Two decades before its infamous “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile” ad campaign, Olds was already self-conscious about its name and image, describing its late ’60s offerings as “Youngmobiles from Oldsmobile.” In its gleaming Ocean Turquoise metallic paint, this curvaceous Delta 88 four-door hardtop is a cool drink of water, but it appealed to a mature audience.
The turquoise Delta 88 was originally sold on July 24, 1968, by David Ertley, Inc., a well-known Wyoming Valley Oldsmobile dealer in Kingston, Pennsylvania, to Leo V. and Rose Letoski of Swoyersville. The original list price, presumably including destination, was $4,412.27 (a relative worth of about $45,150) plus local tax and license, which the dealer discounted to $3,700.
Rose Letoski’s 2019 obituary in the Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice doesn’t indicate how old she was, but I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that when she and Leo bought this car in 1968, either their six children were already grown or the Letoskis had a second car for child-hauling duties. (There was no trade-in indicated on the invoice.)
This Olds had only 33,750 miles on the odometer when the car came up for sale, and its lovely, unscarred paint and all-original cloth interior show no signs of regular contact with younger children. It’s what you’d expect of a basically pampered (and clearly garaged) middle-class vehicle owned by conscientious middle-aged adults.
That was pretty much the demographic of full-size Oldsmobiles for many years. Cars like this were solid, middle-of-the-road choices for people who could afford something a bit upscale, but didn’t care to stray too far from the expected bounds of their socioeconomic class. They neither had nor aspired to the kind of sporty vibe cultivated by their GM B-body cousins, like the Pontiac Catalina or Chevrolet Impala Super Sport.
The rather swoopy two-door hardtop Holiday Coupe Oldsmobile offered at this time was a bit rakish, but Delta 88 buyers preferred the four-door Town Sedan or Holiday Sedan, which wouldn’t raise any eyebrows in the church parking lot.
List price for a 1968 Delta 88 four-door hardtop was $3,525, but this car was purchased with $739.52 worth of extra-cost equipment, and it’s still not what you’d call a heavily optioned car. About half of that extra cost went for Turbo Hydra-Matic, power steering, and power brakes, which were still technically optional, but essentially compulsory unless you made a big fuss at the dealer. Most of the rest of the option cost was for various minor items like a clock, remote outside mirror, radio, and tinted windshield.
Contemporary Automotive Industries survey data indicates that no 1968 Delta 88s were built with manual transmission, only about 1 percent (perhaps 1,025 cars) were built without power brakes, and a mere 0.1 percent (roughly 100 cars) did without power steering. Almost no one wanted cars like these without those features, and lacking them would make a big Olds a tough sell as a used car or trade-in.
You might expect these big Oldsmobiles to have robust resale values, but they weren’t exceptional in that area. If the Letoskis had tried to trade in their Delta 88 after one year, they could have expected an offer of around $2,275, depending on mileage, which was better than the hapless Mercury Park Lane, but less than the similarly priced Chrysler Newport Custom or Buick Wildcat.
Incidentally, this car’s vinyl roof would have been a good investment, returning $75 of its $110.59 list price within the first couple of years. I take it as a sign of how popular vinyl tops were already becoming as automotive fashion accessories; dealers were obviously confident of their desirability. This car’s chrome door edge moldings were factory equipment, but the wire wheel covers were not purchased with the car; the Letoskis originally specified the much cheaper deluxe wheel discs.
Buyers of full-size Oldsmobiles back then expected — and generally received — honking big engines. You could still get the Olds 350 in the cheaper Delmont 88, but even there, buyers often paid the very modest $33.70 premium for the 455 cid V-8. This car has the high-compression L66 version of the big engine, still with a two-barrel carburetor, but with 10.25 compression and a stonking 500 lb-ft of torque. The low-compression L74 version was a no-cost alternative on the Delta 88, sacrificing 10 hp and 10 lb-ft of torque for the ability to run on regular gasoline. A more powerful four-barrel premium fuel engine was optional for $36.86.
