(first posted 11/6/2015) By 1977, America’s long-running love affair with strippers was starting to peter out. The economy was strong during the last years of that decade, and the eighties ushered in an era of conspicuous consumption, even if it was just an Olds Cutlass coupe or a Toyota Celica. Yes, there were a few poverty-spec cars still to be had, but Detroit had learned a big lesson from the Japanese: the overwhelming majority of folks don’t really like to ride around in stark, dog-dished, de-chromed strippers. Which may explain why this F-85 coupe, intended to be a genuine stripper, fooled me with its dressy clothes.
Here’s how it’s shown, well hidden near the back of the 1977 Oldsmobile Brochure, embarrassed to be seen in the buff. Who would want to buy an Oldsmobile like that in 1977?
Especially when a much nicer Chevy Nova Concours coupe could be had for…$1.00 less. Yes, that surprised me too. Admittedly, the Concourse coupe shown here has a few options, like that stupid “cabriolet” roof, but its standard features put the F-85 to shame.
The Concours came standard with full wheel covers, chrome trim on the wheel openings, and a stand-up hood ornament, even!
The Concours’ best feature was a decent interior, compared to the mere Novas. And compared the F-85, this looks like a…dare I say it….Seville.
Here’s what that extra buck bought you for having the Oldsmobile name on it: flesh-toned bare skin.
That’s better; at least a bit of color to cheer things up a bit. So why would anyone pay a buck more for a poverty-spec F-85 than a Nova Concours? Beats me. I was hoping you would know.
Because it has a Buick V6 engine under the hood? Well, the Chevy 250 six was bigger, and had more power (110 vs 105 hp) and torque than the 231 V6. And ran smoother too.
Presumably I’m not the only one wondering what the appeal was, as a mere 2,241 of the 1977 F-85s were sold, and there was none to be had in 1978. The whole idea of bringing back the F-85 in 1975 as a stripper Omega was a dubious idea. And a short-lived one.
And it probably explains why this one has optional chrome window surrounds and full wheel covers, making it look just like a base Omega, which in essence it is. When I first saw it, I thought someone had de-badged it, since there was no “Omega” to be seen anywhere. And then I saw the little script “F-85” on the front fender. Aha! This was worth stopping for after all. Except I would have much preferred to see it naked, like it was meant to be.
It would make a nice car to build a hotrod out of.
Yeah I woulda gone for the Chevy minus the retard roof, you get some creature features for the same coin and the 250 six.
I had a a ’76 Omega in black-white bucket guts that I bought from the fastidious original school teacher owner. He wanted an SX, but couldn’t get the gaudy graphics deleted. He was able to get each SX item like the 4-spoke steering wheel, FE2 suspension, and rally wheels ala cart. Also had AC. Mine had the 260 V8 with the little known and troublesome Borg-Warner T50 5-speed. At 5 years old, B-W stopped supporting parts for it.
It was too bad about the constant clutch & trans issues, because it handled great and got good fuel economy, at least on the highway. I’m sure glad mine didn’t look like this.
A troublesome T-50 that included a dogleg motion to engage first gear…
It’s too bad you don’t still have it, as I’ll bet a Borg Warner T-5 would bolt right in, and could stand up to all the torque that 260 V-8 could provide.
Yes the 1st dogleg, that was a deal! At least it made going into 5th easy.
I never owned the straight 6, but I have owned a 3.8L V6. I’d buy the Nova for that reason alone.
I would take the Chevy Concours over this Olds any time. Notice that this Concours also has power windows, a somewhat rare option in this price/size class at the time. The lady with the wide-brimmed hat looks so classy, why don’t women today look as nice? Instead we get those Kardashian people, ugh.
I don`t think that’s a power window button, it seems like an adjuster for the rear view mirror. Dead-on right about the lady in the ad. She can sell me a car anytime. If I saw any of the Kardashians in any car ad, I would not buy that vehicle, no matter how much I wanted it !
hey Phil, just went to http://www.oldcarbrochures.com and found the page with the Chevy Concours for 1977. It’s actually a power lock button. Still a pretty rare option for this size/price class!
