Mammoth AQC Jetway 707 Restoration Doesn’t Scare This Ohio Shop

It spans 28 feet and flaunts nine doors, six wheels, and 455 cubic inches of front-wheel-drive Oldsmobile V-8 power. The AQC Jetway 707 rests before me like a magnificent, curious creature whose evolutionary traits were arrested in development like an ancient bug in sticky amber.

American Quality Coach’s short-lived effort to create the ultimate airport limousine began in 1968 and ceased in 1970, victim to the expenses of its elaborate design. The Jetway, more than anything else, is genuinely weird. That makes it worth saving.

This battleship grey behemoth, the 12th of just 52 made, sat decomposing for years before recently being rescued by Cleveland Power and Performance, a multifaceted speed shop in Columbia Station, Ohio. The Jetway represents the outfit’s largest and perhaps most complex, involved restoration to date.

Tim Mulcahy keeps busy at Cleveland Power and Performance. In addition to heading up the shop’s online sales and social media presence, while also managing the physical office, on the day of my visit he guides me through the shop’s enormous compound.

“What started as Cleveland Pick-a-Part in 1986 evolved in the early 2000s to focus on salvaged late-model American performance car parts, and we eventually added a full shop turning out custom builds,” Mulcahy explains. He’s leading me past rows of staff, diligently processing orders at their desktops. “A little less than ten years ago, we’d started taking our builds to auctions and shows, so we changed our name to ‘Cleveland Power and Performance’ to more accurately reflect what we do.”

Once past the front office, Cleveland’s interconnected buildings take on the air of a museum’s backroom archives. We meander through warehouses full of neatly catalogued parts carefully pulled from wrecked American performance cars.

In tidy rows rest turn-key modern V-8 drivetrains pulled from Mustangs, Dodge SRTs, and Camaros, each packaged to start and run right in place on their pallets. The restoration shop bustles with mechanics and craftsmen working on more than a half-dozen vehicles, including an old Charger with a Hellcat engine swap and a beautifully-restored Chevy 454 SS pickup.

It’s a big place, which means a lot of walking. Beyond the upholstery facility, I take a break on a luxurious, stitched leather couch that’s built into the back end of a metallic yellow ’48 Caddy. (They start at about $10,000, in case your La-Z-Boy needs replacing.)

We eventually arrive at our destination. I walk through the door of the paint shop—one of the few indoor spots with enough room to house their recent acquisition—and the sheer length of AQC’s Jetway 707 envelops my field of view.

It’s a lot to look at, this Jetway, both from its sheer size and from all its intricacies. Everything ahead of the windshield is unmistakably ’68 Oldsmobile Toronado, but the rest is all AQC’s effort to create a spacious and luxurious airport shuttle.

“They went over and above trying to build something right—you could tell they cared about what they were doing,” explains Rick Fragnoli, one of two brothers who own Cleveland PaP. “From my research, they put so much money in their tooling and creating this hand-built product that they just never got off the ground.”

Countless details testify to the time and effort involved in developing and engineering the Jetway. Fragnoli believes the steel roof on early models like his was welded from multiple pieces rather than stamped as a single unit. (Later models used fiberglass.)

The windshield is unique to the Jetway, and so are all those doors. “People think the doors are from a GM station wagon, but all the bodywork behind the front fenders was custom-made by American Quality Coach,” says Fragnoli. The panels, even the roof, are heavy-gauge steel, and though there’s a staggering amount of rust, the Jetway still feels sturdy in construction.

Three rows of three individual seats each, plus a bench in the back and room on the split bench up front, means that 14 passengers could fit comfortably. There’s more than enough headroom for all aboard, and there’s ample space for old-time suitcases in the separated luggage compartment in the back. Dual trailer beam axles on leaf springs help support all the weight out back.

All this capacity is the result of AQC’s founders’ decision to build the Jetway 707 with GM’s full-size front-wheel-drive architecture. The Olds 455 V-8 provided ample power, but more importantly, the lack of a tunnel for the drivetrain enabled a flat floor pan for added occupant comfort.

That comfort, at least in this particular Jetway, was initially offered to GM executives who used it as a shuttle to and from Detroit’s Metro Airport through the late ’70s. It was then used by the airport itself up until the mid-’80s. After that, a limo company took ownership, adding the odd “centipede” graphics down the sides. A family picked up the Jetway in 1999 and put it to their own use. “There’s even a photo of this car at the Woodward Dream Cruise in 2004,” says Fragnoli.

Things took an unfortunate turn not long after 2004 when a younger relative shot out the windows of the old limo with a BB gun. The owner angrily set off in the Jetway to confront him and managed to severely damage the transmission in the process. The Jetway then sat until it was listed for sale in the fall of 2023. When Fragnoli saw the listing, he did not hesitate.

“There’s no doubt it’s pretty rough,” says Fragnoli, pointing out that those shot-out windows are custom pieces. He then motions me toward the front seat, which he demonstrates can move back and forth despite being bolted down—that’s how much rust is in the floor. “It is going to be a lot of work,” he added, “but nothing we can’t handle.”

Fragnoli has a battery cart at the ready, with which he demonstrates to me that the Jetway’s big 455 starts without a hitch. Aside from the abundant exhaust leaks, the V-8 sounds pretty healthy. When he shuts it down, I ask what his plans are for the behemoth.

“I’m not a big restoration person, but I think it might be a little sacrilegious to tear this one apart.  The original plan was to do a front-wheel-drive, twin-turbo LS setup,” he says with a wry smile. “But then we thought about how rare it is—one of only seven left in the U.S. and nine left in the world, unless someone else finds one. It’s not going to be an OEM nut-and-bolt project because there’s no paperwork left on these, but I think we’re going to keep it more original to start.”

Fragnoli intends to drive this Jetway with its existing 455 and share it with fellow enthusiasts. Despite the huge undertaking ahead of the team at Cleveland PaP, he’s already making summer plans. “The goal is to be on the road with a driving, functional car with glass back in it and the interior done,” he says. “But the bodywork, the paint, some of the metalwork’s still going to be in progress. We’ll get out, do some shows, maybe do the Power Tour and let people see and enjoy it. It’s such a massive project that it’ll take years to fully complete, but next winter we can tear it back down and make progress in stages.”

Speaking of progress, the Cleveland PaP crew appears to have rolled up their sleeves in the weeks since my visit. The company’s YouTube channel shows the interior removed and the floor completely cut out. The seats are off to the upholstery staff, and if that Cadillac couch was any indication, cossetting accommodations await this Jetway’s occupants. Judging by the rest of Cleveland’s operation, the whole car is in store for a dramatic makeover. For any necessary airport trips next summer, I know just who to call.