FEATURE: Oldsmobile Cutlass Evolves Into Max-Effort Hot Rod
When Joe New first bought his 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass 26 years ago, he had no idea it would become a lifelong project — a machine that’s morphed from a weekend cruiser into a seven-second, streetable monster. Decades of tinkering, learning and evolving are what you see before you.
“I’ve had it so long, I just can’t imagine getting rid of it,” Joe said.
The initial setup featured an Oldsmobile diesel block, an unusual but budget-friendly choice to stay on-brand at the time. “It actually worked pretty good. But once the LS stuff started hitting, the Olds parts just got too expensive to go fast.”
So he switched to an LS engine, running it naturally aspirated with a stock LS9 Corvette cam and valve springs. Joe had been going 10.30s with the worked Olds but when the untouched LS went low 11s out of the box he could see the potential. The real jump came when Joe added boost.
“The car went 9.20s,” he said. “After that, I decided to build an engine for it.”
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Today, the car runs a 388-inch Dart block LS with a 91mm Precision turbo. Rodney at RPM Transmission built a Turbo 400 transmission for the combo. The factory 8.5-inch 10-bolt rear end with aftermarket axles and a spool served Joe well, until two breakages made him decide to head in the nine-inch direction. “It’s got a 3.25 gear, so it does pretty good on the road.”
Joe has always kept the car road-ready. He recently added a second fuel tank and a dual-injector system so he can switch between race gas and pump gas.
“It used to be set up where I had to run race fuel everywhere, but that got expensive,” he said. “It got to the point where I was like, ‘Wait a second, it just cost me $100 to drive to the show.’ Now I can just swap a few wires, load a different tune, and it’s ready for the street.”
Even with the fiberglass hood and fenders, the car still weighs 3,560 pounds with Joe in it. He admits he sometimes wonders what the combo would do in a 2,500-pound Mustang, but says he wouldn’t trade this car for anything. “I like that it’s different.”
The car still has carpet, door panels, and most of the factory floor, with the exception of a small piece cut out for the fuel cell. The chassis is reinforced with chromoly bars to effectively make it a double frame rail car, and he’s welded in supports to prevent the rear control arm mounts from tearing off — a known issue on the Cutlass.
“I had a stock one that I bought one time that the mounts had ripped away and it didn’t have any power,” Joe said. “I was gonna make sure I don’t have any issues with that.”
The suspension uses coil-over springs in the rear factory locations, Strange double-adjustable shocks, a Tin Soldiers anti-roll bar, and TRZ control arms up front. He built his own control arms from chromoly. “I pretty much did most of the work myself. Me and a buddy welded the cage.”
Tuning is handled by Joe’s friend Adam, with Joe admitting that he knows his own limits.
“I took the Holley class but I can take it to him and he’ll say this is what we’re gonna do, instead of me having to race it 100 times to get dialed in.”
Joe is still getting used to the Mickey Thompson 275 radials after running 315s for years. “That’s been a learning curve for me, so we are kind of stepping it up as we go.”
Step it up was what Joe did at Sick On The Green last year, where a new eighth-mile personal best of 4.945 and an average of 4.972 made the Oldsmobile the fourth quickest drag-and-drive car on the property. The performance was also enough to earn him a Sick Wildcard, granting an early invite to Sick Week 2026 Presented By Gear Vendors Overdrive
The plan is to keep refining the combination, especially the dual-fuel setup for street driving. Joe says he’s just about got it right. And when he does, this will be one of the baddest Cutlasses in the country.
“I just gotta tweak on it a little bit,” he said.