That lady does look classy. Back then you went to the circus to see the tattood lady. Today you go to Walmart.
+1
She looks like Jacqueline Bissett (Steve McQueen’s girlfriend in Bullitt). No complaints here.
All I can say is “wow,” on a number of levels:
Wow #1. I can’t believe you found one of these cars in real life. It’s like finding a unicorn. Out of the 2,142 built, how many could possibly have survived? Uh, like maybe this one…
Wow #2. This F85 is a perfect example of how screwed up GM’s marketing and positioning became in the 1970s. Why on earth would Olds be fielding a poverty-spec car at all? Roughing it at Olds meant getting a standard Delta 88 instead of a Royale–that is what Olds customers expected and it was part of the more upscale brand character the division was noted for.
Maybe it was the insidious GM bean counters at work. Take the most wretched basic Nova, slap Olds badges on it and charge an enormous premium (the same price as a Nova Concours–that is crazy!), all the while hawking it as a “price leader” to “attract more people” into the Oldsmobile brand. Cynical and terrible, and a perfect example of The General’s thinking as it started to tumble off a cliff…
Wow #3. The super fancy Chevy X-body is the flip-side example of how screwed up GM’s marketing and positioning was. For example, while the Concours featured a fold-down center armrest on the front seat, neither the Omega Brougham nor the Skylark Custom had one. So this Nova was more poshly equipped than its supposedly upscale siblings, while costing less. D’oh!!
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Oldsmobile dealers were at least partially responsible for the introduction of the F-85 version of the Omaga. It’s a great price leader for advertisements – “Get an Oldsmobile for this low price!”. Of course, once the prospect came to the dealership, the goal was to encourage him or her to buy a fancier, plusher, and more profitable Oldsmobile. The low production numbers make it obvious that the car wasn’t really pushed at the dealer or division level.
As for the Concours – Chevrolet had to respond to the huge success of the Ford Granada. In particular, the Ghia versions of the Granada sold very well for the time. Chevrolet wasn’t going to let Ford walk away with that market, particularly in the wake of the first fuel crisis, when many buyers were looking for smaller cars with all of the trimmings.
There was also no way that Chevrolet dealers were going to sit quietly if GM gave the Buick and Oldsmobile X-cars the job of taking on the Granada Ghia, while limiting the Nova to bargain hunters.
Agree. I’d imagine that the Olds dealers had a hand in it as well, no doubt thinking more about stealing any sale they could from Chevrolet versus the impact to long-term brand imagery. Buick got in the bargain basement game too, with their poverty-spec Skylark “S” coupe, also for all the wrong reasons.
My issue with the Concours was not that Chevy had it–I think the car was an appropriate offering to compete with Ford. Rather, GM’s upscale divisions should have done a better job making their offerings seem more premium. I think a smart strategy would have been to have Chevy cover base and mid-level Granada models (mid-level Granadas being comparable in plushness to a Concours). Then have Olds and Buick start at mid-level Granada (or Monarch) and compete up through the Ghia Decor Group trim levels with much more premium offerings. GM simply didn’t offer anything to compete with the premium Ghia models, leaving a big gap between the “regular” X-bodies and the Seville, which Ford happily filled. Seems like pursuing that higher end of the compact market would have been much smarter and more lucrative for Olds and Buick than developing subpar el cheapo models.
In addition, Remember FoMoCo had the Monarch, being a Merc, it was theorectily above Granada, All the more reason that Olds and especially Buick should NOT have aimed at such a low end market.
I agree with “GN”, but Buick and Olds were pushing their mid size cars, and ignored their compacts. Most Skylarks were bought by elderly and Omegas were ‘bait and switch’ models. Cutlasses practically sold themselves.
Pontiac tried to compete with Mercury Monarch by restyling the Ventura into the 1977.5 Phoenix, but they also were pushing Grand Prixs.
GM seemed to fight the Granada with their mid size cars, and pushed the RWD X bodies as ‘econo-specials’.
My buddy bought a brand new Concours and it was a beauty-. It was a black four door with red velour upholstery, with a front arm rest.. It was equipped with A/C and an am/fm radio. Fancy hub caps and a stand up hood ornament made it a Seville look a like.
