the Corvette) from using engines of more than 400 cu. in. (6.6 L) displacement or advertising more than one horsepower (0.75 kW) per 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of curb weight. For example, a full-size Chevrolet Impala could be ordered with engines up to 427 cu. in. (7.0 L), but the smaller Chevelle and Camaro were limited to 396 cu. in. (6.5 L). Each of the divisions chafed at the restrictions, particularly since Ford and Chrysler imposed no such limits.  Thanks to GM corporate policy, the top engine in both the 1967 Pontiac GTO and Firebird was the 400 cu. in. (6.6 L) Ram Air V8, rather than the 428 cu. in. (7.0 L) engine available in full-size Pontiacs. Corporate rules on advertised horsepower meant that the Firebird's Ram Air engine was rated at only 325 gross horsepower (242 kW), even though the nearly identical engine in the Ram Air GTO was rated at 360 horsepower (269 kW). Hurst suggested turning the restriction into a marketing opportunity. While Pontiac couldn't offer its big 428 cu. in. (7.0 L) V8 in the Firebird, there was nothing to stop Hurst from doing an engine swap and offering the modified cars as a special limited-edition model. Indeed, enterprising dealers like Chicago's Nickey Chevrolet were already doing the same thing, albeit on a smaller scale. Wangers thought it was a good idea, and he helped Hurst put together a presentation for Pontiac general manager John DeLorean. DeLorean liked the concept, but he pointed out several logistical problems. GM had a policy forbidding cars to leave the assembly plant without engines, so Pontiac could not simply ship Hurst a load of engineless Firebirds and crated 428 engines to put together. DeLorean could potentially send Hurst a number of fully assembled Firebirds with 400 cu. in. (6.6 L) engines and let Hurst perform an engine swap at its own facilities, but he didn't have the authority to buy back the unused engines without corporate approval. DeLorean said he would run the idea up the ladder and see what happened. The Engineering Policy Committee did not veto the idea outright, but because the Firebird was assembled in a Chevrolet plant (alongside the Camaro), they told DeLorean that he could only do it if Chevrolet agreed. DeLorean took Hurst and Watson to meet with Pete Estes, who had become general manager of Chevy in 1965. Estes knew Hurst and he knew DeLorean, and he understood exactly what they were up to. Although the Firebird and Camaro were built in the same plant, they were direct competitors, and Estes was not about to give Pontiac a marketing edge. He rejected their plan, telling DeLorean that the Firebird was doing well enough already. It was discouraging news for Hurst, but before ending the meeting, Estes offered a potential consolation prize. He suggested that Hurst and Watson talk to Oldsmobile chief engineer John Beltz.
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When I was young I couldn't afford one... and by time time I could I was a family man with more need for a station wagon than a pseudo-sporty coupe. I remember seeing one of the last Hurst/Olds Cutlasses on the showroom floor of Thompson Cadillac-Olds in Raleigh, North Carolina when I was looking for a replacement for my totalled '68 Caprice Estate in November 1983. It got a passing glance while I was waiting for a salesman to see if his boss would accept my offer on an '81 Custom Cruiser with a diesel engine (fortunately, in retrospect, he didn't, and I went on to buy a '78 Country Squire elsewhere).
But they were interesting cars nonetheless... thanks for the memories.