nifticus has found a car that has not had its 15 minutes of CC fame yet (how many more are there?). We did have a CC on a ’63 Starfire convertible back in 2011, but this is a 1964, and it’s now 2022, and there were some curious developments at Olds in 1964 we need to sort out, if possible.
Let’s start with the basics, for those of you weren’t hanging around your local Oldsmobile dealer in 1964. I was, and that’s what led to my confusion about these. I’m not sure we’ll ever sort it out, but here’s the gist of it.
The Starfire arrived in 1961, as the first of GM’s B-Body bucket-seat brigade, the herald of a new era of big sporty cars with standard bucket seats, console and floor shifter, the template for so many others to come: Chevrolet SS, Pontiac GP, Buick Wildcat. Presumably Olds got the nod to go first, befitting its rep as the “Experimental Division”.
Strictly speaking, the 1960.5 Corvair Monza kicked off this sporty wave at GM, although there were some earlier partial antecedents, as buckets first showed up in the 1958 Pontiac Bonneville, but without the console and floor shifter.
Somewhat curiously, the Starfire was only available as a convertible in 1961, which was one of my areas of confusion back then. But that rather makes sense, as the only B-Body hardtop coupe roof was the bubbletop, and it might not have looked distinctive enough wearing that common hat.
In 1962, the new “convertible look” hardtop joined the rag top, and of course the same formula appeared at Pontiac in the Grand Prix, at Buick as the Wildcat and of course the Impala Super Sport.
1962 would turn out to be the high water mark for Starfire sales, with 42k units.
1963 marked a significant restyle for all the B-Bodies, and the Starfire picked up a new and unique hardtop roof. Well, it wasn’t totally unique to the Starfire; as essentially the same structure also appeared on the new 1963 Grand Prix. But the impact was very different.
The new GP blew the Starfire away; out into space. Its dramatic front end and very clean sides made it one of the sensations of 1963. It followed the formula that Cadillac had finally figured out too: no chrome or trim on the sides, but a healthy bright rocker panel trim make a car look decidedly more upscale, elegant and appealing. Meanwhile, the Starfire side trim with contrasting panel was so…1958. No wonder sale dropped. It looked totally outclassed, and not just by the GP.
Olds got the message, and ditched all the fussy side trim for 1964. It was an improvement, and the Starfire is a handsome car, but it just didn’t ignite very many afterburners. It just didn’t look special enough, like the GP.
And then there was its near clone, the 1964 Jetstar I. Is that the first use of the “I” in a car name? Were they pondering a future Jetstar II?y
It’s essentially the same car, with the trim rearranged a bit and lower standard content, for a lower price. But it still came standard with buckets, console, floor shift, and the same 345 hp 392 CID Rocket V8. Yes, that’s what confused eleven year-old me. I didn’t quite catch on that the Hydramatic, power brakes and steering and a few other goodies were optional. But who in their right mind would order a Jetstar 1 without these? I don’t have the info at hand, but I suspect that a similarly-equipped Starfire and Jetstar 1 probably cost pretty much the same?
Whatever…It had the effect of tanking Starfire sales even further. I’m in Port Orford, so I don’t have my Encyclopedia at hand, but I suspect Jetsart 1 sales weren’t all that hot either, and combined sales undoubtedly lagged the GP’s by a big margin. Speaking of, it’s pretty obvious that the Jetstar 1 was intended to offer a low starting price similar to the GP, which also came standard without the stuff that should long have been standard.
Olds just couldn’t get any traction in the big sporty car niche, and the Starfire would blast off for the last time in 1966. The Jetstar 1 was already space detritus by then. Olds found more success with its mid-sized 442 and the Toronado undoubtedly made the Starfire redundant.
Thanks for the great write-up, Paul.
I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about 1960s cars from the then-Big 3. But this is one car from that era that I was unfamiliar with. I did speak to the owner as he showed up while I was taking the pictures. He told me a bit about the car (that it was a ’64 with a 394) and that it came out of a field. According to Wikipedia, there were 13,753 Starfire coupes made in 1964 so it’s not a surprise that I never see any of these at my local Cars and Coffee!
I actually just picked one of these up today!
Sorry…mines a jetstar not a starfire
The Olds compared to that Grand Prix— it really suffers. Although the scalloped beltline has some appeal, with, its “Now it’s a fin, now it isn’t, now it is again”, crown moulding, the flanks– and the body in general — lack the touch of the organic that make the GP timeless. It’s as if the whole car was run through a planer. Oldsmobiles in the years leading up to the mid ’60s had interesting details that wove in and out, over and under each other, like that front fender treatment on that striking ’61 convert near the head of the story, but their brief did seem better suited to their compact sized offering. Still, this is a cool find.