When I was 17, my Dad bought a brand new 77 Concours with a 305 V8. It was a 2 door coupe in that ruby red color that Chevy had around for a long time (his 66 Impala was that color). The car had a red crushed velvet interior and was sitting on the showroom floor of Luby Chevrolet in Baltimore and was considerably nicer than the Granada we looked at a few days earlier at a nearby Ford Dealership. The car was simply beautiful and quite the pleasure to drive. Oh, and one more thing: his car did not have the obnoxious half vinyl top. Although it had all the options, its look was clean on the outside with nothing but that gorgeous red paint, and all the chromification for which the brougham years were so famous!
Notice how the ’75 Nova, et al, were restyled and got the Camaro’s front suspension, standard front disc brakes and even a double-shell roof yet the had the same dashboard as the ’74s … worse were the old-fashioned exterior door handles for which you had to press in the button to lock the car which were the same as those on a ’62 Chevy II – this while most GM cars had replaced them with the flush pull-up handles first seen on the ’70 1/2 Camaro/Firebird then the ’71 full-sized Chevrolet and Pontiacs plus the new Chevy Vega, the ’73 Colonnade intermediates and then the ’75 H-special cars (Monza, Starfire, Sunbird, Skyhawk)
And don’t forget, Pull up door handles appeared on ’57 MoPars, while Cadillac retained the “thumb button” type into the ’90s!
More to the point, there was nothing stopping Chevrolet from chasing the same market as the Granada Ghia short of senior management actually ordering them not to, which GM didn’t actually do all that terribly often pre-Roger Smith.
And I completely agree that the real purpose of this car was likely just to lower the minimum advertised price. This is the kind of car of which each dealer buys maybe one or two — if only to be able to justify the low price in their local newspaper ads if anyone asks. The car then sits on the lot and eventually gets sold (often at an attractive discount) at the end of the model year to some buyer who’s either broke, a dedicated cheapskate, or both. (Buying such cars in such ways is a longstanding family tradition that I have broken, in defiance of long precedent.)
Two words Paul: Brand Loyalty.
Until the 1980’s there was still some customer brand locality in regards to the various GM divisions. There was a big scandal at the end of the decade with Chevy engines being installed in Cutlass Supremes due to a shortage of the Olds Rocket V8 engines. To some people that meant the car was not an Oldsmobile and now was devalued in their eyes. It did not matter that the Chevy engine was a slight bit more powerful and made slightly better off the line numbers, the simple fact that it was a Chevy engine ruined the car for them. This was one of the reasons GM started dropping division exclusive engines for corporate engines.
To some folks of the WWII era, Chevy products were still considered entry level products and that refused to have a Chevy in his or her driveway.
As for the featured car. I think those hubcaps are from the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. There were two types, one had the Rocket Logo and the other had Oldsmobile written on it.
I had both sets for my 1987 Cutlass that i got from a junk yard
Two more words: Dealer loyalty.
There were a number of Olds-only dealers at that time, and it worked when the Cutlass was the best-selling car in the U.S. In addition to having a less fuel-thirsty car to offer after the first OPEC price spike, I imagine dealers liked having these around to sell as second (or third) vehicles for the spouse and teens to drive, while the Delta 88 or Ninety-Eight occupied the other bay(s) in the garage.
The F-85 and Omega could also be used as a price leader in advertisements, to bring buyers in and then upsell them into a Cutlass.
My parents were loyal to Oldsmobile in the 1970s. They wouldn’t even consider a Chevrolet for their “good” car. They purchased one Delta 88 after another.
Keep in mind that the Omega did use the Chevy 250 six until 1976. And had used it in their mid-sized F-85/Cutlass for some time. And that it was a Buick engine. So I really don’t think the engine had much to do with it.
Those wheel covers are the correct ones for this car.
IIRC, that design went back to the 72 models, and (with maybe a little change was on 73s as well. I never liked those with the painted centers as well as the earlier all-stainless versions.
Interesting to me that the F85 was now attached to the compact (at the time) sized car, rather than the midsized (Cutlass) which it was 10-12 years prior.
