The family that street races together stays together. That’s the story of this ’71 Olds 4-4-2 W30.

Andy Krause’s father bought this car new in ’71 because, “he had a thing against Corvettes, so he asked a friend at GM what car to buy that would beat a Corvette,” according to Andy. That buddy told him to get an Olds 4-4-2 with the W30 option.

“And he was right,” Andy adds.

(Photo by Cole Reynolds)

The A-body was bought new at Charnock Oldsmobile in Dearborn, Michigan — right in the heart of Ford country.

“On Saturday nights, my dad, mom, little brother and I would go out for a drive looking for races,” Andy remembers. “I can remember hanging out the back window making faces at the guy we were racing as we were pulling away. He would probably go to jail today for child endangerment.”

The W30 became Mom’s everyday family driver for years, but Andy said they could always get her to race people at stop lights.

“It was hilarious, this old lady smoking the tires off the light,” says Andy. “In 1978, they were going to trade it in for a new Toyota. They gave my older brother first dibs, but he just got married and it wasn’t practical, so I got second dibs and jumped on it for $1,800 — the trade in value. I would never let an 18-year-old kid have that car today. I started drag racing it and, of course, I couldn’t leave it alone. It ran 13.50s consistently when stock, but that wasn’t good enough.”

Historically Hot Machine

The 4-4-2 was more than just Oldsmobile’s entry in the muscle car wars. Thanks to option packages like the W30, it became one of the most feared cars of the era. Its name, which originally stood for four-barrel carb, four-speed trans, and dual exhausts, was rendered meaningless once three two-barrel carbs, three-speed manuals, and automatic transmissions became available, but a ground pounder by any other name is still as sweet.

(Here’s a great story on the 4-4-2 name game.)

In the trans department, the M20 replaced the M21 as the base four-speed, and the M22 was optional. The only automatic was the Turbo 400.

Dawn Of A New Era

The year 1971 is when General Motors lowered the compression ratios on all its engines, so they would run well on regular/low-lead/unleaded fuel. That didn’t mean performance was dead — far from it. Pontiac’s 455 HO was a beast and led the way for the 1973-’74 455 Super Duty. Corvettes got a low-squeeze version of the LS6 454 that was still rated at 425 horsepower and capable of mid 13-second quarter-mile times.

As the high compression era came to a close, the 4-4-2 adjusted for the times. The standard 455 was rated at 340 gross horsepower, down 25 from ’70, as the compression ratio dropped from 10.5 to 8:5:1. The Rocket V8 was still a performer, however, capable of high 14/low 15-second ETs.

Cars like Andy’s with the famed W30 package were still rowdy boulevard beasts. With 350 gross ponies (300 net) and 460 lb-ft of torque, they could lay to waste many of the top stock muscle cars, as many Corvettes in Michigan discovered after racing Andy’s dad.

What was the W30 option package? It started life in 1966 as a conglomeration of great parts: Tri-Carb induction (three two-barrel carbs), Force Air induction with scoops in the bumpers feeding dryer-like hoses into a sealed air cleaner, a special cam, 4.11 gears and heavy-duty axles. The battery was also relocated to the trunk.

For ‘71, W30 was still a cold-air package, with twin scoops. Also included was an aluminum intake manifold and those famous plastic inner fender liners.

As part of the taming of muscle cars. the cam was slightly less aggressive than 1970, with 286/287-degrees duration and .474/472-lift if you ordered an automatic gearbox, like our feature car. (Air conditioned cars got 285/287-degrees duration and .472/472 lift.) Where 3.90:1 gears were standard in 1970, 3.73s took their place in 1971. The cost was $3369.67 without power brakes and $347.56 with them.

Evolution Of A Hot Rod

When 13.50s were no longer enough for Andy, he turned it into a legal Super Stock race car. He did all the tricks to the suspension — reversing the ball joints, trick front springs from Moroso, 90/10 shocks, etc. The rear trailing arms were already boxed from the factory, but he added an air bag and a coilover shock on the right side to adjust preload.

Except for the wheels and tires, the car still looks pretty much the same as it did when it left the Lansing, Michigan, factory in the early ’70s. Speaking of which, the fronts are 15×5 and the rears 15×10 with Hoosier 12-inch slicks for the track, though the Olds does get driven on the street.

As for the 455, the factory heads were ported and it runs Harland Sharp roller rockers with screw-in studs. The original W30 intake now sports a 1,050 cfm Holley carb. Downstairs are TRW forged pistons swinging from a cross-drilled crank. Andy proudly boasts of a “huge, solid-lift Mondello cam from when Joe was still around.”

Exhaust gases are carried away by Hooker 1 ¾-inch long-tube headers. If that isn’t enough, there’s a 250 shot of nitrous oxide (in case any of those Vettes come around looking for revenge). Now that the Olds is back seeing street duty, compression is back to a pump-gas friendly 9:1.

The Turbo 400 employs a 5,000 rpm stall converter, a relic from its strip-only days. Back then, it also employed steep 4.88 gears. Now, it is a more livable set of 4.10s.

“It comes off the line pretty hard,” reports Andy, in the understatement of the year about its strip antics. “It pulls the front end a foot off the ground.”

At its best as a drag car, it ran 10.90s at 126 mph. With the lowered compression, it covers the strip in the mid- to high-11s without the spray.

Andy, a retired automotive restorer, repainted the Olds 4-4-2 W30 family heirloom 35 years ago with Ditzier acrylic lacquer in the stock Saturn Yellow color. Everything else is original — the vinyl top, the interior, the chrome, etc.

“I think drag racing saved the car because it wasn’t exposed to the elements,” Andy explains. “I’m so glad the car didn’t get away. I hear so many stories that had one in college or a brother crashed it, or something happened to it, but no one hangs on to stuff.”

Andy may miss out on trophies at shows at times because his plastic inner fender liners are faded, and there is certainly a little bit of wear and tear. Still, you can’t beat unrestored.

The best part of this ’71 Olds 4-4-2 W30 is the son of the original owner is still making memories with it. Can you put a price tag on that?