Curbside Classic has probably said most of what one can say about the 1955 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Starfire Convertible by discussing other Oldsmobiles. We’ve seen much of Oldsmobile’s history in the Cutlass Chronicles: ingenious inception, unqualified success, and collapse into confusion. What’s more, many writers and commenters remember Oldsmobile here.
Me, too: the 394 Rocket in my parents’ long-lived 1964 Super 88 made my favorite childhood sound. (The VW was more fun to imitate, but the “good car” was almost as interesting as a fire truck, and had air conditioning to boot.)
In 1949, Oldsmobile and Cadillac first put together the “package” that would dominate North American motoring for 30 years: overhead valve V8 engine, automatic transmission, rear wheel drive with solid axle. Variations were permissible: the driveshaft could be open or enclosed, coil springs or Hotchkiss drive were both acceptable, and some people, most of them opposed to fun, would buy an American car with fewer than 8 cylinders.
This car looks to deviate from the midcentury formula with a column-shifted manual transmission, given the absence of a quadrant on the steering column. With 202 horsepower pulling 4,159 pounds, the ability to create and conserve momentum probably has some value here. The 324-inch Rocket also developed 332 ft-lbs of torque at 2400 rpm, so there’s probably no need to fuss with a lot of shifting, unless you want to.
Using this steering wheel is definitely worth the price of admission.
I had never seen one of these “futuramic” badges up close. I don’t think I’d ever come across a 50s Oldsmobile in person, before, and I’m impressed…
… even though there’s something profligate about the number of items around the grill and hood. On the whole, though, Oldsmobile seemed to be after a simple, rugged look: the front is squared off, and all features are big and easy to see.
The back is square, too, and that makes the non-fins at the edge seem a little odd. From a few yards away, the taillights look rather home-made.
But an up-close look reveals surprising detail.
As may happen with General Motors, the name on the car you buy may lead to some disappointment.
The Starfire was originally a Motorama car, with a fiberglass body that looked quite a bit sleeker and lower than production Oldsmobiles of the 50s. Starfire was just the name for the convertible 98, during 1955. A 98 convertible is a good car, but not a dream car. Perhaps most of all the GM divisions, Oldsmobile would be permanently barred from getting too close to the Corvette. If we’re discussing cars with 2 rows of seats, well, my imaginary, wealthy 50s self would have preferred the Motorama Starfire to Ford’s Squarebird, that’s for sure.
Still, as a sort of unpretentious, prosperous mobile lodge, this Starfire still succeeds in the job it was designed for.
You can also drive it four blocks to the supermarket.
Interior of this car is quite impressive – sumptuous really. It’d be fun to drive with the three on the tree.
To these eyes this ’55 Olds looks odd in a solid color; I would have thought just about every ’55 Olds hardtop or convertible was a two tone – something plus white.
This car represents well year # 2 in a run of four years of very nicely styled and conservative Oldsmobiles. I like every one from ’54 through ’57 (but probably ’56 best).
Thanks for showing this car.
I agree on the ’56 being the best looking. A ’56 Olds 2 door hardtop is one of the cars I used to “visit” as a kid in my neighborhood. It had of course a two tone paint job. It was dark blue and white. To my eyes it had one of the most beautiful dashboards.
I like the ’57 best, but since the family had one in the late ’60’s that’s probably the reason why. It was actually a dark blue 2 door 88 Super, but it’s easy to see it’s in the same family. From a 12 year old’s point of view, it felt like you were riding around in a powerful and smooth riding tank. I’ll never forget the time mom, my sister and I went shopping, put the bags on the back seat, and as mom was ready to start it she said, “this isn’t my car”. Ours was a few spaces away, and it was identical.
My mom did the same thing with a Corvair identical to hers. She opened the “trunk” at the front to put the groceries in and it was someone else’s car! I guess they didn’t have that many different keys back then.
Pretty sure this car has Hydra-Matic. The shift quadrant was not on the steering column, but down on the speedometer cluster. Also, manual shift Olds of this era had a large ball on the end of the shift lever.
Having the shift lever down in the reverse position was not unusual on early ’50’s Hydra-matics. These had no dedicated Park position. To lock the driveshaft if you put it in reverse when shutting it off.
Correct!!! Quadrant on the cluster. My uncle owned an Olds (88 or 98) every two years from 53 to 68 and I rode in every one of them.
I know more about Buicks of this period than Oldsmobile, but I have a hard time believing that a Ninety – Eight series Olds (and a convertible,no less) would have been ordered without Hydra Matiic. If any were it would have to be rare. (unicorn?)
The closest I came to this was a 1950 model. The early/mid 50s Oldsmobiles were a revelation to anyone who wasn’t used to them. Had driven flathead V8s and straight sixes up till then. IIRC they upsized the engine in 56 but prior to that reasonably good gas mileage came with the performance.
I like this car a lot.
I like this a lot,I want to go to a drive in cinema and watch Creature from the Black Lagoon and have a veggie burger in this car.
Veggie burger in a 50’s car at a drive-in watching a 50’s horror movie? You a commie or something? Greasy fat-filled beef or nothing!
My brother eats veggie burgers, and he`s a conservative Republican. Me? I eat anything.
I am a conservative, and I will eat just about anything. Especially if she is cute.
#1
Kind of midway between a Commie and a Conservative but a bit less Conservative(I’m a firm believer in LGBT rights and equality).My little sister’s the Commie in the family,it caused great amusement when she got a Ford Cortina Crusader (a last of line Cortina special linked to the Daily Express newspaper)
I like these 50s Oldsmobiles more and more the older I get. Perhaps just coming back to my roots. That 98 is a looker, but looks strange in a solid color. The interior looks strangely monochrome for a 50s GM car. I have some shots of a 56 88 4 door hardtop, and the interior is a lot flashier.
Yes, two-tone cars were the order of the day, and I don’t remember seeing many single-colored Oldsmobiles between 1953 and 1956. I owned a 1956 88 4-door hardtop for a short time. Although it had been painted medium metallic turquoise, it still had the original bright turquoise and white interior that undoubtedly matched the original paint.
To the Hydramatic brigade, you’re right; it was too dark to see whether the car had 2 or 3 pedals, and I guessed wrong…
I agree with the comments about 2-tone color, both inside and outside. I was surprised to see a picture of a car without those white coves along the door, depicted in the brochure…it does seem like the arced chrome molding doesn’t really highlight a particular line, other than where the white or light gray would go.
I would suspect that this car had red-and-white seats in the pattern of the blue-and-white ones in the brochure, if it was red to start with. The re-done seats really match the original pattern, and possibly material–a nice touch for an old car that’s not parked in climate controlled storage.
I came of car-awareness age in the 50’s. My school notebooks were filled with drawings of cars, and that was easier then because it seemed that every american car was essentially the same then: slab-sided, with the only “character” being the chrome trim on the two-toning. [Packard threw us all for a loop with three-toning, but I digress ] The featured car’s side chrome strips, with or without the two-tone paint, made no sense to me then and it still does not compute.
Is that dashpad original?
I don’t think the padded dash is original, exactly. It looks like padded dash was an option for Oldsmobiles as early as 1953–I can’t tell whether it goes farther back than that. But factory padded dashes don’t show stitching, as seen in this link: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2013/04/29/hemmings-find-of-the-day-1953-oldsmobile-98-4-door-sedan/
Lovely car, though it’s more than a little odd as a solid color. Though, park it next to a ’55 Chevy, and it’s clear which one was still wearing a variation of early 50’s styling, and which one pointed forward.