My Father had a 1965 F85 Wagon, which was mid-sized (guess back then Olds didn’t have any “compact” cars, the midsize was as small as it got). It was pretty good car, though he didn’t have it long (4 years). It was a good car, but as our family was expanding we ended up going full size with its replacement, a 1969 Ford Country Squire.
Forward 12 years, I was working summers for Hertz as a transporter (the people who return 1 way rentals) and though I don’t remember driving an Olds this size, we drove plenty of Novas. Ford was still the predominate make at Hertz, but they had some GM, Chrysler, American Motors, and a few imports. Now I wonder if there even is a predominate make at Hertz or any of the rental companies, which seem to me to have more import make cars than domestic…of course, almost 40 years have gone by since then (I worked for Hertz summers of 1977 and 1978).
My folks replaced a ’66 Vista Cruiser with a ’69 Country Squire, and that with a ’72 Kingswood bought from Roger Penske.
“Interesting to me that the F85 was now attached to the compact (at the time) sized car, rather than the midsized (Cutlass) which it was 10-12 years prior.”
The F85 was originally a “senior compact”, before it grew into a midsize. And cars of all size classes had grown over the years. Against that backdrop, by the mid ’70s the Omega was probably closer in size and purpose to the original 1961 F85 than the Cutlass was.
This is true, although it’s also true it was fairly common to shift names from big cars to smaller ones just as a lot of Detroit automakers would gradually demote their line-leaders. For instance, the Buick Special badge went from the B-body to the Y-body senior compact and then the A-body. At Ford, the Fairlane went from upper trim series of the full-size cars to the midsize line.
re: Robert.Walter..was he unfair (Roger Penske)? I remember the print ads from magazines some 45 years ago stating “Penske’s unfair”…don’t know if I’d want to buy a car from him if that was true.
re: MCT…yes, I had forgotten that the original F85 was a compact car which I guess became midsized around 1964, the year before my Father bought his wagon. Guess it ended up as a good move for Olds, as 10 or 11 years later as a Cutlass it ended up being the best selling car for a few years.
re: Ate up with Motor..I also didn’t know about the Buick Special changing platforms…I’m familiar with “name devaluation” where a model ends up going down the food chain in terms of prestige, and then perhaps down a platform (size-wise), but it seems odd to me when a name goes from a smaller car to a larger car and then back to a smaller car, but GM seems to have done this a few times…this seems opposite of what they are doing now by changing the name of the same size platform after several years (like “Cavalier to Cobalt to Cruze” or “Celebrity to Lumina to Impala”
In addition, Nova to Citation to Corsica/Beretta to FWD Malibu
I will also expand on the others you had mentioned:
Monza to Cavalier to Cobalt to Cruze
RWD Chevelle Malibu to RWD Malibu to Celebrity to Lumina to Impala
Shown here is the Chevrolet Nova niche’ Family Tree which shows its early beginnings in 1963 as a Nova and 2016 as a Malibu.
Now here is the 2 Door Coupe Nova niche’ Family Tree showing from the 1962-63 Nova through the 1988-96 Beretta.
As a lifelong cheapskate, I have an affection for cars such as this. Like others above, I offer a few reasons, too, why such a car may have been made at all:
1. People Like Me: OK, I’m not quite that extreme, but a small number of people dislike certain options/features, even long after they’ve become fairly common. It’s a mentality that’s hard to explain, but some people enjoy being anachronistic, even if no one else notices.
2. A Low Base Price: Oldsmobile could advertise a very low base price for their Omega, even if cars equipped like this were probably impossible to find on dealers’ lots.
3. Makes Other People Feel Better About Themselves: Customers who ordered more commonly-equipped Omegas at least had the satisfaction of knowing that they’re weren’t at the lowest rung on the ladder.
One further amusing item about this car is that the owner of a 38-year-old stripped-down Omega felt compelled to buy the optional Crater Lake graphic license plates. Yes, the optional (and nicely-designed) plates are only $20 extra, but they add an amusing juxtaposition to the car itself.
I think Leon is spot on but so is Eric. The nova with the hatch would grab my money and replace my truck. Make it a straight six with a manual (on the floor please). Old guys and Anachronism. What a pair to draw to.
