I have several route options for my daily commute, and one of the more rural (and scenic) ones takes me past this farm where a pair of immobile 1994-96 Oldsmobile Ninety Eights are slowly sinking into the Illinois loam. I’m guessing a little on the year(s), but think I can make out the slightly face-lifted grille used in the latter part of the twelfth (and final) generation.
I always wonder what the story is behind a scene like this… why two, and what circumstances led to their being essentially abandoned in place? They’re handsome-looking cars and appear to still be in decent condition (from a distance, anyway). Think they’ll ever hit the open road again, or is this D.S. al Fine?
Related reading:
Curbside Classic: 1991 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight – GM’s Deadly Sin #20 – A Sad End To The Oldest Oldsmobile (Brendan Saur)
Curbside Classic: 1992 Oldsmobile Touring Sedan – A Regency With An Attitude (Tom Klockau)
Reminds me of a young man I attended college with. His parents were quite elderly (his conception had been a bit of a shock) he was in college and his parents were in their 70s.
Anyway Dad was a farmer and had a 98 (which he drove very gingerly) and replaced it with a Northstar Deville. V8 power suddenly turned him into a speed demon. As the old man’s skills declined I can picture a rotting Cadillac on the Ohio clay.
There was a big house I used to pass on my way to take the kids to school. It had clearly been built by a professional and parked in the driveway was a 1974-ish Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser wagon. I never saw the car move. I later heard from neighbors that the old man who lived there allowed everything to rot in place. The house had been overrun with cats whose urine had soaked through the carpets and into the hardwood floors. It took a decade of off and on renovation (and multiple owners) before I saw anyone living there again.
I am on record as being a fan of these final big Oldsmobubbles.
What is odd about this scene is that there is no other vehicular junk around. Most old farmsteads I see fall into two categories – those with rusting hulks of machinery of all kinds scattered about and those that are well-kept with only daily drivers parked. This one is a tweener.
This reminds me of my grandparents. Grandma’s last car before she passed away was not a Ninety Eight, but close — a final generation Oldsmobile Eighty Eight. And their farm had an old weathered barn much like the one here. Although their farm was the former of the two types JP described, with rusting hulks of machines and every car they’d owned since the 1950s scattered around the property. And now I wonder about the fate of Grandma’s Eighty Eight. I haven’t been to the farm since she died, although my aunts and uncles still own the property. I can’t imagine that car suffered the same fate as the others; I’m assuming my relatives would have sold it.
This article made me smile. I own one of the last generations of the Ninety Eight. Mine is a 1995 Series II with every option except a sunroof. I am going to change the leather seats to the GM velour cloth they used during that time. The leather cracked, broke and worse. Texas is not kind to leather. The cloth is more durable. I have enjoyed the car. I have had it since 2003. I had a 1994 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight before that. It was totaled in an accident. I have a 1992 Oldsmobile Toronado too.
The Queen of England rides on cloth in her limo. The chauffeur has to sit on leather. Good for you.
I always liked these cars. Of course I liked (and owned) an Achieva, so my opinion may be somewhat suspect…
I can take or leave the whole “retro” thing, but I thought these cars were “retro” enough to capture the essence of some of the early-mid 60’s, but look like they’re from now (or, y’know, the 90’s) I sat in one and liked it when I was with my mother when she picked up her Achieva SC, and thought this was a good direction for Olds to go in. Obviously me and about eleven other people agreed, and we all know how that turned out…
Stunning find! As you all know well by now, this final generation Ninety-Eight is a car near and dear to my heart as my grandfather “Papa” owned one from 1992 to 1997.
I honestly can say that while I’m still not sold on its styling, I have come around to finding it more and more attractive with age.
These are “Ninety Eights” – the dash was dropped in 1992 as a cost-cutting move. (c:
My grandfather bought one of these brand new as his last ride. I picked it up from the dealership with him in October 1992. It was a nice car and felt like a space ship relative to the B body 1984 Olds 88 that he traded in.
He was still driving into his early 90s, at which point the car was over a decade old and suffering from exposure to the California sun and who knows what mechanical issues. After he stopped driving, it sat for several years in the carport. I don’t know if he intended to stop driving when he last parked it; giving up the keys was a process in which he slowly drove less and less frequently until perhaps the next trip just never came. It wasn’t worth much at that point and no one was going to press the issue of getting rid of it with him, so there it sat for a few years turning into something like the subject cars here.
That property looks like it could have been from the movie Jeepers Creepers. Run as fast as you can if you hear banjos or chainsaws!!
For real. I was happy to see these photos were taken in broad daylight, and from a distance.
I’d love to know the story of these two Ninety Eights. So odd to have two and to leave them just sit there to deteriorate. I have really liked these since this body style appeared in 1991. I have a ’95 with 86,000 miles that I’ve owned for 15 years and it’s been a good car. They are a rare sight on the road anymore.
I don’t see any rust above the rear wheels, so that’s a good sign, but the real question is what do the subframe mounts look like?
Except for the whitewalls, the tan one looks just like the ’95 I had.
My green ’96 made it through one last winter, but will be done this week with 224,000 miles. 🙁
I briefly considered getting another one, but decent examples are getting hard to find.
We eagerly await news of its replacement!
A fully loaded rust free 2004 Lesabre. 🙂
The styling does not offend me in any way, but the fit & finish did. A car of this calibre should have had far better panel fit, even for nearly 30 years ago. It suffered from ill-fitting plastic cladding on the lower flanks making it appeared that it kissed a guard rail on all four sides. The plastic switchgear as used in the interior was of very low quality, and the finish and the numbers wore off fast with regular use after only a few years. And like many GM products of the era, there was lots of room in the rear doors for the rear windows to fully retracts, but management in their never-ending stream of cost-cutting made those rear windows lower only approximately half-way. Its no wonder Oldsmobile lost market share in those years!!
The Lincoln look was way better than the cars from the 80s.