Just what I was thinking. Though I agree with you totally, I’d have been a bit kinder. The overall body shape seemed to go from cool and sporty (’61) to stiff and stodgy. Was there a change in staff at the top of Olds’ design studios during this period?
But since you’ve mentioned it, I can just imagine the ’64 coming out of one of these!
Great find nifticus! I did a full detailed write-up on the 1964 Oldsmobiles several years ago:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/car-show-classics-1964-oldsmobile-dynamic-88-convertible-394-cubic-inches-and-3-on-the-tree/
I discussed the production figures of the Starfire and Jetfire I in that article as well.
Thanks for the link. I’m sitting in my van, and the internet via my cell phone hot spot is not so hot. It makes every search and link and such tedious. Especially so at 9:45 after a very long day of hard work. I’m putting back the metal siding on the pole barn/cabin after tearing that wall totally apart and putting in large windows and a new glass door, the side facing the ocean. Flashing pole barn siding and windows and doors is quite different than regular construction, and it’s been a learning process.
Aha! That explains today’s uncharacteristic typos. I was wondering if you were coming down with something.
Just read it. Great write-up!
1964 Grand Prix – 63,810 -base price $3,499
1964 Starfire – 16,163 (includes 2,410 convertibles) – base price $4,138/$4,753
1964 Jetstar I – 16,084 – base price $3,603
I’ve always liked the ’62 Starfire with its wide molding, but I’d certainly take a ’63 Grand Prix first. That car is probably the best example of how a few trim changes can make a big difference in the overall effect of a car.
I bought a ’62 Starfire in ’68 fir 895.00. Maroon. Rocket Action Olds is too mild a name for this car. Loved it!
My grandparents always bought 5 year old GM cars at Peter Fuller Cadillac Olds in Boston—usually Oldsmobile or Buick. Their ‘62 Starfire hardtop was a surprise for sure, white with red vinyl bucket seats and a console with a tachometer. This replaced a ‘57 Buick Roadmaster 4 door hardtop.
I was 10 at the time and very impressed.
Great find, nifticus! Paul is certainly right that the Grand Prix turned out much better than the Starfire, but I have an unusual awareness of and weakness for the 63 Starfire due to building a lot of Johan brand 1/25 scale model cars as a kid. The kit in the picture was one of their limited line of 1960’s kits reissued, repackaged and available in the 1980’s. I expect they originally had a 1964 kit as well, but never reissued it.
I built the 63 pretty early in my model building “career” (like 13 years old) and later realized I did a not-so-good job building it. I stashed it away, but kept it. Several years ago at a flea market I came across an incomplete 63 Starfire kit that had an unpainted body, interior and not much else. I bought it pretty cheap, disassembled my old model, repainted the parts I needed off it and painted the new body/interior up to adult standards. Now I have a beautiful, to me at least, 63 Starfire on my shelf. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen a kit available of a 63 Grand Prix.
I built a 63 Starfire kit too, only pretty late in my modeling career, so it was one of my better ones. Now that you mention it, I don’t ever recall seeing a 63 GP kit either.
Before anyone asks, yes I built one too, but sold it to a guy in the States twenty-odd years ago. Hard to find since Johan models went under.
Likewise, I don’t think there was a ’63 GP model. They tended to do only top-of-the-range cars, which in Pontiac’s case meant Bonneville. Maybe GP didn’t have enough of a separate identity yet.
You were right, this was confusing. And there was one more bit of confusion to add to the mix: 1964 was the year Olds introduced the new Jetstar 88 as its price-leading big car. It was the big B body Olds with the A body Cutlass running gear, essentially. So there was the Jetstar 88, the Jetstar I (with I as a higher number than 88, apparently – because Roman > Arabic?) and then the Starfire. No wonder my parents bought a Cutlass that year instead.
I looked up production figures – the 1964 Starfire and Jetstar I were almost a wash with one another. Jetstar I led in hardtops (16,084 to 14,663) but the Starfire could brag about another 3,903 convertibles for the win. 1963 saw 25,890 Starfires (4,401 being convertibles). So a mixture again – there were around 5,000 more big sporty 2 door Oldsmobiles in 1964, but around 11,000 fewer Starfires.
