After a while, sometimes the old ride just doesn’t have the same appeal that she used to. When the initial love affair subsides, the eye starts wandering and you want something new—but does that mean you necessarily have to give up on old Sally? Maybe the ol’ girl just needs a makeover. We’ve been there with Project Olds, our ’65 Cutlass project car. At first, the novelty of ripping up the autocross in a machine with a distinctly geriatric vibe was great fun, but eventually our enthusiasm waned. “It looked like a grandma car with bigger wheels,” car owner and PHR photographer extraordinaire Robert McGaffin opines. “Over the course of the build, the performance of the car got ramped up big time. It’s been on several road courses, the autocross, and driven across the country. The Cutlass needed a more aggressive look to match its performance, so it was time to give it a makeover.”
It’s been a while since Project Olds made its last appearance, so here’s a quick refresher. Not long after purchasing our ’65 Cutlass, we yanked the 330ci small-block and two-speed slushbox, and stuffed in a 514hp big-block Olds and Tremec TKO 600 five-speed stick. To plant the barrage of lb-ft dished out by the 461ci mill, the decrepit stock underpinnings got chucked for a complete Detroit Speed and Engineering suspension working in concert with 18-inch Rocket Racing wheels and some super-gooey Nitto rubber. Although building a Pro Touring car can easily become a pricey affair, we’ve tried to keep costs down throughout the entire build, and we had every intention of sticking with that theme with a makeover on the horizon.
Freshening up the look of any project car without spending a small fortune is no small feat, especially when laying down paint is involved, but it’s definitely possible to spice things up over a weekend given enough planning and determination. Our simple plan called for trading in the two-tone look for a monochrome paint scheme highlighted with a racing stripe and refinished wheels. “According to the paint code, this was originally a blue car with a white top, but during its last restoration someone painted it red with a silver top. I don’t mind the two-tone look, but wanted something more aggressive,” McGaffin says. “In 1965, there was a 4-4-2 vinyl stripe kit that you could buy from the dealership. It’s not a rally stripe, it’s not centered, and it looks unusual, which are all things I liked about it. I found the original dealer instructions posted on www.442Bro.com that shows measurements for locating the stripes and used that as a template.”
In addition to scuffing and shooting the roof red to match the body, we decided to paint the wheels silver to match the stripe. With the plan in place, we headed down to Windy City Rods and Restorations (www.WindyCityRR.com), where Miguel Menendez and Glen Shar put the makeover in motion. The beauty of a project like this is that just about anyone can do it over the course of a weekend in their own garage.