Wow, I am not sure that I even knew these existed. You should win an award for finding one.
I wonder if Oldsmobile was gunning for some fleet business? As for retail sales, I may go along with Leon. Some people were regular Olds customers and something like this could keep a buyer or two from going elsewhere for a car to send Sally off to college with. Poor Sally, though.
I saw one of these F85s once. Puzzled me deeply. I wondered if it was “custom”, i.e., the owner just stuck an F85 badge on his strippo Omega.
As someone who is very into cars of the seventies and eighties, I never realized how many strippers there were in the seventies compared to the eighties. Maybe the strippers of the eighties just weren’t as apparent or just went ignored.
But the Chrysler K-cars were strippers of the eighties and everyone knew those.
My dad had always wanted an Olds F-85 in the 1960s. Sadly, he never owned one. That probably explains my love for Oldsmobiles – alas, I’ve never owned an Olds either.
Speaking about stripper models, our 1981 Plymouth Reliant was THE stripper – no radio, A/C or power-anything, only an inside-controlled driver’s side mirror! However, it was trimmed very nicely with bright interior & exterior trim that looked pretty good.
Wow! I didn’t think Chrysler put out many de-optioned cars in 1981. The big complaint on introduction was that every copy of this new small, affordable Chrysler Motors car seemed to be priced at $8,000 due to all the options loaded in…
maybe this one was built at the end of the model year?
This was offered in early 1981 as the $5,880 special, for there were complaints that the cars were overpriced – sticker shock at the time – due to being heavily optioned. Think “Brougham-itis”.
Sales had slipped a bit, if I recall, and the basic model was the loss-leader. Whatever, we had ours for 7 years, and we had a blast driving it! 4-speed manual on the floor, and it would run rings, especially in the snow, around most everything else at the time.
Standard equipment list:
2.2L, carbureted.
4 speed standard on the floor.
Armstrong steering.
Manual brakes (I think).
Single inside controlled driver’s side mirror.
Carpeting.
Vinyl bench seats.
That may have been Lee Iacocca’s influence, to make the strippos look less Strippo. Certainly this looks less Strippo on the outside than the base model Plymouth Volaré and Dodge Aspen from a few years prior.
Even those early K-cars supplied to the Federal government were trimmed like this, the only visible fleet decontenting was silver bumper covers and black inserts on the body-side moldings on those ordered in special fleet colors.
Wow, that makes the 1986 Aries wagon with the manual windows and the brothel red cloth seats seem like it was loaded.
On another note, thanks to the interwebs and old motoring shows, I can confirm that Ma Mopar did offer Aries cars with power windows and locks but I have never seen one in the metal(I have seen Lebarons and TC wagons with them)
I have always liked the K cars, For the price, you got a car that was compact and fuel friendly but actually sat 4 folks in comfort(yes the back seat could fit 3 in it and some got a bench seat in the front that could in theory fit 3 but it was a miserable adventure) Try that with a Corolla or Accord of the time.
I don’t know about the Aries/Reliant as released, but they definitely did get power windows eventually. My grandfather bought one of the facelift Reliants, I think an ’85, and I remember it having power windows as well as a few other options that were still “fancy” for 1985, like intermittent wipers.
The smallest car since 2000 to have power windows, powerful A/C, keyless entry and driver control door locks would be the Toyota Echo 4 Door Sedan.
I drove a 73 Omega in 1992, straight six, AT and fairly stripped…but it had a AM radio! Despite being nearly 20 years old it was a good ride and of course only cost couple hundred bucks.
I actually prefer the stupid cabriolet roof.
The other funny thing with this particular car is that interior fabric. My father had a 75 Nova Coupe with a 350, Auto, am/fm radio, vinyl roof and rally wheels. It also had body side moldings, so it was somewhat equipped like a mid range model, but essentially was a base car as the next step up was the Custom, then the one year only LN. It had the exact same seat materials as this Omega, even looks to be virtually the same color. So buying the low rung Omega netted you the base Nova interior from 2 years prior! Oh and by the way, I like the cabriolet roof too. It’s just something that’s lost to history so it appeals to me, then, as now.
