Jay Leno is back, and this time, he’s climbing behind the wheel of a rare 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais Quad 442 W-41 in the following episode of Jay Leno’s Garage.
If you’ve never heard of the Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais Quad 442 W-41, you’re not alone. Offered for a very limited time as a high-performance model to meet SCCA homologation, only a few hundred examples were produced, and now, we’re checking out the backstory behind this little two-door, as well as what it’s like to drive on the street.
Providing the info is Jeff Szafraniec, who just so happens to own the 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais Quad 442 W-41 featured in this video. The story starts with the GM Aerotech project, which necessitated the creation of a series of GM Experimental engines in the mid-‘80s. One of those engines, a twin-turbo 2.0L unit making 1,170 horsepower, helped to power the Aerotech to a closed-course land speed record of 268 mph with A.J. Foyt at the wheel.
With this new, impressive engine technology in hand, GM approached Paul and Karl Hacker, two brothers from New York who competed in SCCA racing, with a proposal to put the brothers on track in Oldsmobiles. The combo was a success – so much so, in fact, the SCCA forced GM to offer similar engine tech in a street car for homologation purposes, leading to the creation of the 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais Quad 442 W-41.
A total of 200 examples were produced, 15 of which received the unique RPO code C41 for racing purposes, stripping out the air conditioning and adding in an oil cooler. Although the top W-41 package upped peak output to 190 horsepower, which was considered a lot for the time, the vehicle was relatively unknown, with many examples simply sitting on lots.
“Not that they were a tough sale, because nobody knew about them,” Szafraniec explains. “You’d go and you’d see the automatic model and it was $2,000 less because it wasn’t a performance package, you’re probably buying that.”
Check out the full feature, as well as driving impressions on the street, by hitting play right here:
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Comments
I had a 1981 Cutlass beautiful smooth riding car. I wish Olds were still around.
I had the 92 achieva SCX. The assembly line missed the hose from the air cleaner assembly to the throttle body when it was made and so did the pdi tech. I traded it in. Never felt good about the dirt getting in the engine It was a fast 4 cylinder
I had a 1984 Cutlass Ciera thst I drove for 26 yesrs, then sold it to a neighbor who drove it for several more years.
I also had an 81 Cutlass. Sure wish I hadn’t had to get rid of it.
The quad 4 was a very noisy unreliable engine. Good performance. Lots of head gasket failures. Honda and Toyota had much better cars in this segment.
I had a Beretta GTZ with the Quad 4 HO. I did in fact have a head gasket failure.
I had a 90 gtz. Traded it for the achieva scx
I had a Pontiac Grand Am with the Quad 4 that went well over 200,000 miles and never let me down or left me stranded. Yes, the head gasket was replaced, but as a preventative measure. I wouldn’t say it was unreliable at all.
Mine ate jap cars for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
I believe it, but those Japanese 4 cylinders were as quiet as sewing machines and got far superior gas mileage. We will never know why Olds went with a noisy, hot rod, unreliable engine to chase the Japanese. It was stupid and unsuccessful.
Rick: I’ll counter with real life sales experience. I worked for a Buick, Cadillac, GMC and Honda store starting in 1988 till 1995 and again from 2007 till 2011. While the Honda 4 cyl was smooth and fairly quiet at idle or while driving, it was a massive vibration mess with the automatic (most of what we sold) if sitting at a stop light while in gear. It was so bad that at times it was difficult to keep a grip on the wheel. Again, they were quiet engines while driving, but that was not much of a compliment due to the extremely noisy ride from the Honda’s. On the flip side, the Buick 4 cyl engines were not as quiet nor smooth overall, but they were more refined while sitting in gear at a light and they did a really good job. As for mpg, the 4 cyl Honda’s were only a little better than the v6 Buick’s and no better than the 4 cyl Buick. And for all those years, the upkeep of the GM models was much lower in cost than the Honda’s which required manual valve adjustments every 15,000 miles. Over the course of 150,000 miles, that added up a lot over the much lower costs of the Buicks.
Guess customers did not see it that way as gm market share has shrunk by over half while Honda and Toyota almost doubled. GM still struggling at less than 17% of retail market share. They once had half of all sales. I am an ex gm customer.
Rick: Interesting pivot. I know what I’m talking about and you know what I said is very true. So let’s not continue talking about that right? Move on to your next GM bash?
It’s not a bash when it is factual. Gm, along with Ford and Chrysler lost all that market share to vehicles American buyers preferred even though they were built outside the US.