If I recall the Jetstar I was the only one to return for 1965. The Toronado was well underway when the 64 models were arranged, so maybe Olds was trying to quietly slide the big sporty 2 doors down the price ladder a bit.
If I recall the Jetstar I was the only one to return for 1965.
I wondered about that too, but the ’66 brochure only shows the Starfire and not the Jetfire I.
I remembered wrong. The 1965 brocuhre says that both the Starfire and Jetstar I were back in 1965. Production figures indicate that the pricier Starfire hardtop outsold the Jetstar I by about 2:1 (roughly 13k vs 6500) with the Starfire having another 2200 convertibles. So in 1965 it was the cheaper version that nosedived while the Starfire held up fairly well from 1964. I see that the cheaper car shared the 88s rear end while the Starfire got a unique one, with taillights that seem to have inspired the 67 Ford. Of course with 1965 being a record year, staying even with 1964 production was nothing to brag about.
Oddly, the 66 Starfire hardtop production was almost dead even with 1965 (though with the convertible axed), even in the year that the Toronado arrived.
Your main point about the whole thing being a confused mess holds up quite well for the entire life of this model. I never really understood it and still don’t.
A 1962 Starfire appeared in a 1985 episode of the Cosby Show, “Denise Drives.”
I was just a kid then, but I had never heard of this car and never seen one. And I don’t know that I have seen one in the metal over the last 37 years.
That’s exactly the car, episode, and show that sprang to mind when I saw this post. I remember watching it, but not that the car was red—replacement of our 1978 RCA 19″ black-and-white television set by a 19″ colour Zenith was still a year or two away.
(whoever wants to see the episode can watch it here)
In our household our TV viewing also labored under a 19″ B&W set until 1986. The new color set might have been 21″, I recall it being a significant leap ahead.
I swear I remember Squad 51 being red when watching Emergency! reruns on the B&W set.
The recent 4 part documentary, “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” is challenging but really worth watching.
We had a color set by the late 70s, but how I loved watching Emergency. Also in re-runs, and on a B+W set (in my room!) with rabbit ears.
My Father owned only one Oldsmobile in his life, a new ’65 F85 Wagon. It marked the end of a string of two Rambler Wagons that preceded it; Rambler was first wagon he was to buy; but the 2nd one was totalled outside our motel room where we were staying having vacated our home in Catonsville but hadn’t made the transition up to Burlington quite yet. My Father had to show up for work before we moved, not sure how he got there (probably flew) but bought the F85 at Val Preda’s in South Burlington, and drove it down to pick us all up in his new car. I think it was a pretty good car, maybe just a bit small as his family was growing, and he replaced it with a full sized Ford Country Squire. The F85 was the first car we used our car-top camper on, it rested on the raingutter in use and lived on the ceiling in our garage when not.
I was a big fan of Emergency, mostly during my undergraduate days when I’d watch it with my dear departed youngest sister (I was a commuter student living at home) as a distraction from my studies. I had a Sears Silvertone B&W 19″ tube set that took forever to warm up enough to get a good picture, though I could go into the family room and watch it on another 19″ Sylvania set (had distinction of a capacitor expanding and shattering the circuit board it was soldered to, the tech that fixed it actually pieced the existing board together to get it going, guess parts weren’t available, not sure what labor he charged, it must have been expensive. We had a rotating antenna on a mast connected by twinax cable to the TV and could pull in Canadian stations (seeing as we lived closer to Montreal than to Boston or NYC that wasn’t too hard).
My (great) Aunts were the Oldsmobile owners in our family…two spinsters who lived in the family homestead, they had a ’62 (think it was an F85) and after one passed on in 1968, the remaining one bought a new 98 in 1969.
Beautiful car in it’s own right. I found one for sale in Texas a few years ago, and I researched them at that time. It’s hard to know exactly what their intentions were with the Jetstar lineup, other than to give dealers cheaper versions to sell, which seems a bit silly. Perhaps there was a vocal group of customers demanding a performance coupe without “frills” like power steering or brakes ( in the case of the “I”)? I mean, I’d take one, but I’d rather go full out and get the glorious Starfire.
The Grand Prix is beautiful, and does make the Olds look dated when side by side. I’d be happy with either!
didn’t GM force Pontiac to take the Olds auto transmissions for the shorter wb full size – the Catalina and GP – because Olds excess capacity
while the Star Chief Executive and Bonneville got the better automatics
the Olds transmission was a weakness
neighbor had the 1963 GP in that dark blue and replaced it w/ a white 1972 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale 2 door, I remember she said it was a huge mistake
but this is a 1064
Now, THAT’s an Oldsmobile.