I think base Novas had that ribbed vinyl (or plaid cloth) throughout the ’75-79 generation.
Not a fan of strippers. A like a few features on my cars. I tend to go more luxurious; high-end sound system, leather seats, better motors, nicer trim details.
My sister’s car is the closest thing I know to a stripper car; no cruise, tilt steering, tachometer, power windows. Oddly though it has heated seats and remote start (welcome to Canada?).
Nice finding a rare model. One of the great things about car spotting in the real world is finding something genuine that you never knew existed.
Why the F85 over the Nova? Because “There’s A Special Feel In An Oldsmobile”. Did no one get the memo ?
I love strippers. The move for everything to be “premium” and “upscale” adds useless features and unnecessary cost and complexity to even the base models.
When a car like the Sonic comes with a digital speedo and no temperature gauge, one can say we’ve jumped the shark. But you can get a heated compass !
I’ll take function over gimmicks and flash anyday. Your choices may vary.
Olds was going after Chevy customers, one of GM’s deadly sins in my opinion.
Local dealers actually had displays showing “you can buy an Oldsmobile for just a little more then a Chevy!”
Wow. What a bland interior, made a little more interesting (but a lot more attractive) by the late 70’s GM plastics that all fade to slightly different colors. Not sure what’s going on with that panel next to the rear seat, either.
The block red-white-red taillights remind me of the ones used on the ’79 Malibu, though these are flat-faced and those were segmented into three units.
I’d say this car has had its rear side interior panel replaced at some point, with one from another car that was a darker color. I’m guessing they painted it to match but it’s now peeling off. The interior does look bland, as I had stated in an earlier comment, because it is straight out of the base 75 Nova. I will say that the 75-76 models had a much more attractive dash design. It more resembled the one in my 68 Nova, whereas the 77-79 design was just a plain series of rectangles. The interior of my Dad’s 75 Nova actually held up well. All the plastic was in good shape and the dash had no cracks when it met the end of the road due to severe rust, with just shy of 200,000 miles on it. The engine and transmission lived on for many more years in a 1980 Monte Carlo my Dad picked up cheaply, that had a bad v6.
And here we have yet another GM Deadly Sin candidate. It used to be when you paid the extra money to get a strippo model of a higher-tier GM brand (instead of just buying the better-equipped Chevy version for the same price), you at least got some distinctive sheet metal and a brand-specific drivetrain. With the Omega F-85, all you got was a more expensive strippo Nova with a JC Whitney grille.
As shown on this Sales Brochure from Chevrolet de Mexico since Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles and Buicks were not even imported to Mexico yet (unless its a “gray market” car which commonly crosses the border from the U.S. and Canada) during the 1970s through the late 1980s, the Buick Skylark shown here was actually renamed Chevrolet Concours De Lujo in 1978. It was an irony that in U.S. and Canada that the Concours name was dropped for 1978 in favor of the revival of the Nova Custom name, but in Mexico it was still carried over as an option trim and remember that the Mexican Novas or for that matter all of their cars built there did not have the standard catalytic converters since the Mexican Government had not made them into law until 1991.
Besides the Mexican Novas as a conclusion to the first posting, GM Iran aka Pars Khodro also produced Chevrolet Novas, Buick Skylarks and Cadillac Sevilles. The photo on the top left was their unique 1977 Chevrolet Nova (see the grille and the front bumper) 4 Door Sedan. This version had an Oldsmobile Omega rear end taillight treatment., 1992 YES 1992 Chevrolet Nova (our version of the 1979 Nova) 4 Door Sedan (which had even outlived its North American replacement the FWD 1980-85 Chevrolet Citation), 1979-86 Buick Skylark 4 Door Sedan (which were our pre-1979 model since our Skylark was downsized with FWD in 1980 and then converted to the identical sized FWD N-Car in 1986.) and their 1979-85 Cadillac Seville 4 Door Sedan (which was our 1975 1/2-1979 versions and unrelated to its slightly larger replacement the FWD BOF 1980-85 Cadillac Eldorado based bustle back Seville). Note that their Seville or they loosely called the “Civil” had a slightly different grille than our U.S. version. The Iran Seville had a thicker waterfall grille while the North American version had a thinner waterfall type grille from 1977-79.
