The local yards have offered pretty slim pickings lately. So for this week’s Junkyard Outtake, we’ll be firing up the wayback machine and digging into my archives.
Let’s see what was happening at the U-Pull in May of last year, shall we?
At the time, this was only the second Touring Sedan I’d ever seen in the tin – the first being a thoroughly destroyed grey one at the “Back Forty” which was never photographed. By this time I knew they were something of a rarity, so I made sure to take plenty of pictures.
Prior to the fender-bender, this one looked to have been pretty straight.
Can’t quite say the same under here. Check out that fender well rust!
Oh, to have owned my Ninety-Eight when this one came along! Grey is by far my favorite Touring Sedan interior color.
Granted, the seats were pretty shredded. But still – all that grey trim would have been a better match for my black Trofeo seats than the blue and maroon parts I ended up with. (I wound up painting and/or dying all the mismatched parts black to go with the seats… it turned out nice, but took far too much work.)
Looks like somebody had already bought the genuine wood trim from the dash and console, and the shifter bezel. But the trademark basket-handle shifter setup was still there.
At 250,495 miles, I guess its interior has a good excuse to be looking a little tired. (Too bad some idiot had to bash the clear plastic dome… TS clusters in nice shape bring $50-80 on eBay.)
At least they didn’t destroy the back seat bottom when removing it. (Hey, look – there’s the console trim!)
Grey leather, grey carpet, black trim. If I ever have to own another four-door, please let it be like this!
This one even had all its grey plastic body trim. I could have completed my set for just a few dollars (and perhaps a few small putty-knife related injuries).
Of course, this wasn’t the last Touring Sedan I’d encounter. Months later, I would end up finding two more – a white ’87 with maroon interior, and a white ’89 with blue/white interior – which together were responsible for turning my derelict Ninety-Eight into a full-blown faux Touring Sedan.
Nearby, I spotted another oddball. This FWD Buick coupe (Electra? LeSabre?) has a fake convertible top.
It takes all types, I suppose…
Let’s go for the White GM FWD Trifecta!
This Caddy also had an “enhanced” roof – but what makes it more interesting is that no one had taken its wheels. All four of those “coke bottle” style American Racing rims were intact, usable, and even had decent rubber. Normally those would have sold within minutes.
Jeep Wrangler. Well done.
Speaking of Cadillacs with funny roof accessories, let’s have a look at this more recent find.
Looks normal enough from here. But let’s get closer.
Can you see what’s wrong?
Yup – they actually covered up part of the rear door window with the fake roof. The Broughamance is officially over for this one.
At least they selected an appropriately colored Zip-Tie…
Does it seem like the Junkyard Outtake has been scraping the bottom of the ol’ barrel lately? Never fear! Next week will bring some fresh finds from the Back Forty – some non-GM finds, no less! Stay tuned…
What year was this OldSlowBubble ? .
I worked for Natzel Olsmobile in Pasadena for a while near the time I *think* this car was new .
-Nate
Not sure – didn’t make note of it at the time, and it doesn’t have the usual windshield markings this yard would apply. If I had to take a guess, though, I’d say ’90. (All the others I’ve seen were ’89 or older, and this one has a few minor differences from them. Since ’91 on up was the newer body style, that would be my educated guess.)
One visit to a junkyard, I watched a 1988ish FWD Caddy get crushed by fork lift. Loved seeing the “Carriage roof” get smashed to a pancake. The fake trim fell off like it was held by Scotch tape.
Probably because the fake trim WAS held in place by Scotch tape…in an industrial grade, of course.
Who needs real luxury when it’s so simple to just stick on the fake stuff?
BTW, that 2 door FWD Buick is a LeSabre, with the slanted rear window. The 85-90 Electra coupes had the near 90 deg. angle roofs so overdone by GM.
I have never seen a LeSabre 2 door with that roof treatment – and carriage roof treatments were an epidemic in Indiana.
The Touring Sedan was cool. OldsNobility?
