I always found Oldsmobile appealing. There was just something about their look. This video is so cool and I wish I could go back in time and live in that era once again. A couple things to note that I noticed, power headrests, temperature controls is on the steering wheel, and audio controls as well for 1991. I just love the styling

The 3800 gives impressive MPG for the era.

OMG. Look at the guys shoes and socks at 2:48

 

I enjoy these old MW reviews. Especially the Hits and Misses and quick comparisons to the Buick and Chrysler. Those white socks and loafers took me back to the 50's and 60's. Maybe they made a brief comeback in '91?

 

I liked the Eighty Eight of that era more than the Ninety Eight.

 

I always liked Oldsmobile, I worked in a Olds/Caddy dealer my frosh year in college (haha dating myself the idea of working while in college). Owner was a player and his son was a mgr. that hired me (maybe he was 24 in law school). I found out the car washers were making 75 cents more per hour so I got my mustard up and said he, I wanna get 75 cents more an hour. He said love to but I can't change it, already in payroll (whatever that was supposed to mean). In the showroom was a sweet ~'70-'72 4-4-2 with the hurst etc. And also the cars on the video which to me weren't that exciting. I got to drive them all over the lots to move them, and also the limos into the shop at night. For being 18 I loved it!

 

i'd still go for the aerotech if we're talking early 90s olds

 

A nice car, but, in many ways, couldn't hold a candle to the Ninety-Eight (or even the Delta 88 / Delmont 88) of the late 1960s. My best friend's family in high school had a '68 Delmont...we had a lot of good clean fun in it. And my uncle had a '70 Delta 88 I got to drive a number of times. A friend of my brother has a '69 Ninety-Eight that he has kept to this day...though it takes a lot of work and attention to keep it in shape and running.

The early Nineties was also the Great Age of the all-button interiors....Oldsmobiles were among the worst offenders.




Brings back some memories of the D.C. Auto Show at that time. I remember sitting in an interior, like that, at the Olds display (can't remember if it was an 88 or 98). One of the Olds reps asked me what I thought of it. I was not personally rude to him, but I said..."With all due respect, it's easier to solve the New York Times crossword puzzle (a notoriously difficult puzzle) than to figure out all these absolutely identical buttons. If your company keeps making dashboards and interiors like this, it's not going to be around much longer". He said pretty much what you would expect one to.....defended the design and (more or less) told me I didn't know what I was talking about.

Well, history showed which one of us was right. Olds was gone just a few years later.

 

For those of you who are not aware of it, the Olds 98 and Buick Electra (later, Park Avenue), for decades, shared a platform with the Cadillac DeVille, in both RWD and later FWD versions. What made the 98 and Electra popular was that one could essentially get a full-sized Cadillac for a significantly lower price, albeit with a somewhat different engine. There really wasn't much difference in the general comfort level of all three cars. In fact, during the earlier years, when the GM divisions used different engines/drivetrains/suspensions, the big Buicks, IMO, were more comfortable than the Cadillacs. Olds retained slightly stiffer suspensions, and, in general, were (slightly) more handling-oriented than the Buicks, though not to the extent of Pontiac, which was clearly sport-oriented.

 

No no no. THIS is an Oldsmobile.

In 1959 when I was nine years old, we went on a flying vacation (Boeing 707 had just been introduced, nonstop LA to Chicago), winding up in Lansing, Michigan to pick up a brand-new Olds Dynamic 88 from the factory. 371 "Rocket V8" engine, about 10mpg on a good day. Dad and mom drove it all the way back to LA in about a week with us 3 kids in the back seat, visiting relatives on the way.

One of the last days of the trip it's late afternoon, mom in back with my two sisters, eyes closed, I'm in the front passenger seat. Flat two-lane road through the desert. Dad gradually increasing speed, at one point I look over at him after seeing the speedometer and he has a sly smile on his face. Car stable as a rock but mom wakes up when I start to laugh and she really lit into Dad that night at the motel. Speedo said 109.

Wonderful tank of a car. I think unlike the photos it was a 4-door.

http://www.inventics.com/59OldsmobileDynamic88.jpg
http://www.inventics.com/BackSide.jpg

 

Oh please. Oldsmobile didn't get discontinued due to having too many buttons on their dash. And a "few years later" was more like 13 years, as the brand got shuttered 2004 with entirely different circumstances going on in the company.

 

It was not 13 years later. My comment at the show was made well into the 90s, though I don't remember the exact year. Olds failed for a lot of reasons, but the poor design of its vehicles was clearly one of them. The Aurora (which was the brainchild of Oldsmobile CEO John Rock) came along a few years later, but never really took off of several reasons....poor reliability was one. incidentally, the very last vehicle to roll off an olds assemblymen line was a "Dust-Buster" Silouhette minivan...a classic example of poor design, also shared with the Pontiac Trans Sport and Chevy Lumina APV.

 

Yep...you said it.

 

Yeah, Olds was never gonna fly in the modern era.

 

The smaller cars (Olds 88 & Buick Special) were based on the Chevy platform. Olds was the first to offer high performance (relatively) version by dropping the 98 engine into the 88 to make a Super 88. Buick dropped the Roadmaster engine into the Special to make it the Century. The other big difference was that Buick had its own transmission, the Dynaflow, while Olds and Cadillac had hydromatics.

 

Even stuff like this...why do you try to make claims that are not true? The last Oldsmobile built was not a Silhouette. It was an Alero. You seem to try to go off anecdotal comments and memories where there is plenty of factual information available to us.

Last Oldsmobile Built

 

Yes, what you posted here is correct...the actual last model off the production- line, from the latest records, was an Alero. I wasn't necessarily trying to go simply by memory....there was a whole bunch of different stuff in the media, back then, when Olds demised, about what was the last vehicle they offered (Bravada, Silouhette, etc...) and what was the last one produced. I may (?) have confused the last actual-production vehicle with the last-model to be offered.....that's possible. In some ways, though, it doesn't really matter today, though it is noted that the Alero you mentioned, a couple of years ago, sold for $42K

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/the-las...sold-for-42000