CC reader Teddy also posted this very original but fairly well-preserved ’63 Olds 88 sedan. Well, actually it’s a Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 Celebrity Sedan. When I was a kid, these didn’t look very dynamic too me; more like a Bel Air with a bit of a stretch at both ends. Nothing to really celebrate. Well, unless you were stuck in a black ’62 stripper Fairlane; then this looked pretty good in comparison. And one could be sure it didn’t have a stupid six under the hood; 88’s all had husky big V8s. Maybe there’s something here to celebrate after all.
The Dynamic 88 came standard with a husky 280 hp 394 cubic inch Rocket V8. Take that, you Bel Air six sedans! It might share the same basic body shell, but this was an Olds, after all. One bought by a pretty conservative car buyer, given the choice of the Celebrity sedan, instead of the hardtop Holiday sedan (or coupe).
It’s a survivor, and that alone is cause for celebration.
In my childhood, this car represented the typical, average American sedan. This was normal. Compared to this, Fords were interesting and Mopars were downright exotic.
As an adult, I have come to appreciate these more. That big 394 V8 was nothing to be embarrassed about, though the short-lived Roto Hydramatic probably did more to strip these from everyday use than anything else. I would pick a different body style and a different color, but I could happily live with this kind of normal now.
Between the ’63 and ’64 model years, GM had to have produced something in the range of 2 million or more of this sedan roofline. Probably the most prolific roofline they had. The norm indeed.
I feel the same about the formal-roof G body sedans from the early ’80s. The default new car at the time I became aware of cars, nothing special, move along.
So true, JP. Average people didn’t max out, but bought in the middle, as my parents did with their 66 Mercury Montclair four door sedan. Or the neighbors with their LeSabres. Hey, I’m a poet.
You know, it’s interesting to see the contrast in cultures in the USA and Canada. The Civic is the biggest seller here, and the Camry there. One rarely sees abominations on 22″ wheels in Canada. As a Canadian myself, I am very, very conservative with my car purchases. I could easily afford a much more swanky ride, but my inner skinflint (and wife) always keep me from doing it. Heck, I thought my eleven year old (at the time) Acura was an indulgence!
Forgoing 22″ wheels makes me respect Canadians all the more,…..Well, that and Hockey…Go Pens!
Not to get off the Oldsmobile topic, but could the fact that many Civics are made in Canada (Alliston?) help drive sales? Also, Camry popularity is somewhat regional in the US. I think the Prius regularly outsells it in California.
I think Canada was influenced by Scottish ways & speech. America, OTOH, had lots of Scots-Irish, rather different folk.
An interesting observation. Though to me, Mopars were indeed somewhat exotic – after all, they had Hemis and slant 6’s and push button shifting and torsion bars – but I’m not sure a Ford seemed any more interesting than an Olds.
The last gasp for upward-rising tail fins?
On an otherwise up-to-the-minute ’60s style car and an attractive one at that.
Such enormous change from half a decade earlier….
IMHO the ’71-73 Olds 98 had the last true defined fins, Although, I could also argue ’77-’79 Electra,..
The Electra also came to my mind. And, you are quite right, the early ’70s Ninety-Eight did recycle this 1963 theme to quite an extent.
If I squint (or am hammered….) the ’71 Olds 98 looks like a reskinned ’60 Cadillac. Some people maintain the ’93 DeVille had the last fins (not entirely without cause) But the ’79 Electra was “pointier” and more “defined” and the ’71 “98” is most definitely an evolution of the 50’s 60’s classical “tailfins”.
I think Tony Soprano’s mom had a ’63 Dynamic 88 four door sedan – painted green but not a standard Oldsmobile color – a more Earl Scheibish tone.
Livia Soprano’s Oldsmobile
Definitely not a factory color!
Earl Scheib’s paint colors were approximations of OEM colors it seems. Always a bit “off”. They made sure the least attractive were the $19.95 package color choices.
But add the optional spray on textured flat paint to the roof and you could brougham-ize your beater with a “vinyl” top for just a few dollars more, the Earl Scheib way.
Riiiight!
If you did all your prep work you could get a halfway decent paint job. The people who actually painted the cars did more of them in a month than the average painter in a normal body shop did in a year. Besides Earl was painting those rusty 3-5 year old cars that people wanted to keep a couple of more years but didn’t want to seen driving a “Patinamobile”.
