In today’s CC Capsule, I lamented the inevitable day when the there will be no more daily driven Oldsmobiles on the road, at which point Oldsmobile joins Packard, Edsel, and many others as the exclusive realm of car collectors, enthusiasts, and museums.
When to you think the last daily driven Olds will disappear? Bonus points: What kind of Oldsmobile will the final driver be?
I personally think there is still a good 25 years of continued (albeit diminishing) Oldsmobile sightings, until they are gone as daily drivers, which puts it around the year 2042.
There’s going to be at least one ’96 Cutlass Ciera in daily use in 2046…
+1- Parked at a Community College by the grandson of the original purchaser…
+2. I refer to the Cutlass Cieras as cockroaches — those things are still in daily use all over CA and NV, never seeming to die. And every once in a while you’ll still see a beautifully kept one — say about a ’90 wagon, entirely pristine including the wood, on the freeway last Saturday. Pa was behind the wheel, with Ma sitting next to him.
I would like to think it would be a lovingly maintained 1970 442 but probably not.
I had to daily drive a 1990 Ciera wagon as late as 2015. It was just for a week, but it happened. The last one was built in 2004, so I’d say the last DD will be an Alero or Silhouette that’s an ’04 model, in 2029 or so.
Considering there are still daily driven B-Body Oldsmobile 88s in Michigan, it’s going to take a while.
Also, the definition of daily driven is interesting too. If someone only drives it in non-winter seasons ( like snow birds ), it’s going to last indefinitely.
Oldsmobiles? Hell I hope I’m still around.
knowing what I see around here (not saying much SoCal is not Olds territory) I think the last daily driven Oldsmobiles will be either a Cutlass Ciera or maybe an Intrigue/Alero. It might take a while, but I think Oldsmobiles will stop being daily drivers when I’m in my late 40s or early 50s.
I still see the blue-on-blue ’92 Oldsmobile Eight-Eight that my dad donated tooling around town. Those H-bodies are virtually unkillable.
I agree – it’s going to be an H body 88. The kid who works at the movie theater who got it from his great grandmother will drive it until the transmission finally goes in 2026. And it will be that light metallic blue.
Yeah, the Aurora was questionable (having the problematic Northstar), they didn’t really make enough of the N-body Cutlasses (most people bough the Malibu instead), and the Alero was an outright POS. But the Eighty-Eight is just enough of a cockroach to be the last daily-driven Oldsmobile.
Well, I know a fellow college student who drives a poorly maintained 93 88′ as a daily, and I see no shortage of Cieras around these parts. So it will be some time before Olds’s are off the road, and the last people will likely be the young and poor that inherited them or bought them at auction.
Besides, are we sure there aren’t any daily driver Edsels, Packards, Studebakers, DeSotos etc. on the road as daily’s?
I know of one person out here who does daily drive a Studebaker truck, albeit restored. I also know of a daily driven AMC Eagle here too
There’s a daily driver Studebaker truck down the street from my office.
I was recently thinking the same thoughts about Pontiacs and Plymouths. Have not seen an F body Firebird of any generation in a long time. Bonnevilles and Grand Prixs are still plentiful.
owners are saving them for big bucks in about 10 years when they become collectible!
And let’s not forget Mercury, who had dissapeared from Canada a decade earlier and Eagles are much more rarer to see. It’s been a while I didn’t saw a Sable or a Grand Marquis in my neck of woods.
I say we have another 20 or so years to go in Portland, OR. One of my co-workers drives a 1990s 88 to work. Plymouths are less common than Oldsmobiles.
Agreed…the only Plymouths I see around here anymore are the mini vans.
One of the Bravada SUV’s
That was my thought too, based on the fact that TrailBlazers and Envoys are the modern cockroaches of the road.
W-body Intrigue with 3800.
Mechanical parts will be cheap enough to keep it going as long as it isn’t in a wreck and needs body parts.
It is still quite easy to find daily driver Oldsmobiles in the Midwest. The Alero seems to be popular with the bargain basement high school buyer, any school lot will turn up a few very easily.
I still regularly see just about the entire line-up built after about 1995. Both generations of the Aurora seem to be the hardest to find – rare enough to begin with and probably too expensive to maintain for the basic beater buyer.
I’d go with an elderly owned 88 in the hands of a grandson as the final daily driver
I would think that the last Oldsmobiles that are daily driven would be Aleros. These sold very well and there are still many of them out there on the roads.
I agree. They seem to be everywhere. I live in a town of 12000 and I can’t go any where without seeing 3 or 4. Of course, we did have and Olds dealer until the very end.
It would not surprise me if the last daily driven one is an Alero, although there a couple of ’80’s rear wheel drive 88s around here too.
Yeah, you wanna find someone who inherits his (grand-) Father’s Oldsmobile, lightly used, and who then keeps it going and roadworthy as a tribute to the old man….