In a test of a 1968 Delmont 88 with the lower-compression engine, Turbo Hydra-Matic, and a 2.73 axle, Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, ran 0 to 60 mph in an adequate 10.5 seconds and the quarter mile in 17.5 seconds. They estimated that gentle highway cruising might return up to 16 mpg, but higher speeds or stop-and-go traffic could push gas mileage as low as 8 mpg. This car, with slightly more power and a taller 2.56 axle ratio, probably wouldn’t be any quicker, but it might be fractionally less thirsty, although that would be offset by the higher price of premium fuel.
On a hot summer day, the Letoskis would have had to rely on calming radio selections and the soothing effect of the car’s attractive turquoise interior to stay cool, since they didn’t splurge on air conditioning. That was becoming unusual in this price class: Per Automotive Industries, 74 percent of 1968 Delta 88 production had factory air.
The Letoskis didn’t buy power windows either, although that was less unusual. Only 14.6 percent of Delta 88 and about 4.2 percent of Delmont 88 buyers ordered power windows, which were actually significantly more common on the midsize Cutlass. My sense is that a lot of the generation that was buying full-size Oldsmobiles were suspicious or disdainful of power window lifts, probably seeing them as one too many things to break.
By 1968, Oldsmobile was following Buick’s lead in adding fancier “Custom” trim series in many of its lines, and the interior of this Delta 88 is SO plush I initially thought it might be the more expensive Delta 88 Custom. It’s not, but its embroidered tufted-button cloth-and-vinyl upholstery and notchback bench seat with folding center armrest (standard on hardtop models) were certainly trending in that direction.
Looking at this upholstery, you can see why I suspect this car never spent much time ferrying younger children on daily errands. There seem to be none of the scuffs, stains, and torn stitching you’d expect of a cloth-upholstered family car of this type.
In four-door form, these cars had adequate space for family car duty, although they were not any roomier than a four-door Impala. Consumers Union also complained that the plush ride deteriorated badly with a full load of passengers and luggage; they thought the long-wheelbase Pontiac Bonneville fared better in this regard, and was also more agile than the Olds when lightly laden.
If you viewed these cars with a cold analytic eye, as CU did, they weren’t terribly compelling. An Oldsmobile 88 of this vintage was strictly average in most quantifiable respects — including build quality and repair record — and it didn’t offer any substantive advantages over other, cheaper full-size cars.
However, for the target audience, that wasn’t really the point. This was a nice car, a respectable car with a respectable badge. It was comfortable enough and competent enough for the way most owners were likely to use it, and it was a pretty color with an attractive interior. Inside and out, this car cried out to be a pampered Sunday driver.
None of that screams “Youngmobile” to me, but for a car tailored to, shall we say, mature tastes, it is easy on the eyes. It sold for $22,000 at Mecum Kissimmee in January 2023.
Related Reading
CC For Sale: 1967 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Holiday Sedan – One Owner Since New, Garaged In Central America (by Rich Baron)
1946 and 1968 Oldsmobile 98 Sedans: Cadillac Luxury From GM’s Mid-Priced Brand (by me)
COAL: 1969 Oldsmobile Delta 88 – All Aboard the Green Bus (by Jim Brophy)
Wow, what a beauty…though I’d prefer some stock wheel covers to the wire ones. Brings back memories of the “Green Bus”.
Both my 67 Lincoln with the 462 and the Delta 88 with the low compression 455 had 490 ft lbs of torque, but the Olds definitely felt stronger.
Other than the color, this car is almost identical to one an aunt and uncle bought new in 1968. You describe them perfectly – they were in their early 40s and their kids were older. He was a high school teacher and coach, while she stayed at home. This was their first new car in several years, and they splurged on the air conditioning. My aunt was one who really cared for the things she owned, and the medium metallic blue car with the lighter blue cloth interior looked nearly new for years. I remember that pattern in the cloth seat backs and thought as a kid that this was truly the kind of car every middle-class person wanted. They kept it for years and it was an excellent car for them.