Earl “fixed” the rust and covered the fading airbrushed murals on my ’74 Econoline with a fresh coat of fleet white enamel. Result, a van that was languishing on the street with a For Sale sign for months sold immediately.
The color reminds me of the shade of green used throughout the ’60s in schools, asylums, and penitentaries to keep the inmates subdued.
It seems like about every American car suffered a dull year or two during the 1962, ’63 and ’64 model years. After the ’61 Continental, everyone was simplifying their designs. Sometimes the result was classy, sometimes just conservative to the point of dull. Fortunately, just about everyone figured out the post ’50s Jukebox era for the ’65 model year.
Probably why I have an odd attraction to the ’62 Plymouths and Dodges! They were NOT boring! Plus the real standout of those years: Buick Riviera!
Other than the finlets and the taillamps, this one is indeed rather dull to my eye. For my ’63 dollars the LeSabre would be a far better choice.
Nice to see it still in service regardless!
I really think the ’61-’65ish GM products have the most boring styling out of any GM era. I loved the flamboyance and garish chrome excesses of the early Atomic age cars and then in the late 60’s the Cutlass in its variations got very handsome, just the right amount of curves and beautiful flowing lines. GM built some beautiful cars in the 70s as well, like the Monza and the bloated but elegant full sizers, and in the 80s the cars were trim and neatly and elegantly styled. To me these are boxy but not crisp, plain, and boring to look at, without the joyful ornamentation of the 50s, the crisp cantilever rooflines of the 59/60 models, and no sweeping lines of the 70s, and no crisp straightedge elegance of the 80s.
yep GM had no
idea
wth
they were doing
in the mid 60’s
oh wait……………….
nevermind
Agreed. The ’61-’64 GM full-size sedans were the dullest ever, until the FWD A-cars.
Although these looked very conservative on the outside , they were very nice inside and for the times, had good get up and GO! for a middle Class Sedan .
.
I like these quite a bit .
.
Could use more / better / interior photos here .
.
-Nate
I will see if I can find it again. I usually take these photos quickly since I do not want to be confronted by another irate owner.
These four door sedans were about as plain Jane, middle-of-the-road as you could get. When my dad and I were shopping for my first car in early 1965, we were perusing a local Buick used car lot. I remember the salesman pointing to a ’63 LeSabre four door sedan, practically the twin sister to this Olds, and saying something to the effect of “Now, take this sedan, it’s a mud hen, it’ll be sitting here for months.” My impression of these hopelessly dull sedans has been forever clouded by that guy’s term “mud hen.”
While the body is plain, the taillights are pure Space Age.
Oldsmobile, more than the other GM divisions, seemed to have a difficult time adjusting to the “less is more” design ethos started by the 1961 Lincoln Continental. Oldsmobile’s top-of-the-line full-size cars – the Ninety-Eight and Starfire – still relied more on exterior chrome to set themselves apart from their cheaper divisional brethren than their counterparts at the other divisions did. As a result, the cheaper full-size Oldsmobiles come across as almost painfully plain.
Oldsmobile’s full-size cars really didn’t get back on track until the 1965 models.
Great observation. The ’62 Starfire really proves your point – and quite the contrast to what Pontiac was doing the same year.
Thank you for the info Paul since all I knew was that I had found an Oldsmobile 88 from the mid-1960s.
I am almost used to seeing old Iron on the roads after spending 25 years in Tompkins County.
It’s a “Dynamic Celebrity” in a game show-panel kind of way, but I do like it. Its naming seems to be a great example of adding pizzazz with a badge. Not the worst example.
I always wondered why Olds never tried to capitalize on the “88” name with a piano-themed car featuring piano black paint with ivory accents – you know, like the eighty-eight keys. Might have been a stretch, but an “Eighty-Eight Concerto” might have been a classy submodel.
(Maybe the “Celebrity” was a better idea. LOL)
As an 8th grader, when I heard The Capitols sing,
“Give me some bass with those 88s” —
I was sure it was a song about Oldsmobiles.
After all, dad had a spectacular ’63 Ninety-Eight.
Yes!! That’s awesome. Great song and memory.
I never found the ’63 Olds particularly dull, but 4-door sedans in uninspired colors don’t make for second glances. Now this ’63 Starfire is definitely more exciting, though not quite up there with the Grand Prix of the same year.