No apparent family legacy with this one, but if someone looks after it, I can see another 20 years in it (if rust doesn’t win the battle):
What a prime candidate for an l-67 swap that this car would be. Not much of a collectible keeper, but a great platform for a sleeper!
From personal experience I don’t have good things to say about the build quality of Aleros. Evidently some were well screwed together, but many were emphatically *not*.
I’m thinking the last will be either an H-body 88 or an A-body Ciera. When? Who knows. Not for a long damn time, that’s for sure.
My inlaws have a 85 Delta 88 they bought new. They retired soon after the purchase. The car now has 45k miles on it but it sat up for nearly 10 years. The car got to a point where it just cuts off for no apparent reason. They’ve had many shade trees lock at it but the dealer. Any ideas?
Has anyone tried simply replacing the carburetor? (fuel filter and pump would be obvious first things to check).
I’m not old enough or knowledgeable enough to know if the 85 Quadrajet carb is the e-Quadrajet or not. My 1987 307 V8 had to have the e-Quadrajet rebuilt every 50,000 miles.
Try looking at the ignition module. It is located under the distributer cap. The heat gets to them. This will cause a situation where the car cuts off for no reason.
It could also be a bad vacuum line(the Olds 307 has a lot of lines)
I would rule out the fuel pump as it is a mechanical one that is attached to the engine and driven by the engine.
It could be the QuadraJunk carb
My money would be on the ignition module. They aren’t hard to swap out and don’t cost a million bucks like so many parts on today’s cars. It’s also possible the float is sticking which would cause a no gas in float bowl situation thus cutting out the engine. With the car sitting for so long it’s also possible slug of crap had dislodged loose and is causing carburetor mayhem. There are many online outlets that re-build these and any mechanic should be able to easily swap one out. I was 17 years old with no former car knowledge and easily swapped out the carburetor on my 1979 Fairmont and the Quadrajet, even with more lines, is just as easy.
I was daily driving my 2001 Aurora til 12/10/2016. traded it with 210K miles and only because wife was more concerned about it leaving me stranded than I was. Plus we needed something a bit more trucklike to move, haul, etc. I hope they last longer than I do and I’m 50.
The later Oldsmobiles like the Intrigue and Alero are already thin on the ground here, but I still see Cieras all over the place.
A way to gauge this may be to look at the last brands that have gone extinct and see how long they have lasted. For example, is there a DD DeSoto still out there?
As for the last DD Olds…I could easily see a ’77-’79 Delta 88 plugging away at age 60. That would almost get us to the year 2040.
THE last Olds will be my ’83 Cutlass Supreme with the super stock wheels and bucket seats with console.
WHY???? Because when I sold it, the rear seal was leaking oil like a stranded tanker on the rocks. The person who bought it failed to monitor the dip stick (didn’t want to get his fingers dirty). He blew the engine and sold it for more than what he paid me:-(
I hear that the guy who bought it pulled the gutless 3.8 V6 and dropped a “proper” V8 under the hood and refurbished the car from top to bottom.
Damn, how did I let that one slip thru my fingers!!!!!!!!!
If only the Intrigue had kept the 3800 to the end!
It makes me wonder about the other recently orphaned marques – the last Pontiac daily driver will be a Vibe, probably a post-facelift gen 1 since the gen 2 has some scarce body parts. (FWD Pontiac sedans tend(ed) to attract significantly younger and less gentle first and second owners than Buick/Olds so that rules out the W-body 3800s while G8s and Solstices will move quickly from the daily-driver pool to collectible status.
The last Plymouth daily will be a minivan, most likely a low-floor wheelchair conversion which significantly alters the fix-or-scrap economics. That probably applies to Olds too, come to think about it, especially since the Silhouette packed the 3800 to the end.
The last daily driven Saturn will most likely be an Astra, in Eugene, owned by someone who knows a British motor factors who ships internationally.
The last Mercury, naturally, will be a Grand Marquis. It’ll probably be the last daily driver of the entire class-of-Carpocalypse lost marques. You just can’t beat the combination of tough mechanicals, aged customer base, and last-of-its’-kind status.
Last day driven Panther. Will it be…
a.) Ford Crown Victoria
b.) Mercury Grand Marquis
c.) Lincoln Town Car
Place yer bets!
The last Panther will be a Ford Crown Victoria driven by a retired nurse living in sunny Florida. It may have a few scrapes and door chafe from the Walmart parking lot, but the A/C will blown ice cold air and the mechanic she’s dating at the retirement community will keep the car rolling till the end of time!!!
^^^^^Chuck, both I (I’m a “he”–nearing retirement age) and my wife got a laugh out of this one—thanks!
I’ll be pedantic for a moment…
The last Silhouettes had the 3.4L 60 degree V6.
