Owed to 88

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The Olds Era

A recent casualty of General Motors restructuring, Oldsmobile made automobiles for over 100 years. Once legendary mechanical engineering and innovation made for great cars. So sad to see the nameplate die at the hands of corporate old thinking. Did we really need an Oldsmobile minivan or crossover that looked just like the other Chev Pontiac Cadillac Buick? Same pile different badge.

Perhaps the peak of Oldsmobile's marque came in 1970 - front row witness to the end of America's horsepower binge. As proof of brand provenance, the very popular and powerful Cutlass 442 was selected as the Indy 500 pace car. The Olds lineup was dozens of models strong in 1970, with the 98 and Toronado covering the high end. The 1970 W-30 Cutlass is possibly the most desirable Olds to collect.

This Is Your Father's Oldsmobile

All of these cars were beyond my parents' dreams - limited by school teacher paychecks. One day a co-worker of my father's (and my grade 4 teacher) came to the house with a 6 month new 1970 88 Royale and a desperate plea for cash. At $3000, the price was much less than new but still a lot of money back then. The folks were afraid what the neighbors would think of them driving such a flashy car, but there it was in our driveway.

With a monstrous 455 exhaling 360 HP, this golden gilded schooner idled its way around the cold prairies under dad's feather foot. He swears it routinely pulled 25-30 miles to the gallon - in the same overpowering manner as a modern Corvette (keep the lead foot off). When high gas prices closed the 70s a tiny Honda Civic came into the family, but the Olds held its ground in the tiny one car garage. The Olds was still the long trip goto car, and we did a lot of driving.

One day returning from one of those trips, it was a little too late and lazy to swap out the cars in the garage - the Olds could wait outside until morning. That evening, and that evening only a wicked hail storm hit town and whacked hundreds of cars in its path. The Honda was destroyed - all windows out, panels bashed to bits; a total write-off.

The Olds glass held, but the top surfaces looked like a hammer was used for a new texture. The car we grew up in was a write-off for the insurance company, but we gave back a couple hundred dollars out of our claim to keep the car. Bruised and weather beaten, old gold would now sit outside the garage in favor of the new car.

A decade passes - the kids long moved away; starting in business - keeping costs down. Hey dad, isn't that Olds just sitting there doing nothing? A token exchange of dollars to father later and we've got a daily driver good for years of no maintenance driving. A few more token dollars and couple of drivable parts cars joined the stable just in case.

Then our own kids came along - both sons had their first automobile rides in Royale style, coming home from the hospital. We were way out of style by then, but we still had the best car.

Lost and Found

One day, the chance came up to move 1000 miles away out of the cold to the coast. There was no time or place to move the Olds. We'd have to scan friends and family for storage abuse and leave town. After moving from place to place to place over 10 years, it finally seemed like a good time to start a restoration project. An acquaintance at a scruffy garage offered to help with the car - I could save money this way. Soon after handing over $4000 to start work on the car, the now former friend went bankrupt and disappeared without a trace. The Olds and three other cars of mine disappeared from his compound.

We lost them and had to search from far away; called everybody we could think of. One day we completely lucked out. A tow truck driver that had once towed for us had seen the cars somewhere - and knew where to find them. Two of the cars had interiors and bumpers stripped, but the gold was not looted. We lost a perfectly good and rare set of bucket seats and console that would have been a great upgrade to our bench seated car. It was worth the $500 towing bills to get the cars back. So we're back to square one, minus the $4500 and parts.

The Long and Unwinding Road

The decision to restore a car from ground up should never be taken lightly. The gold Olds was still a good solid car when semi-abandoned, but the long winters took a terrible toll on the exposed surfaces. This old girl was not a quick touchup job any more.

We shopped around for a builder to tackle our family jewel recovery project. With no experience paying for restoration work, it was not pleasant hearing how much time and money this was going to take. Though we wanted a restoration to original specs, we settled on a shop that was making some pretty cool customs. They had a lot of cars on the go but agreed to rebuild the Olds as a slow day lower budget project with no deadline. Having no deadline is a good variable if you are delivering - not if receiving. Time will tell, but it didn't tell us the whole truth.

Cars are easy to put together with all new parts at the factory. Taking apart an old car is relatively easy, but then putting it back together properly is hard. For this build we had to make one good car out of three - using the best available parts and options. Tilt steering, remote trunk switch, posi-traction and air conditioning were about to be nice additions. Several years passed with the cars disassembled into various static piles. We moved further away in the meantime.