I never liked the halo style of vinyl roof on these, which showed a small strip of body color over the side windows and windshield.
Ive inquired into inflation calculators, and $4,412 in 1968 is roughly $38,633 in 2023. That being said, over 55 years it was sold for 57% of its inflation adjusted purchase price. YMMV.
Inflation calculators are based solely on the CPI-U. The relative worth estimates are further adjusted for increases in the size of the CPI “market basket” (how many goods and services a typical urban household buyers, as well as the prices), which gives a more accurate frame of reference for how much an historical cost represents in modern terms.
Was a 20% discount common at the time for such a car? This is hardly my type of car (great color though) but it looks like the owners got a nice deal here, and it certainly lasted well
It really depended. In this case, the car was sold pretty late in the model year, which I’m sure made a difference. The new cars on a dealer lot are typically held on credit on a short-term “floor plan financing” basis, so it costs the dealer more money the longer they keep a car in inventory. Also, model years for new cars typically end around September, and when next year’s models arrive, the value of any unsold cars from the previous year immediately drops significantly, cutting into the dealer’s profit margins. So, dealers have a strong incentive to clear out their inventory before the new model introduction, and savvy shoppers can leverage that. From a depreciation standpoint, it might be better to wait to buy next year’s model in October than buy an outgoing model in July or August, so if a dealer wants to sell out the outgoing models, they have to make it worth the buyer’s while. Steep end-of-year or close to end-of-year discounts were not at all uncommon.
As a lifelong resident of hot and humid New Orleans; it seems extremely odd to see an Olds of this vintage without the truly excellent factory air conditioning!
I fondly recall driving and riding in several of this generation 2 and 4 door Olds, owned by friends and their parents. They all impressed me as a smoooooooooth driving car with more than ample, bottomless off the line torque, jet plane like thrust. Merging into densely packed expressway traffic was a simple, no drama toe tap and quick downshift thrust of this powertrain. The factory air conditioning system was more than the match for the hottest and stickiest New Orleans August day. Even with the thick sound deadening packages these cars enjoyed the pleasing baritone burble of the Olds “Rocket” V8 engine could occasionally be heard. The power steering system was at least one (sometimes two) generations ahead of Ford and Mopar with quicker ratios and decent “road feel.”
I also remember the soft, squishy easy to bottom out suspension and the scary, fade prone brakes. Several traffic induced hard stops during Interstate 10 rush hour commutes could induce noticeable brake fade.
The General Motors “Magic Mirror” lacquer paint started to check and fade almost as soon as the car left the dealership. I recall helping a friend of mine lay down a as smooth as glass Blue Coral wax job on his parent’s hand me down 88 only to see it dull down as soon as the weather changed.
Bottom of the windshield and entire rear windows were serious rust zone problem ares; esp with the popular vinyl tops.
New Orleans was “An Oldsmobile Town” in the 1960’s and 1970’s. This model Olds was almost as ubiquitous as a Ford station wagon was! They took a long time to fade away and disappear from the local landscape.
Love the car. The color and condition do wonders. Nostalgia for ’68 GMs does too. It’s difficult not to see in this Olds so many interior parts from the GM bin. Armrests, door lock pins, window cranks, are exactly the same as in my father’s ’68 bare-bones Chevy II in what I suppose was teal, and a similar color interior (of course, in a totally different quality and finish). Apart from the lack of AC, I wonder why they would have ordered only the tinted windshield instead of tinted glass all around. It probably wouldn’t have set them back more than 10$ extra at the time and the looks were totally different.
I had a friend whose parents had this year and model. It was smooth and quiet. Sitting at lights you could barely detect the engine at idle.
I’d love to have this car.
Almost perfect!
Must have A/C.
Agree! An Olds of this model year, without even repairable factory A/C, would be unsalable around my area.
In “PA” round that time. “A/C” was some “spensive, silly, add on”. lol After all, it’s no “Caddy”. lol It is truely, an eye cathcer though!
This car brings back memories. In the summer of 1972, my parents bought our neighbors’ 1967 Delmont 88 Holiday sedan, which had 19,000 miles on the odometer and had never been driven in the rain or snow.