Probably long after I’m dead
As late as a few years ago there was a woman who sorta-daily drove a 1953 Packard Cavalier in Alameda, California. Haven’t seen it around in a while. Not mine, tho.
http://jalopnik.com/272609/1953-packard-cavalier
I don’t know. Little brother seems to have zero intention of giving up his 86 Calais or 22 year old Saturn SL1. If he does, one of them [the Olds] will come back to me.
His newest is an 02 Ford Focus.
Perfect daily usable old car. Right size, good fuel economy, great visibility.
And worth fixing if something goes haywire. Even if someone else thinks it’s not.
My 63 Valiant would have been in the JY decades ago had I thought like that.
I’d like to think that Jethro Bodine will still be tooting around in his 1921 Olds hillbilly truck.
“Jethro, I thought I told you to get rid of them old worn out brakes.”
“I did Uncle Jed. That’s how come we ain’t got none.”
And to think it was only 41 years older than the newest of the other cars in the series when it first started. A 41 year old vehicle today would be a 1976.
I’m a little surprised the movie didn’t use a 1950s-70s pickup in that role.
I thought about buying an Olds back in the mid-’90s, after I got my money’s worth out of my 1990 Taurus wagon.
The Ford’s still running strong with 293,000 miles on the clock and Oldsmobile is no longer. So much for that idea. It’s a ten-footer until I have a new paint job done at the Ford body shop this summer, but I’ve upgraded things and customized it a bit over the years and doubt I’ll ever sell it, anyhow. Maybe I’ll give it to one of my grandchildren in 20 years or so. 🙂
One more photo, forgive me, but the stock Taurus dash was scant on instrumentation and long on fake wood on the instrument panel fascia. I removed (un-crimped) the aluminum skin from the plastic panel, wire-brushed the woodgrain off with a Dremel down to the bare polished aluminum, and replaced the Taurus cluster with a Sable one with a tach – then substituted a SHO 140mph speedo so I now know what kind of speeder bait I am for FHP on the expressways. (I even set the odometer to the correct mileage, not that it matters at almost 300K miles.) Now, I know what’s actually going on in the engine bay. Painted the instrument surround silver to match the fascia, too.
The missing kick panel is because I replaced the old, cracked dash with a northern parts-yard pull from a donor car. Just like new, no thanks to the Florida sun. 🙂
my 1984 Delta 88 is my DD. I cant guarantee it still will be in 2042 but it will be for the foreseeable future
Nice! Did you paint the grille black and smoke the side-marker lights? That front end looks sharp.
thanks but its 100% stock and original, except for the taillights because I always hated the amber lenses so I replaced them with a set from an ’81
As far as the last Olds, around here in moderate climate coastal VA, there are still quite a few Cieras, Bravadas, Sillhouettes, and Aleros on the road, and theres even a handful of G-Body Cutlasses and B-Body Delta 88s around.
Same with my 77 98 Regency.
I cannot kill this engine (403).
The body, however, is slowly incorporating more and more liquid steel patch.
Nice! I have a 1977 98 Regency too, mine is still running tough, the engine (403) and transmission (TH400) are very tough. But I think 77 models are getting rare. Good thing is that the previous owner made the body almost completly rustproof.
Nice! I like this vintage best, and the dog dish wheels. A keeper!
Regarding the picture – is this some sort of 442 graveyard? Such a shame!
I will guess Bravada.
I imagine that in 2050 or so it will be a senior citizen driving a 2003 Oldsmobile Aurora that they had inherited from a relative.
As long as there are gearheads, the mighty 442 will survive.
One of my uncles alternates between his 1970 Olds Cutlass and a Ford Escape
I know this beauty is used as daily driver on the non snowing months of the year here in Winnipeg
The last DD Olds for me will be my 2004 Silhouette. Here in Rust Country, my Indiana-native bread van is seeing the cancer creep up on it and the valve cover gaskets are leaking pretty well. But Grandma’s van (I bought it used, it looked like it was driven by a Grandma), still functions fine and runs great.
So long as one of the local herd of deer doesn’t attempt suicide by minivan anytime soon, I’ll drive the thing until there’s a major issue with it. Judging by the looks of the other U-bodies, I could go a long time with a lot of rusty panels.
Back to the real question, the last DD Olds around here will probably be a Silhouette much like mine, driven until something expensive breaks and then being scrapped. Probably somewhere around 2022 or so…
It’ll be a long time before mine gives up the ghost. 208k and rising.
Here’s my Summer daily driver. A mint 1987 Olds Cutlass coupe with bucket seats, a rare two tone blue paint job, 307 with 4 speed transmission, optional 3.08 rear gears, F-41 suspension upgrade and factory rally gauge cluster. It turns heads wherever I go and has been 100% reliable so far. I can’t wait to get her out in a few months from her Winter nap.
Nice! You should write it up sometime for us.
Interesting thought and angle on the CC world. There are still plenty of DD Rovers (either at the beater or hobbyist ends of the market) but do we have any bets on the last daily driver Morris or Austin?
Can a restored one count as a DD? Found this great Cutlass parked on the side of my building.