Looks can be deceiving. How often is it that we see a seemingly pristine car, only to notice some unfortunate malignancy, such as horrible dent or the dreaded bumper scuff marks? From the front, this 1989 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight looks remarkably well-preserved for its age. Unfortunately, it hides a rusty secret out back.
I actually spotted this car several months ago, when my friend Jeffrey was letting me test drive his 1990 Buick Riviera. He said he’s been seeing this car around downtown Taunton for years, and only recently, presumably after it left its previous owner, has it started to rapidly deteriorate. The interesting thing I noticed when later looking at my pictures is the taillights’ amber turn signals.
The block-lettered “Eighty Eight” badging was introduced for 1989, replacing cursive font “Delta 88”, and CarFax says this is indeed an ’89 Eighty-Eight. But amber turn signals were only equipped on the ’86-’88 Eighty-Eights, replaced with red for ’89, and completely different lenses for 1990-91. The crease in the trunk lid is also interesting, hinting that this car may have sustained rear end damage at one point. Whatever the case, this Eighty-Eight is still one of the best I’ve seen from this generation in a long while. Let’s hope it holds off the rust monster for a good while longer.
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I concur with rear end damage, with the addition of cheap, poorly rustproofed aftermarket repair parts, shoddy prep and priming by the paint shop, and a rust-conducive location.
Proper prep is 90% of a good paint job.
True, but poor application can F-up a paint job too. That last 10% can be brutal!
Call me “Mr. Orange Peel”!
My neighbor has an ’03 Grand Am, bought in ’04, and the front passenger door is rusty, while the rest of the car is OK. Rust appeared around 2009, and was a rental. Maybe had cheap door panel installed? Runs well at least.
From what I understood, the Chevrolet Lumina was supposed to represent a large mid-sized car segment but this was a FWD W-Body sharing the same exact chassis as the Pontiac Grand Prix, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and Buick Regal. How can this be considered the same class as the FWD 1986-91 Oldsmobile 88, Buick LeSabre and Pontiac Bonneville which were FWD H-Bodies? The FWD W-Bodies used completely different chassis than the FWD W-Bodies.
To people who don’t care very much about either one of them the difference is immaterial.
Ed’s right about proper surface prep….
Well they should if they own one of those cars especially if years along the line that they need replacement parts. If people do not care then they should not even reply to my questions since these are the readers I could care less about and just move on.
A larger mid-size could be as big as a smaller full-size, with similar styling it can be even closer. Just like ’97 Buick Century and LeSabre.
You are right the size classifications can be blurry if not interchangeable due to many downsizing of cars during the last 38 years.
…I’m not sure what you’re trying to ask here.
What I tried asking here is that since Chevrolet did not have a FWD H-Bodied like Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick, one of the readers of my past comments related to this article claimed that the Lumina was Chevrolet’s version of a FWD Full Size Car which I happened not to agree with because the Lumina is much more closely related to the other FWD W-Bodies which were downsized in 1988 and NOT the FWD H-Body which were downsized in 1986.
Oh, okay.
Somewhere there exists a parallel universe where the W-body Chevy was called the Monte Carlo from the get-go, as both a coupe and sedan, just like the Grand Prix/Cutlass Supreme/Intrigue/Regal/Century. And the Impala name was resurrected not for the LWB 110″ W-body (which has never been more than a big midsizer in my book), but for the 112″ FWD G-body.
The Lumina was the biggest FWD car in the Chevy lineup, and by the second generation, probably wasn’t much smaller than the H-bodies. However, the first-gen Lumina was clearly a mid-size car, if perhaps on the larger end of that spectrum. All the W-bodies were. To try to argue that the first-gen Lumina was a full-size is just wrong.
I guess a W-body Chevy would have been almost redundant with the B-body Caprice still in production. Discounting wagons, the only division which concurrently had RWD and FWD full-size models at the same time was Cadillac.
