Meet California natives Roxy Starr and Ilona, her mother. Roxy has always wanted to be like her mom. Ilona is a longtime muscle car enthusiast. Over the years her cars worth mentioning include a 1969 Firebird convertible and a 1969 GTO. She often touted the joys of Pontiac performance car ownership to her young daughter with the hope that their family could enjoy the hobby together.
Enter John Marble from Monterey, a family friend. He was well acquainted with publishing magnate Otis Chandler, who over the years amassed a legendary car collection. Marble graciously offered to take Ilona and Roxy (then 10 years old) to visit Chandler’s muscle car museum.
“My mom had always told me that the Firebirds and GTOs were the answer to muscle car happiness,” says Roxy, “but on that day at Otis Chandler’s museum I walked in and saw a 1970 Panther Pink [actually FM3 Moulin Rouge—ed.] ’Cuda. I sat next to the ’Cuda, and I said, ‘One day I am going to own you.’ That’s when my passion for muscle cars was born.”
Roxy continues to recall the journey: “John took us to the Pebble Beach Concours every year. By then I was about 14 or 15 years old. My mom and I were casually searching for a car for me when I got my license. At one particular auction I fell in love with a 1963 Corvette split-window coupe, white with red interior. My mom began bidding on the Corvette but then suddenly stopped. I protested and asked her why she had stopped bidding, and she answered, ‘I was not going to put you in a fiberglass sports car. I am going to put you in a real steel muscle car.'”
Preach it, mom! By 1995 the hunt was on for just the right Detroit muscle car. Roxy remembers checking out a ’Cuda, but it was not FM3. Further searching brought them to the car that would shape Roxy’s passion for muscle cars for the next 20 years, the featured Twilight Blue Poly 1970 4-4-2 W-30. The Olds was nicely restored and had already acquired star power by appearing in a 1989 Motorvision video as well as making cameo appearances in 1994 with Ed Asner in the ABC sitcom Thunder Alley.
Roxy says, “I was immediately in love with that 4-4-2.”
Oldsmobile provided plenty of reasons to love the 1970 4-4-2 W-30. It was the year GM finally lifted its restriction on engine sizes. No longer would muscle cars be limited to a measly 400 ci. In the world of customers demanding more horsepower, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, and Buick increased their brand-specific 400-cube engines to 455 inches. In that era of high-performance machinery, the mantra “There’s no replacement for displacement” rang true at every automaker. Detroit was on a performance roll, with big engines, scoops, stripes, and spoilers fanning the flames of a cultural infatuation with the American muscle car. One of the greatest examples was the Olds 4-4-2, especially when equipped with the fabulous W-30 package with 455 Olds Rocket power.
The W-30 package was available in 4-4-2 coupes and convertibles. It included the W-25 outside air induction (OAI) fiberglass hood with cold-air hoodscoops, dual hoodpin locks, rally stripes on the hood, side-body stripes, two sport-styled outside mirrors, and special W-30 emblems on the front fenders.
Under that OAI hood was a special 455ci, 370hp engine with Select Fit engine parts, a performance calibrated four-barrel cold-air carburetor, a low-restriction air cleaner with a vacuum operated flapper door, a lightweight aluminum intake manifold, a high-overlap cam, and heavy-duty cooling.
Putting all that power to the ground called for proper braking and suspension components, including single-piston manual front disc brakes, front and rear sway bars, heavy duty shocks, weight-reducing body insulators, G70-14 fiberglass belted white-letter tires, 14×7 wheels, and an antispin differential.
Roxy drove her 4-4-2 during the four years she attended Pepperdine University in Southern California. “All the Pepperdine people had their foreign exotic cars, and I had my American-made Oldsmobile 4-4-2,” she recalls. “I drove it everywhere, cruised it, raced it, but eventually the car got used up. I made a pact with myself that I would restore the 4-4-2 back to its former glory. I eventually found a restoration shop in Orange, California, that I thought would do the job properly. But I soon learned that the shop was going bankrupt. They were actually beginning to sell off my parts to make ends meet. Fortunately, I learned of it and was able to get the car and almost all the parts out of that shop.”
Rescuing the 4-4-2 from the scoundrels who attempted to steal it piece by piece certainly took courage and a little help from her friends. Lesser problems have caused many other enthusiasts to send their restoration projects to the barn for 30 years. But Roxy was not about to let adversity deter her from fixing her 4-4-2. She persevered, making the eventual restoration of the car that much sweeter.
Roxy would soon move to New York to advance her career in the fashion world, but not before she had found a proper place to house her beloved 4-4-2. She put the car in storage for what would be a five-year hibernation. Concurrently, she searched for a restoration shop that was trustworthy, competent, and passionate about muscle cars.
Eventually Roxy got a tip from a Las Vegas friend to contact Terry Myers, owner of Myers Classic & Corvettes in Rockford, Illinois. The fact that Myers was both a top-quality restoration expert with an impeccable reputation and also a Bloomington Gold Corvette judge convinced Roxy to contact him. In 2013, he picked up Roxy’s 4-4-2 and all the accompanying parts and brought everything back to his shop in Rockford.
The Olds was carefully disassembled, stripped to bare metal, and restored to factory-new condition. Roxy’s lifelong California car proved to be the perfect candidate for a flawless body-off restoration. Roxy was thrilled with the work, “Terry is one of the most detail-oriented restorers I have ever met,” she says. “Although he was known for doing Corvettes, I was thrilled that he would take on my 4-4-2.”
This story of rescue and restoration certainly has a happy ending. Roxy’s 4-4-2 won the Outstanding Muscle Car award from ISCA, and both the Hot Chick and Gold Concours Awards at the 2016 Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals in Chicago. It is currently on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, once again surrounded by exotic foreign cars as it was in its Pepperdine days. Rescuing her 4-4-2 W-30, and displaying it for the world to see, qualifies Roxy Starr as a bona fide muscle car megastar.
At a Glance
1970 4-4-2 W-30
Owned by: Roxy Starr
Restored by: Myers Classic & Corvettes, Rockford, IL
Engine: 455ci/370hp W-30 V-8
Transmission: Turbo-Hydramatic 400 3-speed automatic
Rearend: 3.23 gears and anti-spin differential
Interior: Blue Strato buckets with Sports center console
Wheels: 14×7 Super Stock II
Tires: G70-14 Goodyear Polyglas white letter
Special parts: W-30 package, OAI hood, Hurst Dual-Gate shifter
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