Wow! That 77 in the upper left looks like a really odd amalgam of Nova and Skylark front end parts.
YES and check that tail end of that same car, but different color though.
75 Omega taillights! Nova and Skylark front end parts… Looks like the only thing missing are parts from the Pontiac Ventura!
We can somehow consider that the front bumper were from the 1975-77 Pontiac Ventura.
The grille on the Chevrolet is far more evocative of Cadillac than the one on the Seville. I’ve never thought the Seville front end of that generation lived up to the design of the rest of the car.
Its just too bad that in North America, the Nova only had a short production run in 1979. Had GM did not rushed the Citation and its other GM cousins in production to replace the Nova, perhaps a “1980” Nova may get this grille with square front headlights though. Just my thoughts.
1979 Nova US models in fact did get this front treatment in it’s swan song year. Short production period, so not so common to find now.
I meant that the front end and grille treatment of the 1977 Iranian Nova which was not even available outside of Iran plus with square headlights had GM continued the Nova for 1980 which unfortunately GM didn’t and the Citation and its GM FWD X-Body cousins became an embarrassment for GM.
Iran may still had plenty of those grille on their warehouse somewhere in that country since their Novas were produced all the way through 1992. From 1985-92 grille design.
Not sure, but maybe there were plans to keep the Nova longer, but pressure to “get the Citation on the street” by HQ changed plans?
I wonder how many Rallye Novas were produced? The numbers have to be very low….
The Nova Rally which were really a cosmetic decor version of the base Nova version with sporty and extra options/fully loaded attached were the lowest produced Novas of any year especially 1979. The Nova Rally which was a Nova SS options for 1975-76 were nothing more unlike the 1968-74 versions where you can have a large engine displacement as a 396 cu in. (in reality it was a 402 cu in.), but cosmetic decor options since the engines were no longer powerful enough even though a 350 cu in V8 option might be adequate enough. All 1975 and after cars had a downgrade in engine size selection and power due to the requirements set forth by the government during those times since fuel economy were more paramount during that era as well.
“Had GM did not rushed the Citation and its other GM cousins in production to replace the Nova…..”
And the Citation may not have had as many ‘issues’.
Something about that F85 from the brochure makes it look like a 70s version of a 53 Chevrolet.
“The whole idea of bringing back the F-85 in 1975 as a stripper Omega was a dubious idea…”
There was a bad recession in winter ’75. Big 3 were desparate for sales and brought out ‘economy’ models, due to large drop in sales from car price increases and the first year for unleaded gas requirement. The term “sticker shock” was coined this year.
Big 3 were desparate and brought out mid-year ‘economy’ models. [Chrysler had the first rebates] I remember the ’75 Chicago Auto Show had ads for all these ‘specials’ and they with special roof displays for these base models. Newspaper articles wrote of “will these work?’, and were meant to try to ease sticker shock, but really just ‘get them in the door’.
Buick had Skylark S, Olds had this F85. Others were the return of the Ford Custom 500, Mustang II Pony and Chevy Monza S. But, by 1976, sales went back up, since buyers “got used to” MSRP’s and the strippos fell by the wayside.
“The Fully Clothed Stripper.” Best post title ever.
The least known 1975 Nova “S” NOT the “SS” was also a stripper model. In fact it has least features compared to the base Nova.
Love that name of the post too!
I always thought it was ironic how GM mixed and matched their cars all over the world, using grills from one brand and taillights from another and different names as well. Renamed models such as the Laurentian and Parisienne fascinated me. The first time I ever experienced one in person my family was on a vacation at the Cape. It was a beige Laurentian wagon with no woodgrain, probably a ’74 or ’75 model. I asked my Dad why that Pontiac wagon had a weird name. He had no idea either!
There are two reasons why I think GM/Oldsmobile offered these F-85’s – as a price leader to get people into the door and into the Oldsmobile brand, and also to make an Omega customer buy a higher model so they didn’t feel cheap buying the base car. People were very name brand loyal with their cars back then, especially among GM brands.