That’s a very interesting insight because the W-Bodied Lumina both the coupes and the sedan were even slightly larger than the FWD H-Body offerings from Oldsmobile and Buick and the same FWD H-Body Pontiac Bonneville was slightly larger than the 1990-94 Chevy Lumina. Most of the FWD large cars in reference here only relates to the 1988-94 FWD W-Bodies and the 1986-91 FWD H-Bodies since these cars increased in size after they were redesigned for the year ranges not mentioned here. There would have been a case that the redundancy would not be possible because the RWD B-Bodied Chevrolet Impala which was discontinued on 1986 could have been Chevrolet’s entry to the FWD H-Body group especially since there is quite a large size difference between the Celebrity and the Monte Carlo or even the Caprice Classic. A FWD 1986 H-Body Impala would probably be identical in size to the Aussie’s RWD 2015 Chevrolet SS at 195.5″ long but a bit smaller than the FWD W-Bodied 2000-04 Impala at 200.0″ long. So INMHO Chevrolet missed out on the 1986-91 FWD H-Body market which they could have revived the Impala name much sooner than later.
Last year for the “Box Chevy” B-body Impala was 1985, not 1986.
The upscale Caprice Classic continued that square body style till 1990.
* 1985 Chevy Impala sedan
YES that was right, the last year the Impala was produced was in 1985 so it was discontinued in 1986. In the same token if Chevrolet had the wherewithal, they could have used the FWD H-Bodied format for the Impala derived from Oldsmobile 88, Buick LeSabre and later Pontiac Bonneville to fill in the gap for the discontinued Impala and made Chevrolet have a fill-in the gap model between the FWD Celebrity and RWD Monte Carlo since there were significant size differences between the two. Unless the Impala is a bare bones trim version of the Caprice Classic, I believe that both could have become separate lines and co-exist after 1985 so a FWD H-Bodied Impala could have joined its other FWD H-Bodied brethren but it was not to be. Moving to the present a different FWD Impala and an Aussie design RWD Caprice PPV can co-exist because they were aimed at different markets in the U.S. The Impala for the General Public, the Caprice PPV for Law Enforcement Services only.
Pedro, you do make a valid point, about why when the Impala, was gone by 1986…
With the rest of the RWD, full size B-body lineup(except the Caprice Classic), that it didn’t become a FWDer H-body, like the Olds Delta 88, Pontiac Bonneville, and Buick Le Sabre.
I think it was a smart move on Chevy’s part to still offer a traditional RWD B-body in the Caprice Classic, to those who knew those traditional models, which were now FWD H-bodies , as RWDers for so many years.
Other than the Eldorado and Toronado, FWD was still pretty new in the 80’s to regular GM customers… With the advent of the X-bodies in 1980, the A body switch in 1982, and the new FWD switch of the C-bodies in 1985.
A question could also be applied and the same answer as above, to, why did Chevy still offer the RWD Monte Carlo in 1988…
When the other G-bodies went FWD, like the Buick Regal, Grand Prix and Olds Cutlass Supreme? Although, Olds kept the RWD G-body Cutlass Supreme alongside the FWD Cutlass, as the Cutlass Supreme Classic. Clever on Olds’ part to cover all bases.
Olds is reasoning is because the RWD Cutlass Supreme was always a best seller for Oldsmobile since 1978, and was still very popular among Oldsmobile’s core customers.
If the new FWD personal luxury coupes were too alien for regular GM buyers, at least they had the RWD Monte Carlo and Cutlass Supreme Classic.
Although, offering a FWD 1985 Fleetwood and RWD 1985 Fleetwood Brougham, was kind of like overkill.
The FWD Sedan de Ville, covered that market already.
I shudder to think of a FWD 86 H-body Impala… I’m thinking of a super-sized Celebrity, which I always thought the H-bodies looked like… The 86 Delta88, reminds me of a bloated Cutlass Ciera.