That was a good, tough car. Ours had the black vinyl interior, which got hot in the summer, but wore like iron. It took a lot of abuse from my brother and I.
My family had a 1965 Chevrolet Bel Air station wagon with the 327 V-8 and Powerglide at the same time. The Olds felt much better built (and with much higher quality interior materials), and was more reliable. The Chevrolet was essentially worn out by 1972 with about 100,000 miles on the odometer. (The Chevrolet was also recalled for the notorious motor mount issue that affected all V-8 Chevrolets from 1965 through 1969.)
The Olds was traded in the spring of 1977 with 113,000 miles on the odometer, and was still running well. There was only a little rust on the rear quarter panels, and the transmission was slipping slightly.
I’m surprised that the Chrysler Newport beat the Olds on trade-in value. I have several issues of Consumer Reports from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Every year the magazine tested several medium-price cars. By 1968 the magazine was specifically singling out the Chrysler for workmanship that was poor even by the standards of the era. And its reliability had slipped after 1966, too.
For the record per Ancestry.com Leo Vincent Letoski (1925-2010) married Rose Marie Aftkiewicz (1932-2019) in 1949. Thus he would have been 43 and she was 36 when they bought the car.
The Delta 88 was a nice upgrade over the Delmont. Not only did you get the 455, but Hydramatic, chrome window frames, courtesy lights and a few other nice touches. For 1969 the Delmont was dropped, and a decontented Delta took its place. The new for 1969 Delta Custom took the place of the previous Delta 88.
The 455 was optional on the Delmont 88 for not very much money over the 350, so that’s what a lot of Delmont buyers ordered. Turbo Hydra-Matic was still optional on the Delta 88, although the Delta 88 got an extra courtesy lamp or two and foam seat cushions. Otherwise, the main difference was that the Delta 88 had fancier trim and a lot more brightwork inside and out.
Beautiful car. Perfect color.
The wire wheels though are actually rims and not wheel covers. The look like the classic Fenton Wire Baskets. Interestingly, the spare tire has a wire wheel cover, so if it’s needed, the look could sorta blend in until they gets the good tire repaired.
This is a beautiful car, but the fake wire wheels spoil it for me. I have a thing about wire wheels, real and fake. The real ones are always a service headache. There is a reason car makers stopped making them. The fake wire wheel caps were heavy and often noisy. The later ones had a key to take them off, which often got lost.
These cars were really rare in Canada. When I was in the Air Cadets, one of the officers drove an Delta 88 like this car, so I have some experience with it. The back seat was big enough for lanky teenager and it wasn’t like a black hole in there.
I really like the color of this Olds, and I think the facelifted front end is a big improvement over the ’67.
Even though I was in high school at the time and very much into cars, I have no recollection of the “Youngmobile” or “Dr. Oldsmobile” ad campaigns.
Great car, great color! Even the wire wheels, which I usually hate, fit perfectly!
I wait for delivery each day until three.
The feature car looks like it’s wearing wire wheels, not wire wheel covers. They must be an aftermarket product as they do not bear the Oldsmobile rocket insignia on the hubs and they have more depth than simple wire wheel covers that are too flat to look like the real thing. As well, the spare tire matches the four mounted wheels. If they were wire wheel covers the spare tire would more likely be mounted on a black painted “steelie”.
These wheels look to be “wire basket” wheels. A plain concave chrome wheel has a simulated spoke basket that is held on by the center spinner. These ones are quality items, there were many cheaper varieties that were known as “spaghetti strainers!” Not very realistic looking.
The wheels look like wire baskets covering a concave disk with a chrome finish. The resulting reflection looks like an authentic wire wheel. The real things are best, but that’s a better option than the rattly wire hubcaps that seemed to come on every 1980 Chrysler Cordoba.
Very pretty car. The Letoskis were real caretakers. I’m glad; hope the next owner is as well.
This is just lovely .
Nice to see it still in good shape .
-Nate