Texas Internet Massacre

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday November 15, 2006

David Morley

The gamble to import this US muscle car paid off - eventually, writes David Morley.

If company director David Dann's tale of woe is anything to go by, the stories about people being burnt shopping on the internet are true. Dann didn't just get his fingers burnt, he wound up with third-degree burns. And a lot of four-wheeled trouble.

In 2003 Dann was doing a little cyber-browsing on a US used-car site. No stranger to US muscle cars, he figured he could pick up a relatively cheap 1960s American car, ship it home, maybe spend a few dollars on it and have himself a tidy character cruiser for summer.

What is it they say about the best-laid plans? Dann had wanted a convertible so when a 1967 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme drop-top presented itself on his screen, he was interested.

"I found the car in Dallas, Texas, and, of course, I was suspicious," Dann says. "I'd heard about all the disasters, about cars being misrepresented or not even turning up, so I was careful. I spoke to the guy's wife and it all seemed like he was a family sort of guy. He honestly sounded like a decent bloke. All along he's telling me what a great car it is and what terrific condition it's in."

So the deal was done over the phone, the money transferred and the Oldsmobile was wheeled into a container. It then spent the next three months in transit, visiting Long Beach, California and even Adelaide (where it cleared customs) on its way to Melbourne.

"When I first saw it, it actually looked all right," Dann says. "It was bright, Ferrari, knock-your-eye-out red with a black top. I have to say I was fairly well dazzled by it, so I drove it around for about a year.

"Eventually, though, I decided I was too old to drive a red convertible, so it needed a new colour. And that's where it started to go wrong. All I wanted to do was paint it."

But as the layers of paint came off, the allegedly tidy Oldsmobile revealed itself to be in a tatty way. There was rust throughout and some panels had been crudely patched up.

"My other problem was that the guy I got to do the work turned out to be really pedantic. I just wanted a quick tidy-up and a coat of paint but the car ended up absolutely perfect. Every panel is metal-finished. In retrospect the bloke [the panel beater] did the right thing but it sure hurt at the time."

So now, with a new skin and a new white hood, Dann decided to measure the car's power on a dynamometer. "That was my second mistake. What was supposedly a hot, big-block Oldsmobile engine couldn't even make 200 horsepower [150kW] on the dyno. I remember driving it home wanting to neck myself, thinking, 'Brilliant, you've done it again, genius.' "

At least with this latest development, Dann, a former mechanic, was able to put things right himself. The engine was disassembled and rebuilt using the best of everything. "Just like the body, once I started to pull it apart, I was able to fix everybody else's bad work," he says.

These days the car goes like it should, producing more than 300kW. Dann also fitted a four-speed automatic transmission from a Corvette and a Ford differential.

But what does he think of the Texan who sold him the car in the first place? "I tell people I like to think that he just didn't know what he was talking about. The whole process has been grief from start to finish but I still reckon it's been worth it because the car is now what I wanted all along.

"Absolutely the best thing about it is that little button on the dashboard that when you press it, the roof folds back and it's a lovely cruiser. I can throw my wife and five-year-old in it, hit the stereo and forget Texas even exists."

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Oldsmobile is part of General Motors. The company became a cog in the GM wheel in 1908 but its history before that is fascinating.

The founder of Oldsmobile, R. E. (Ranny) Olds, was born in Geneva, Ohio, in 1864.

By 1883 Olds was working in the family's foundry but bought his brother out of the business in 1885 for $1000.

In 1887 he built his first horseless carriage, a three-wheeler powered by steam, and by 1897 had become America's first vehicle exporter with a four-wheeled steamer sent to a customer in India. Sadly, the vehicle never arrived; the ship it was on sank.

The Olds Motor Vehicle Company was formed in 1897 and production of petrol-engined cars began. The operation was so successful that between 1901 and 1903, Olds produced more vehicles than any other US manufacturer.

He retired from the company in 1904, the year of the first Oldsmobile to have a steering wheel instead of a tiller.

The name Oldsmobile came about through a competition Olds conducted in 1900 to name the fledgling company.

The winning suggestion was his timekeeper's.

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

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