Well, Chevy must’ve seen the profitability of the W-body Le Sabre, Delta 88 and Bonneville… Because we got the FWD “Wimpala” in 2000. 🙁
You made a very interesting point especially since GM had too many product overlaps which were only one size smaller or one size larger. It’s a very complicated point especially trying to avoid an error in judgment on my part but YES I agree with you 100% as to why certain GM Nameplates especially Oldsmobile with its core car lineup in the the mid-1980s were called Cutlasses: Cutlass Calais (compact FWD N-Body which replaced the FWD 1980-84 X-Body Citation based Omega), Cutlass Ciera (mid-size FWD A-Body which was generally supposed to replace the RWD A later becoming G-Body Cutlass/Cutlass Supreme), Cutlass/Cutlass Supreme Classic (mid-size RWD G-Body) and the Cutlass Supreme (mid-size FWD W-Body), Further Downsizing or Elimination of other GM Mid Size FWD Cars were supposed to being done all at the same time but weren’t due to GM’s uncertainty which model to keep or eliminate depending upon the needs of those individual four divisions: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick. In addition, why does Cadillac had to have two versions of its Fleetwood a downsized FWD C-Body component and a Fleetwood Brougham still a large RWD C and then becoming D-Bodied to prevent any further confusion between the two? INMHO I believed that due to the disaster of the FWD X-Bodied Cars hasten replacements of their still popular at that time RWD predecessors in Spring of 1979 as 1980 models may have something to do with it because remember the Nova based cars were still popular sellers during that time and GM felt in a hurry that it would be necessary to replace them with a much smaller Citation FWD models. If those replacements were not lemons which had a long laundry lists of recalls, then GM would have made such great worthy replacements for the Nova which apparently backfired almost immediately. These defects especially of GM’s first compact FWD had proven a failure back then because they did not iron out all of those defects when they have decided in haste to replace the Nova during early 1979. INMHO GM could have waited until the Fall of 1980 to make these cars available as 1981 models and those defects would have been potentially ironed out but again they had not. This is what lead to the cautious confusion and disaster with GM which haunted them for the rest of the 1980s and beyond. The 2000 Impala was a W-Body, while the 1986-91 LeSabre, Delta 88 and Bonneville the topic of discussion here were ALL H-Body.
I Like the Delta 88. I think the amber signals look ok. The 98 had the long all in one red lights. In this time you could see a 98 and 88 only on different signal lights at night.
The 98 was a FWD C body and longer, but close.
The 98’s lamps were significantly narrower, also.
I had tested a1989 Eighty-Eight with steering column shift 6 passenger in 2004 when I used to search for a used car. The dealer asked too much for IT so we didn’t made the deal unfortunatelly… Anyway IT was a nice experience…vinyl top, velour interior, wire wheels, original Delco sound system, Brougham(?), etc.
I’ve seen plenty of cars like that over the years. I’ve often wondered how they are allowed to get this bad. Scuff marks is one thing, that can be easily fixed. But a dent, particularly if severe, that doesn’t make the car look very attractive, and it sure as hell doesn’t make the car drive very good.
When you drive a 26 year old car and your kids have been sick 3 times in 2 months forcing you to miss work, and the cost of groceries continues to skyrocket, while your employer is forced to raise health insurance premiums again and your landlord is under more financial stress so your rent is going up again, you don’t care what the car looks like.
I was thinking the exact same thing. The story of this Oldsmobile is probably one we are all too familiar with.
Car spent the last quarter century parked in a garage, driven about 2,000 miles a year, washed weekly, and still taken to Main Street Chevy dealer for service regularly by aging WWII-era great grandparents.
One fine day, Great Grandma can’t drive anymore and car is sold for about $1,000 to the young, working class Mom described above. Now kept outside, used every day for kids who eat/drink/spill/track in mud, parallel parked on street, driven in rain, snow and over potholes by inexperienced driver who never owned a car before. One minor mechanical failure later, its traded in for an overpriced “Do you have $99 and a job” lease and ends up at the nearest Pick-a-Part junkyard well south of six digits on the odometer.
It looks as if the trunk was replaced and painted without inhibitor and is rusting while the rest of the car appears alright. Could be why the taillights don’t fit the model year as well, because they were damaged.
Regarding amber lights on Olds 88’s, I’ve seen some shining as brake lights, and obvious that they were replacements from salvage, but not meant to be used as such.
The roof looks like a few small rust spots are showing up, around the rear window. Also the front of the roof may have some rust spots near the front window. This car may be about to rust out all over.
Yeah, that’s a cheap collision repair. My folks had am ’80 Rabbit that was rear ended by a pickup truck in 1983, and the paint and filler started flaking a few years later, revealing a lot of rust under them. Lousy paint prep. Led to them selling it in 1990.
Yeah, the trunk area is a warmer color than the adjacent fenders.
That decklid may have also been replaced with an older one or one that had seen a lot more salt spray.
The lip under the lower edge of the decklid is a major rust-prone area in U.S. cars of that period. Salt tends to stick to the rear of a car due to the aerodynamic vacuum there, and if there is a trunk leak that keeps the inside of the trunk moist, there will be a lot of condensation that drips down the inside of the decklid. 70s-80s GM B bodies and 79-91 Panthers rust there too. Ask me how I know.
And few people open the trunk and doors to wash the salt off the seam where the skin folds up under. When the door and trunk bottoms start to rust catch the spots early and fix them. And DON”T ask me how I know, haha.