While waiting forever, we followed Ebay carefully - making sure to track and buy all known NOS Olds 88 parts. Many 88 parts are shared with the more popular 98 such as headlight bezels, front clip - buyers for which are stiff competitors. 88 specific parts even are harder to come by, but we were able to find almost all external trim parts such as chrome signal and headlamp housings, one deluxe hubcap and all logo trim. Unbelievably, we found a NOS 98/88 hood to replace the hail bashed original. It would be a great challenge to find another set of 88 NOS parts for another restoration today.

Eventually build progress was forthcoming, but then the tales of woe started. Automatron air conditioning seemed like a good idea to swap from a parts car. After spending countless hours trying to make fit, the builders finally noticed that the firewall is different for non-air models of the same year. Before we knew it, they had cut the original firewall out and replaced from the parts car. [Incredibly, the builder threw the original firewall in the trash - including the original VIN tag; then installed the incorrect VIN plate]. Given problems like that we paid many dollars extra for unexpected issues - what choice does one have at that point when you are thousands of miles away? The builder always groused about all the extra unpaid time it was taking him - over 1000 total hours of labor to make a new 88.

What a Rush (out the door)

Finally we get emailed pictures of the car painted. When are we coming to get it? After 3 or more years in captivity, the builder is in a hurry to move. Man it looks good from 2000 miles away. We have it remote towed back home to mom and dad's acreage for safekeeping. We could hardly wait to finally make the trip back for the reunion. We were appalled at what we found. While the body was flawless, there were countless repair mistakes and little details that were just plain wrong.

The 455 Olds engine was painted in light Pontiac blue - not the rich dark metallic Olds color that any decent car guy would know to match.

The seats were recovered in a 80s style velour material rather than the silky original gold finery, though a factory swatch book was provided for exact reference.

Other indelible items included incorrectly placed pinstripes (factory photos supplied but not followed), holes torched out of the bumper corners, poorly fitting doors and trim, and they replaced the gold steering wheel and column with black [in an all gold car]. The original parts removed were not kept for mind changing - always a good idea to hold on to.

On the first test drive, parts fell off the engine onto the highway and the rebuilt carb ($700 worth) backfired, popped a vein, and blew a leak that easily could have sent the cars up in flames. The air conditioning compressor later seized, smoked and died; the heater did not work; the transmission began having shifting trouble.

Owed to Olds

It failed mechanical inspection required for license plates. The tow truck driver was careless with his lift and gouged the back fender. Hardly even out of the box and we have heart sinking damage. The new double whitewall bias ply Coker tires were holding air nicely, but there was none left in the owners. Thankfully the driver owned a body shop and made a perfect repair using the vial of metallic Galleon Gold paint I had leftover in the glove box. He later fixed all the misaligned body parts for a reasonable fee.

It cost nearly $1000 in niggling trips to other repair shops to get everything running right. So many bad points spoiled the rest of the good work done overall on the car. It's only good to be taken for a ride when you are in the car at the time, though. Trying to herd off car cats remotely by email proved a lacking strategy. And note to self; you get what you pay for, but not every time and sometimes twice.

Now What?

This may be one of the few 1970 Olds 88 that anyone ever bothers to restore to this level. There are no gold doubloons in 88s - especially later years as the brand descended back to the ground. It's a much better investment to buy and fix a trashed but real 442. Even worse, as a family icon it's not ever going to be for sale. Now what do you do with a new old car?

It takes up space wherever it goes and risks getting damage whether moving or stored. With so much time and money and emotion melted into the paint, you hardly want to let dust settle on it let alone road dirt. We made it our vacation travel car - only driving to town and the lake a few times a year. The 88's return home was more of a curse than the second coming for my dad. He's graciously provided one of the valuable indoor garage spots to save from many more years of weather damage, but I've selfishly taken up a perfectly good Ski-doo slot.

This old 88 has 45 years' experience living in the cold. Half that time it was semi-abandoned wherever I could con someone into taking it for no charge. Several trucks have been arranged to transport to its new garage spot in California, but something always has put it off. I might claim points for persistence if no one notices and calls it procrastination. Current plans are to drive the old girl southwest for 28 hours - take our chances that we got the car right enough to make it.

Our sons are now grown men - starting out on their own with their own families. It's my hope that their children will find the same measure of family history in the car and inherit the interest in preserving it for more gene rations. I also hope it can live on to be a bigger asset than liability - that it gets good use and does not become a burden for a future caretaker. May they always have a story to tell and a roof to keep cover.

As much as it did not (in this stage of life) make financial sense to rebuild my father's Oldsmobile, I learned a great deal towards restoring cars. It's worth a lot to do something you always wanted to do and I won't have to do it again if I don't want to. However, I have to. I have an even longer spanning project in the works: my grandfather's half restored 1958 Pontiac. Hopefully the sequel to this story can be written before the end of the time...