I think the foreign competition had curbed any means of offering stripped down models as well. People were seeing foreign cars equipped with a lot of standard features and it made the foreign models very desirable and full of value. The American manufacturers couldn’t compete with that any more so the idea of stripped vehicles only got rarer and rarer as time and years went on.
I always thought the Concours was a looker, and sadly I never got my hands on one. Maybe the stripper Olds was for those boneheads who actually though the Olds name still meant something better than Chevrolet or Pontiac.
To quote Steely Dan, “Those days were gone forever over a long time ago”.
I see a Buick Skylark “S” at least 3 times a week during my morning commute. One day the driver, pulled into the WaWa right behind me, and parked a spot away from me.
As I was getting out of my car, he was opening his door, and I waved and said, “Nice car!”. I wasn’t lying cause the car was in very good shape. I walked over, and the owner, a nice gentleman in his late 70’s, was so eager to tell me about his car. Turns out, he was the original owner and brought the car off the dealers lot (an odd thing to do back in the day) as it was advertised as the weekly special. The car had an automatic, air, AM radio, power steering, and that’s about it. He told me that he had purchased the car to use as a commuter, and then he switched jobs and only used the car to go back and fourth to the train station.
The car had 85,000 carefully driven miles on it, and was cared for very carefully, and always at the Buick dealership. The car had dog dish hub caps, and the same plain Jane vinyl seats as the feature F-85 in the pictures above.
I ended the conversation with the gentleman on the note, …. “Here’s my cell number if you ever want to sell it”…
Since other writers of Curbside Classic wrote plenty about the Dodge Darts and Dodge Diplomat built in other countries. I hope that someone will write about the 1975-79 Novas and other RWD X-Bodies including the RWD K-Body 1975 1/2-79 Cadillac Seville from those era which were built outside of the U.S. and Canada sometime in the near future. There were some other 4G Novas built in other countries of Central and South America. But besides those, the ones from Mexico and Iran would definitely be nice conversation pieces.
Wow, that is just sad, the paint or whatever is peeling off the plastic trim in the back.
THIS IS MY CAR!
(The exact one pictured)
Would anyone know if its the even or odd fire 3.8l in there? It runs rough but the previous owner said he replaced the distributor, so i dont know for sure..
Thank you so much for educating me on it!
It is the odd-fire 3.8, if it’s the original engine. The even fire didn’t come until ’79, IIRC.
Nice car; maybe I’ll see you around in it again.
Wow! Thanks Paul, Ive been emailing GM dor a month now and couldn’t get that answer.. Time to buy a new distributor!
I agree with some of the other posts, some dealers would order a stripper model so they could advertise “get an Oldsmobile for only $XXX a month!” and then when somebody comes in to look at it try and move them into something better equipped (and more profitable.) I always wondered why Oldsmobile which was supposedly #3 in the GM hierarchy would offer something like this.
I always wondered why Oldsmobile (and Buick also) would offer something this cheap-especially when you compare it to the Nova Concours pictured.
I’m thinking this was a dealer ploy-order a stripper model so the dealer could advertise “drive an Oldsmobile today for only $XXX a month!” And then when someone shows up try and move him into something larger (and more profitable).
Remember that it was the original F-85 that begat Cutlass (not Omega).
So, in ’77, F-85 should have been the name for a stripper Cutlass.
The 1971 F-85 was the last Cutlass version, and was only a 4 door sedan, no coupe or hardtop. By this time, F-85 name was like Bel Air, Catalina, or Biscayne, artifacts from past used for base models. And the Cutlass name became more well known by the mid 60’s.
The Omega F-85 was brought out as a 1975 “Recession special”, and stuck around as price leader, but was bait for Cutlass/88 sales. “For a few more $$”
My great aunt’s last car was a ’76 Omega, but a nicer trim model. To her, it was “an Olds for a cheaper price”. I don’t know what motor it had, she lived 300 mi. away. But, I bet it was an Olds 260 v8. Most that I seen around NE IL were like hers.
BTW: The Chevy Concours never sold that hot, for the money one could get a Malibu, and most Nova buyers got the cheaper versions. Only sold for 76-77, then back to Nova Custom for 78-79.