I’m surprised buckets and console sales took off in the heyday of drive-in theaters and cruising, or were parents of teens buying them trying to keep ’em separated?
Since they declined in popularity somewhat in the Brougham era, does this mean bench seats and column shift may come back one day?
…as a very similar roof appeared on the Dodge Dart that year:
The Dart wasn’t the only one.
Hey, yeah; the B-body is even closer to the Olds.
Yes, thick C-pillars on all of them plus Hofmeister kinks (before we knew them as such).
Good catch, I never noticed that. The GM’s had an ever so slight concavity to the rear window which makes the design really pop.
The yellow car here is a pretty one, with the minor exception of those chrome tripod things somebody put in front of the high beam headlamps.
Thanks they are the tribar high beams. Available stock on early 64 starfire only after a recall to change them back as the police complaint. I left these in the car as it is the ultra rare stock piece to the 64 starfire.
Nice article mostly right on the facts. The Oldsmobile Rocket v8 in 1964 was 394 cubic inches. It was the orginial ohv v8 that olds introduced in 1949 at 303 cubic inches. It was designed to be enlarged every few years. This was the twilight for Oldsmobile orginial ohv engine, a newer engine would be debuted soon. My dad had a 64 Dynamic88 4dr sedan blue with white top. As a 2nd car in the early 70s I bought mine in 1985 with 62000miles and 250.00! It was a great car owned literally by a little old lady. 394 v8 2barrel carb and “Ultra High Compression” written on the top of the air cleaner. And the gas cap said to the effect use high octane fuel. Mine was a black 4dr hard top white interior. That engine would Go!
To my eye, the 1965 Starfire was the first that would have attracted me as a buyer. It finally took on a clean look, and with what became Oldsmobile’s trademark circular open wheel wells it actually looked sporty for a large car. While the ’66 was similar, the detail changes did it no favors.
I’d put one of these in my garage…..
Exaggerated length for sure in the illustration, and the woman looks like she could be in the back seat!
The ’63-’64 Olds is not among my favorites, with the exception of the ’64 Ninety-Eight. It adopted a very clean profile, and did away with some of the quirkier details of the ’63.
Even tho I $old Oldsmobubbles way back when, my jaded eyes have always considered the ’63 Pontiac GP to be the BEST big car GM design of the ’60s. The ’65 Impala SS 2 door hardtop wasn’t far behind the GP though. 🙂
I did sell a very used ’64 88: 4 doors, NO power anything and a 3-on-the-tree. A true POOCH! $till…it was a sale and did put some $$$ in the dealer’s pocket plus mine. That 88 was the exact opposite of the one being featured.
It wasn’t until the then new ’69 Delta Royale 88 with the 390 hp 455 that my personal attention was aroused by a Olds 88. 🙂 DFO
Has the 1962 Bonneville had it’s 15 minutes of fame? I learned a fellow newish volunteer has one. He also has a 1965 Catalina convertible which is… his daily driver. Mom bought it in 1969. He has read things here as I impressed on him the need to write something up on this long time Catalina. The glass packs are an interesting touch but that exhaust leak up front needs work as he knows.
No. Bring it on. Or both of them.
The first new car I was allowed to drive was Dad’s Antique Rose ’63 Starfire.
Disconnecting the speedometer and odometer (easily done via a knurled knob behind the dash) was a snap so a round trip to see my girlfriend didn’t reflect the actual 120 mile distance. Punching the throttle in 2nd gear would induce a quick asphalt chirp from the tires at 35 mph or so, thanks to the 440 lbs-feet of torque.
Pop was an Olds Lifer so when the Toronado came out for ’66 the Starfire went in trade.
My mother had a 64 yellow starfire. She loved that car. Brings back memories of it and growing up in flora indiana in the late 60 early 70. Happy birthday mom and rest in peace
Of the up-and-down, back-and-forth styling between the GM divisions, the one that seemed to come up short more than any of the others always seemed to be Oldsmobile. I guess it kind of makes sense since they were right in the middle between the upper and lower brands, so they had to walk a fine line to keep from encroaching on the other four divisions.
I put the Starfire/Jetstar squarely in that category, just another Maxwell Smart “missed it by ‘that’ much” effort.
The Starfire was not offered in Canada but was replaced for the 67 model year with the Delta Custom. Not a sexy name but with 375 hp 425 cubic inch Olds big block under the hood it was a beast. Dad bought one in December 66. Wish I had it now.