GM’s Oldsmobile Division made some of the plushest, most heraldic-crest-bedecked, fake-wood-interior land yachts of The Brougham Era, which peaked in about 1981 but still had some strength as late as 1990. Here’s a proper Regency Brougham, spotted not long ago in a Denver self-service wrecking yard.
The Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight went through 12 generations between its birth in 1941 and its demise in 1996. This car is from the final model year of the 11th generation of Ninety-Eights, which was smaller than both its predecessors and successors.
One thing that cars from the middle 1980s through early 1990s needed was a stereo with graphic equalizer and genuine physical sliders. This one has only five bands, but that’s better than just a TONE knob.
It appears to have been used by its final owner as a pizza-delivery machine.
The Oldsmobile logos embossed in the leather (or maybe it’s “leather”) upholstery add class.
The hole Sawzalled into the hood seems to have been part of a backyard-built cold-air induction system.
As you might imagine, stickers from Colorado cannabis dispensaries are very common in Denver junkyards. In fact, bags of weed show up in these cars now and then; now that the stuff is legal and cheap here, the tow-truck drivers and junkyard employees don’t even bother to steal it from doomed cars.
Under the hood, one of GM’s most successful engines of all time: the 3.8-liter Buick V6. This one was rated at 165 horsepower, which was enough to move the car’s 3,369 pounds-o-bulk in good-enough-for-1990 fashion.
The base MSRP on this car was $ 21,565, or about 42 grand in 2017 dollars. Shoppers could get a Mazda 929 that year for $ 23,300, a car with less power and rear-wheel drive.
“No import could give me all the comfort and room I have in my Ninety-Eight.”
