It goes without saying that Jay Leno’s Garage features some of most iconic, and sometimes obscure, vehicles out there. Each car has its own significance in the automotive history, but what the heck is a 1991 Oldsmobile Caleis doing on this show? The former showman and avid car enthusiast/collector introduces us to an unlikely an obscure performance model, one even GM fans are not so familiar with. We are talking about a 1991 Oldsmobile Quad 442. It’s based on the Caleis, which normally wouldn’t catch a second look, but Jay Leno explains in detail what makes this one so special by delving into the lore and engineering behind the car.
Oldsmobile’s Equivalent To The Buick GNX
We can’t really call the Oldsmobile Caleis Quad 442 a muscle car as its designers chose clever engineering over the classic philosophy of putting a big engine into a small car. In many ways, the Quad 442 can be compared to the Buick GNX. Both models were based on rather boring vehicles in which performance was near the bottom of the priority list. Both are American performance models that don’t come with a V-8. Instead, they rely on clever engineering to get more power out of a smaller engine.
The W-41 Package Upped The Ante (Slightly)
If you thought the Buick GNX is not a Muscle car because it features a turbocharged V-6 instead of a big V-8, you would frown upon the Oldsmobile Calais Quad 442 even more. The small, boxy coupe is powered by a 2.3-liter, naturally-aspirated, inline-four engine with four valves per cylinder. Between 1989 and 1991, the base Quad 442 was rated a 180 horsepower (134 kilowatts). Due to restrictions concerning the size of the exhaust port, post-1991 models were rated at 175 horsepower (130 kilowatts) and later, 170 horsepower (127 kilowatts).
The W-41 package, which is what the red example featured on Jay Leno’s Garage happens to have, spices things up a bit by raising output to 190 horsepower (142 kilowatts). This is the highest-output version of the Quad 442 for this model, and it was achieved through a longer-duration camshaft and a different ECU. Peak torque was rated at 160 pound-feet (217 Nm). The five-speed manual also worked with 3.94 rear gears as opposed to 3.61 in lesser versions. While still nowhere near the Buick GNX, the Quad 442 W-41 was able to sprint from 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h) in around 7.3 seconds – not bad considering the car’s bones were essentially those of a granny-mobile.
It Was Powered By GM’s 4G63T Engine
Mitsubishi's 4G63T engine is one of the best inline-four units to get big power out of. You might not expect it, but the engine displayed between the two Oldsmobile versions on this episode is a twin-turbo version of the Quad 442 engine. It is an experimental General Motors unit from 1985, built in collaboration with Fueling Engineering - the same people who worked on GM’s Aerotech project.
According to Jeff Szarfraniec, the owner of this 1991 Caleis Quad 442 W-41 package, that engine made “about 1,170 horsepower”. A 1987 GM Aerotech was able to reach a Chiron-like 268 mph (431 km/h) with this engine. So, it sounds as throaty as a Toyota 4A-GE inline-four, it’s tunable as a Mitsubishi 4G63T or a Honda K24 engine, and it powers an obscure and rare, hot version of a granny mobile. It sounds very uncharacteristic of Oldsmobile, and to find out just how bonkers it is, check out what Jay Leno has to say about it in the video above.