With EVs gm has a chance to change the paradigm. Buy their stock if you are a believer.
I sold Mazda’s in this same time period and you’re not wrong in that the Japanese did not isolate their engines from the chassis as well as the domestics did. That was evident in the shivering at idle, particularly in automatic equipped cars with A/C. But… where are they now? The Japanese continued to refine their products and once the superior quality was married up to equivalent refinement, it was lights out for GM, Ford and Chrysler and they became loss leaders for their manufacturers. You’ll still see the occasional Corolla, Civic, 323 or Sentra from that period on the road while J-cars, K cars and the Escort/Lynx are just a fond memory.
wjtinfwb: Maybe what you still see on the roads is directly related to your location (West coast, vs. mid-west, etc). Personally, I still see a good number of older GM cars being driven daily.
But let’s get to your comment “The Japanese continued to refine their products and once the superior quality was married up to equivalent refinement, it was lights out for GM.” I work for a dealership today that sells Mazda. I’m in newer or brand new Kia’s, Hyundai’s, Toyota’s and Honda’s on a weekly basis. I personally drive a 2021 Malibu. I will put my car up against anything from any of those other import brands when it comes to refinement, comfort, quality, ride, MPG, quiet ride, etc. In fact, most of the Japanese brands have lost much of their reputation for “quality” and the American brands have improved. The only people out there still pushing Japanese cars being better than American cars are the sheep who feel they must defend the decisions they make to buy them.
BTW, does anyone else find it interesting that we are having this conversation on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor? Shame on those who have turned their backs on what the Japanese did. I will never buy any brand from the Japanese.
The American buyers will determine long term winners in the battle of the brands. They have done so for many years. It takes years to establish a reputation for quality but it can be ruined in a blink.
Look at how Kia and Hyundai used a 10 year warranty to get their now established decent quality rep.
Personally, I usually stick with the brand that has served us best recently. For years that was gm. Now in our garage it is Honda Pilot, Tesla and because of an awful gm product, a RAM truck. The Honda has been perfect, the Tesla just OK, the RAM too new to rate. They were all built in the US.
This car is a prefect example that slapping a good name on a weak car is a path to success. This was a boring drab car that just never lived up to the Cutlass name.
We had a GTZ with the 190 HP engine and it blew the head gasket too. It was a nice looking car and it drove very well.
At least they did not slap a Corvette name on it.
It was black and looked like something Darth Vader would drive.
Too bad they cheeped out on the heads and let the gaskets blow. Head Studs should have fixed the issue but bolts were cheaper. Same issue on the N star.
Yeah, not a Cutlass. But it was really just known as a Calais. Easily nicer than a Beretta or Grand Am.
If GM had given it an alloy pushrod 6… Jay said Olds was known as a bigger engine brand. Displacement worked for VR6 GTi’s. Using Olds to chase Japanese cars was a bad idea.
It had different cams and ECMs which brought the redline past 7600.
The ’90s were an interesting time in Detroit… mainstream cars were just exiting the malaise era, but some engineers flexed their performance muscles with some coll, if half-baked, performance editions. Cars like this Calais, the Achieva SCX, Dodge Spirit R/T, Mustang Cobra R, Contour SVT, Corvette ZR1 etc. all were so close, just needed another lap around the finishing school lot. The Quad 4 could have been an exceptional engine but GM shortchanged the NVH and head bolt assembly resulting in a noisy, rough and unreliable powerplant. Cool cars with an interesting story but not much more than a footnote in the sales race.
I owned one of these with the International trim level. It was the year before the came out with the 442 version. I had scene it in I believe Motor Trend magazine article ten best buy for the buck. They were featuring them around the country at dealerships and I knew a salesman at one and we got to talking and he asked if I’d like to drive one that they just got in. It had a couple hundred miles on it. I went up the next day and took it out. Loved the car. Called him the next day to tell him I’ll take it and he told me it was sold. The next day he called and told me the deal fell through, bad credit. He held it for me and I took him a check a couple days later. I eventually sold it to my nephew, whom I believe still owns it.
I had one of these back in the day, I thought it was fast in the day but with the cars of today this could not compete. I parked it in 1993 with just over 2800 miles on the clock and then sold it in 1998 for 3k. I wonder what it would be worth today.
I had a 1993 Cutlass Supreme International. To this day it was one of my favorite vehicles out of the 50+ I have bought since getting my license in 1986 🙂