Interior (especially nice when the driver leaves the window down!):
It’s interesting how Pontiac created the Grand Prix by removing chrome and trim, while Oldsmobile created the Starfire by adding both in fairly heavy doses (by 1963 standards). Both cars are attractive, but it’s easy to see why the Grand Prix was more popular and influential.
I had one of these a few years ago, a Super 88 Holiday Coupe with the 325hp 394. These things were torque monsters. Once you hit 2nd gear it was goodbye to many unsuspecting rice rockets.
The sedan may be conservative and not particularly flashy — it was probably completely invisible in its heyday — but I find it agreeably tasteful. What I appreciate about this specific period is that the pillared four-door sedan has a relatively graceful roof that doesn’t try to punish you for not buying a hardtop. Some cars from just a couple years before this looked sleek and flashy in upper-series hardtop form, but pretty clumsy as pillared sedans. The ’63 Olds still looked better in more expensive trim, but the presence of B-pillars wasn’t a stylistic albatross.
When Oldsmobile was in its last years they ran ads that said “this is not your father’s Oldsmobile”.
I thought, yea, but, I liked my father’s Oldsmobile!
Now they’re gone.
I also liked Pontiacs.
Now they’re gone too.
Bummer.
from the 1989 film “Great Balls of Fire” the Jerry Lee Lewis Story, a pair of 57s:
Wow, what memories here. I learned to drive in Dad’s ’63 Dynamic 88 Holiday 4-dr HT. I recall shopping for these with him at the time. He was close to buying an Impala, but for about $150 more got 100 more standard H.P. and Hydra-Matic over Powerglide – and the Olds name to boot. Interior was OK, but in standard trim not as nice as the Impala. Things like a clock, back-up lamps, deluxe steering wheel, courtesy lights and chrome window frames, all standard on the Impala, were optional on a Dynamic 88. The Super 88 had nicer trim and the Skyrocket 330 HP 4 bbl 394.
Recall the fingertip power steering and feather touch power brakes. Also the big dip in RPM between first and second. Quite fast at the time for a big car. 280 HP and 420 lbs. of torque made for effortless cruising. Would handily beat my friend’s 327 Chevy. A panic stop though was pretty, um, panicky.
The gear ratios of Roto Hydra-Matic were less than ideal, to say the least. In the ‘big’ units, first was 2.97 (with an effective 3.56 starting ratio), then second dropped to 1.56.
In 1974 for a brief period of time I was given the use of a 1963 Olds, a wagon not a sedan. I was commuting to school from Fort Lauderdale to Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, FL. This monster would gulp gasoline at a rate of 8 MPG. At a time when we were still under the influence of the “Oil Embargo”. I was a starving college student with three part time jobs to pay for tuition, books…etc. That Olds wagon would have consumed all the money that I earned.
My neighbor had one of these that her husband bought her new, in the same awful color. She drove it until she suddenly died around 2005-6, so it was over 40 years old. It had pretty much had every panel patched up a couple of times by then, a couple of new transmissions and an engine rebuild about 1990 or so. She hardly had any money, her late husband pretty much made sure of that, and so her sons were paying for almost everything for the 33 years or so she was alive after he died. She spent most of her days listening and calling into local rightwing talk shows, and counting the insane number of sets of sheets she had. Like HUNDREDS. I would see the ’88 a couple of times a week, passing by my street while I was walking my dogs, thinking, “What an awful damn color!”. I’ve always hated this kind of green, and the “misty” blue that was also popular a long time ago.
Olds was still stuck in the 1950’s as far as naming its body styles. For the most part other GM divisions and the rest of the industry had moved on.
Celebrity = post sedan.
Holiday = hardtop sedan
Fiesta = station wagon
Riviera became a separate car, not a hardtop sedan, at Buick. Belair had long been a trim level, not specifically a hardtop sedan, at Chevy. The Nomad name was gone at Chevy, but at least Pontiac still had Safari station wagons.
Olds may have been stuck in the ’50s with names corresponding to body styles, but the 88 and 98 names were rooted in the early 40s, 80 and 90 being the series and the second digit being a 6 or an 8 depending on the engine. Dynamic was associated with the series 70 cars of the 1940s.
Before the series numbers Olds used the letters F and L. The F was revived for the F-85 compact model.
Tradition apparently played a big role in model naming at Olds.
Hey! this is my car, Maureen. Bought her for $2,700 we live in Austin, Tx now.