1966 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Town Sedan: GM’s Cheapest C-Body Luxury Car

Back when GM still built luxury cars rather than just trucks, the C-body was the largest of the corporation’s shared body shells, used by Cadillac and the senior Buick and Oldsmobile models. In 1966, your cheapest option for getting a big C-body luxury car was the Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Town Sedan, the less-fancy of Oldsmobile’s top-of-the-line pillared four-doors.

Oldsmobile introduced its first Town Sedan models back in February 1941. At that time, they were not part of the senior Series 90 line, nor did they use the C-body — they were four-door notchback sedans in the A-body Olds Series 60 line, designed to look like the big Series 90 Custom Cruiser. The model name didn’t return after the war, although for a while Oldsmobile applied the Town Sedan name to its four-door B-body fastback sedans.

The first C-body Olds 98 Town Sedan appeared in 1961, as essentially a new name for the pillared four-door sedan that had previously been called the 98 Celebrity Sedan. The only reason this body style needed a particular name was to more easily distinguish the pillared four-door from the four-door hardtops, which were then called Holiday Sedan and Sport Sedan. From 1963, these were joined by the extra-posh Ninety-Eight Luxury Sedan, which was initially also a hardtop, but became a pillared sedan from 1965.

For 1966, there were five C-body Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight models: the slow-selling convertible; two- and four-door Holiday hardtops; and two pillared sedans, the cheaper Town Sedan and the fancier Luxury Sedan. The Town Sedan was once again the cheapest, starting at $3,939, $340 less than the Luxury Sedan. That price made the Town Sedan the cheapest 1966 GM C-body, listing for $83 less than a Buick Electra 225 and $1,642 less than a pillared Cadillac Calais sedan.

Later in the model year, Olds raised the price of the Town Sedan to $3,966, but it was still the least expensive version of GM’s biggest luxury cars. Stretching 223 inches overall on a 126-inch wheelbase, the Ninety-Eight Town Sedan was fractionally shorter than the Electra 225, but a full 6 inches longer than the roughly $800 cheaper B-body Delta 88 Celebrity Sedan.

Like the rest of the Ninety-Eight line, the Town Sedan came with about $500 worth of standard equipment that cost extra on the cheaper 88 models, including Turbo Hydra-Matic, power steering, and power brakes. However, Town Sedan buyers didn’t get center armrests, the split-back Custom Sport seat included on the hardtops and convertible, or the power windows and two-way power seat that were standard on the pricier Ninety-Eight models.

For some Olds buyers, that might have been for the best: The Town Sedan was the only way you could get the larger Ninety-Eight body and fancier trim without power windows or a power seat, which weren’t all that common on full-size Oldsmobiles of this era. However, the original buyer of this Ninety-Eight ordered power windows and a six-way power seat, at a combined extra cost of $197.35.

They also ordered manual air conditioning, the fancier Super Deluxe signal seeker tuning AM radio, a power decklid release, and remote outside mirrors on both sides, for an additional $570.90. The simulated walnut grain dash panels and clock were standard.

The Town Sedan pictured in this post has an incorrect “Luxury Sedan” badge on the passenger side of the dash. To illustrate the difference, I found a 1966 Luxury Sedan for comparison — note its different upholstery stitching pattern and fold-down armrests.

Town Sedan upholstery was plenty fancy, and it covered foam-padded seats, but having armrests only on the doors did knock it down a notch or two on the luxury scale.

Back seat passengers in the Town Sedan also did without the assist handles, woodgrain seat-back trim, and rear vanity mirror that were standard on the Luxury Sedan.

Unlike the Pontiac Star Chief Executive and Bonneville, whose stretched B-body didn’t provide any additional cabin space, the C-body’s longer wheelbase gave it a little more rear legroom: 2.3 inches more than a Delta 88 four-door hardtop, 1.2 inches more than an 88 Celebrity Sedan. (The pillared sedans’ more upright C-pillars allowed the rear seat to be set back a little farther.) Back seat space was ample by most any standard.

The bigger body also provided over 20 percent more usable trunk space than the B-body 88. This car’s rubber trunk mat was optional; as a factory option, it was normally packaged with a spare tire cover, so this one may have been added as a dealer accessory.

Standard engine on all Ninety-Eight models was the 425 cid Super Rocket H.C. V-8, with the new four-barrel Rochester Quadrajet carburetor and 360 gross horsepower. The higher-compression Starfire V-8 was optional for $63.19. The Starfire engine had only 10 more rated horsepower, but it included dual exhausts, which provided a sizable bump in net horsepower, and it came with a 3.23 axle ratio rather than the standard 3.08.

Equipped as you see here, the Ninety-Eight Town Sedan listed for around $6,000 (a relative worth of about $67,300 in 2025 dollars) — being the cheapest C-body didn’t mean it was cheap. If you lived in a climate that didn’t demand air conditioning and you skipped the power windows, power seat, and vinyl roof, you could hold the MSRP down to around $4,300, at which price this was still quite a lot of car.

In another era, that might have made the Town Sedan a hit, but it was an also-ran in 1966. It sold better than the almost-forgotten convertible, but more than two-thirds of Ninety-Eight buyers preferred the pricier Luxury Sedan or hardtop Holiday Sedan. Town Sedan sales totaled a modest 10,892, compared to 23,048 Holiday Sedans and 38,123 Luxury Sedans.

You could argue that the Luxury Sedan didn’t offer anything you couldn’t live without, especially for more than $300 extra, but you could also argue that the bigger trunk, extra rear legroom, and fancier trim of the Town Sedan weren’t worth the extra $300 over a comparably equipped Delta 88 Celebrity Sedan. In this league, “want” has always counted for a lot more than “need.”

 

Related Reading

1962 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Holiday Coupe: A Sharper-Edged Roof Squares Off The Bubbletop (by me)

Vintage Car Life Review: 1962 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Holiday Sports Sedan – “Silent Splendor” For $1,000 Less Than A Cadillac (by me)

1963 Oldsmobile 98 Luxury Sedan – When Olds First Leapfrogged Buick On The Sloan Ladder (by Paul N)

1946 and 1968 Oldsmobile 98 Sedans: Cadillac Luxury From GM’s Mid-Priced Brand (by me)