I recall a positive experience renting one of these in Chicago back in ’89…fast, comfortable, nimble. And a great green house.
I’ve always rather liked these cars even though the rear end looks like it was an afterthought, looks like they lost interest after the rear doors and said, “Well, we’ll just square up the back and stick big generic-looking taillilghts on it, and call it a day!”
My only other gripe with these is the backs of the front seats; if you’ve ever followed one of these you’ll notice that the seatback is very low, and the “head restraints” are virtually useless, and nobody ever raises them up high enough to be of any use in a rear-end collision.
They should have put bigger head rests ob it. In the these days they should half a better seat design on those cars. Ans they never offered a passenger side airbag. At least they had abs optional.
If the other parts of the car are rust free… The trunk and rear bumper probably were caved in, and replaced with one from an Eighty-Eight whose paint was mediocre or rusty.
Very doubtful, if that was the case.
Anyway, a new paint job on the trunk and rear bumper and it’ll be good to go.
Taunton, eh? I know it well, only 25 minutes away. Closer than ya think. Lol
…or they were replaced with rusty junkyard parts that got somewhat prepped and painted.
This car will always remember me “The Dead Pool” and what Clint Eastwood drove:
Delta 88 Royale:
http://imcdb.org/i218140.jpg
Ninety-Eight Regency:
http://imcdb.org/i002451.jpg
End credits:
Vehicles provided by courtesy of Oldsmobile Motor Company, Inc.
Cool photos! I have to watch that movie! I like the way they stripped down the Regency – base hubcaps and no whitewalls – love it! It is a base model, too – somewhat rare as most of those cars seemed to be Broughams. My grandmother’s second husband had a base ’87 Regency – he loved that car too!
Quick cheap repair after a rear end shunt I’d guess, grab a replacement panel from the wrecking yard blow some nearly matching enamel over it after a quick wash and tradein before this happens,
then some poor slob buys the results and here it is.
The Olds , from some angles had a good look. However the Buick LeSabre of that time took the ‘H” body a little further. With design “Easter Eggs” like the clamshell reverse opening hood and the drop in lot for the real license plate. I inherited this when my mother passed, it was my dads last car, ordered new in late 90 and delivered in early 91. Still runs smooth. handles well enough and I rather like the long low linear look.
I received a ’94 LeSabre from my mom in 2008, shortly before her passing. Bought new, less than 25K miles, and in immaculate condition inside and out. It’s still my daily driver.
Always liked those LeSabres, late in the first FWD generation. They did still have the long and low look, plus they finally got the styling tweaks just right with the vertical bar grille and a smoother taillight design than the 86-88 cars.
Yours looks like a good one!
Since the Caprice Classic based RWD B-Bodied Impala was discontinued in 1986, it would have been great if Chevy transferred the Impala name to the FWD H-Bodies especially since the Celebrity was still a smaller mid-sized car and the larger Lumina its replacement did not come until late 1989 as a 1990 model.
That’s like 10 miles from me, but I don’t recall seeing this car before.
Only 10 miles?
Wow, with all these CC members in close proximity… We should have a Cars & Coffee meet and greet.
Would like to put faces with the names. Lol
I never liked these cars. To me they were such a come down from the b bodies. They are so plain and lacking in style. The redesign in the 90s looked way better especially the Buick version.. still to me they in no way compare to a crown Vic or marquis or caprice. They are not as comfortable and I prefer a v8 body on frame car. They are just too small and stubby. They look generic to me.this ones owner needs to spend 100$ at a junk yard and replace the rusty parts. Problem solved.
My stepfather bought an 86 Delta 88 Royale new…was a showroom display….He owned it for about 6 years and 150,000 miles and he considered it a lemon….It went through three transmissions and had other various electrical and mechanical maladies….He traded it for a 93 Camry 4 cylinder sedan which went 225,000 miles with nothing more than normal maintenance.
To add to my previous comment, I don’t think that GM engineered the FWD auto trannies quite right….I have read a number of reports of failures on transmissions on the W platform as well as the Delta 88 sized FWD cars. My 2005 Impala’s transmission failed at 131,000 miles….The clutch material for the lockup torque converter simply crumbled apart one day and the clutch material circulated through the transmission and clogged up all the passageways…..Over 3 grand to have a rebuilt transmission installed.
Where do you see amber in the taillights? They look red to me, with the angle of the picture.