Recently, GM design Boss Ed Welburn got to drive the Oldsmobile AeroTech. That’s a story that deserves re-telling. So here goes: See, kids. Once upon a time there was a GM division called Oldsmobile (say it with me: oldz-moh-beel). It was more luxurious than a Pontiac and (mostly) sportier than a Buick. Back in the old days, GM divisions developed their own engines. One day, in the 1980s or so, Oldsmobile engineers said to themselves, “Instead of adding more pistons, let’s add more valves!”

They retired to their laboratory and, after some clanging noises and cursing, the Quad4 engine was born! It had separate camshaft towers just like an Offenhauser racing engine, which made GM’s engine geeks very happy. “Let’s put it in the poky little Cutlass Calais for ’88!,” they said. But the masses were skeptical–they’d been burned by false performance promises before. So the company built a very aerodynamically slippery body with adjustable underbody units to control downforce, and slapped it on a March Indycar chassis.

Then, they planted a Quad4 in it and dropped in a turbocharger with the diameter of a large pizza. They called it the Oldsmobile AeroTech, and that little DOHC four banger could propel the AeroTech to very high speeds. One day in 1987, race car driver A.J. Foyt hit 257.123 mph miles per hour–a closed-course speed record–in the AeroTech, and all the kids who were reading Car and Driver during Social Studies class ran home and told their parents the news: Oldsmobile! Quad4! Where are the Fritos?! Get out of my room! And thus, the Quad4 legend was born. We never did start commuting to work at 200 mph. But maybe in 600 years, that dream could potentially become reality, but probably not. Thank you.

1987 Oldsmobile Aerotech Development 1 of 2

1987 Oldsmobile Aerotech Development 2 of 2