CVC June 2013

Here's what the Corvette Oldsmobile
Division wanted, but never had. This
experimental sports car would have been in
direct competition with the Chevrolet
Corvette. While debating the matter, GM
built three Olds F-88 show cars, each one
slightly different, all with concealed folding
tops. It is powered by a 324-cid 'Rocket V8'
producing 250 bhp. Brought out of GM
styling in pieces, and owned briefly by
financier and luxury auto magnate, E.L.
Cord (CEO of Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg).
One version was gifted to Harley Earl upon
his retirement. The only surviving F-88 was
sold at auction in 2005 for $3.2 million.
The XP-20 project, commonly known as F-
88 was a pet project of Harley Earl (working
with him was Bill Mitchell, Ken Pickering,
Zora Duntov etc.). Four cars came out of the
project, but only styling order #2265 (this
car) survived. It was sold or given to E.L.
Cord (Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg owner) in
1955. Hundreds of internal GM documents
and original blue prints are still with this
sole survivor.
The Oldsmobile F-88 is one of the most
historically significant vehicles of its era and
considered by many automotive historians to
be a great expression of automotive design
from the 1950s Golden Age.
Designed during 1952-1953, around the
same time as the first Motorama Corvette,
the preliminary sketches of the F-88 came
from veteran designer Bill Lange. The final
design was done in the main Oldsmobile
studio under the direction of Art Ross. A
very gifted designer, Ross is given credit for
the 1941 Cadillac egg crate ‘tombstone'
grill, the World War II Wildcat tank
destroyer, and the ‘rocket' beltline for the '59
Oldsmobile. The interior of the Oldsmobile
was designed by Jack Humbert (who later
moved on to become Pontiac's chief
designer).
The first Oldsmobile F-88 was built for the
1954 Motorama show circuit and followed
in 1957 by the Oldsmobile F-88 Mark II.
The Oldsmobile F-88 shared the stage of the
Motorama show with the Oldsmobile
Cutlass fastback coupe that shared an
identical instrument panel. Unveiled at the
General Motors Motorama on January 21,
1954 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New
York, the 1954 Oldsmobile F-88 was
painted metallic gold with metallic green
inside the fender wells.
The golden Oldsmobile F-88 was a true
showstopper. For six days the vehicle
display and musical revenue ran, following
that the Oldsmobile F-88 became part of a
series of traveling Motorama shows that
caravanned by both bus and truck to Miami,
LA, San Francisco, and Chicago. Over 2
million viewers saw the five Motoramas that
season. Back in that day, after a show car
had completed its Motorama duties, it was
usually turned over to its sponsoring
division. The division's top execs were then
encouraged to eventually destroy it as they
couldn't sell such vehicle, or they could give
them away to favored dealers.
The Mark II looked entirely different than
the first F-88 and featured quad headlights
and blade-like vertical tailfins. The Mark III
was introduced in the 1959 and unveiled for
the GM Motorama, also looking nothing like
the earlier two.
An experimental, high performance, two-