Meet the Cutlass 442, Oldsmobile’s entry in the highly competitive muscle car category for 1966.

In checking out this spot for the 1966 Oldsmobile Cutlass 442, you may well be asking,.  “Who’s Shorty Powers?” Actually, Lt. Colonel John A. “Shorty” Powers was a familiar figure to U.S, TV viewers in the early ’60s as the public information officer for NASA’s Mercury space program. With his colorful delivery, he was credited with introducing the expression “A-OK!” to the popular vocabulary. Upon leaving the Air Force, he became a television spokesman for a variety of products, including Tareyton cigarettes and of course Oldsmobile, where he appeared in numerous commercials all through the ’60s.

More often, Shorty was pitching the division’s full-sized cars, but here he’s introducing the Cutlass 442. Now in its third year of production for 1966, the muscular intermediate featured a standard 400 cubic-inch V8 with 350 hp at 5,000 rpm. Though it’s not mentioned here, in ’66 (one year only) a Tri-Carb L69 option was available, boosting the output to 360 hp. Also offered (though few were produced in ’66) was the near-legendary W-30 package with a special camshaft, cold-air induction, and trunk-mounted battery. While the 442 never matched its GM corporate rival the Pontiac GTO in sales, it’s equally treasured among muscle car collectors today. Now here’s Shorty.