That might even be a factory roof, there was a 2 door LeSabre Limited coupe special edition 1986-1987 that was white with a red interior and a fake convertible top too from what I recall, it was a “Spring” or “Summer Edition” or something.
I’ve seen LeSabre Grand Nationals, no, not the Regal, with dealer added ‘carriage roofs’. Double ick.
Really they only made like 110 of those? Maybe a dealer just sent all the Lesabres on the lot for the carriage roof and the those got caught up in process?
Or maybe the more common LeSabre T-type?
I notice that the Teves master cylinder is still there- mine is giving me issues….@Keith does your ‘faux’ touring sedan have ABS?
– like the Le Sabre- looks nice a plush for a lower rung model
Mine did have ABS. Don’t recall who made it, though… never had to mess with it.
There needs to be a Constitutional amendment making mock tops illegal. I recently saw a ’10-’12 MKZ with one… I threw up a little…
So did Ford Motor Company. Ever since the Zephyr came out, there’s been a campaign to dissuade Ford dealers from doing that to the Lincoln’s. Something about image – Lincoln’s in enough trouble already, and broughaming a MKZ can’t help.
That campaign actually started with the 1990 Town Car. It didn’t go well then either.
You haven’t seen gross till you’ve seen any of the following with a glop-top: Camry, Avalon, ES350, and I’ve seen them all on the road in SoFla.
I wonder if the Zip-Tie was factory original or something the owner added to hold the car together as it aged:)
My 1988 Olds Touring Sedans was one of the best cars I’ve ever owned. I gave it away when it had 176,000 miles. I then picked up a ’94 Cadillac STS, one of the worst cars I have ever owned.
Did the early Touring Sedans still have the electroluminescent opera lamp like on the regular 98? I thought they did, but I haven’t seen one in a long time, I always liked the 98 Touring Sedan.
I suspect the B-pillar trim I pulled from an ’87 TS was supposed to be illuminated, but someone had damaged the optic lines going to them, so I’ve never seen them work. (I actually left my Ninety-Eight panels on, since their illumination did work, and looked pretty nice.)
Seems that many – though perhaps not all – TSes also had fiber optic turn signal indicators on their fenders. Pulled a set of those off the same ’87 as mentioned above; they, like the B-pillar trim, are still in a box in the attic. (The fact that I sold my Olds rather suddenly left me with quite a bit of TS trim that I never got around to installing!)
I went back and looked at a pic, it looks like the Touring Sedans did without the B-pillar light.
Okay, that makes sense.
Looking closer at that B-pillar trim, it appears as though there was indeed a socket, but nowhere for the light to go.
Those rear lights on that blue Caddy are great.
The Ninety Eight Touring Sedan did not have opera lamps because this was during the time GM said Oldsmobile’s mission was to go “Euro”. This is when Oldsmobiles had dual personalities: Regency Brougham and Touring Sedan. This was the early days of that.
This is why the chrome and traditional American Oldsmobile was downplayed, it had smoked tail lamps and other “Euro” type features and appearances. It was the right idea, but it was poor in execution( marketing). This was about the time Oldsmobile was getting lost in the market and was not getting the support it needed from GM.
As you know Toronado Trofeo shared the seats with the NInety Eight Touring Sedan for two generations.
The Touring Sedan died in 1993. The 1994-1996 Ninety Eights had a package called
“Supercharged engine package”. It consisted of a Ninety Eight Regency Elite with touring car suspension, wheels, and analog gauges. They dropped the bucket seats.
I am fan of the second generation because it was bigger and longer:
1991 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight Touring Sedan:
1989 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight Touring Sedan:
This one was of the few five passenger cars I liked with bucket seats.
“As you know Toronado Trofeo shared the seats with the NInety Eight Touring Sedan for two generations.”
They were indeed quite similar. Of course, the TSes got the Lear-Siegler buckets with bigger bolsters, more power options, and “Oldsmobile” stitched into the back. The second-gen Trofeos that I’ve seen were more standard buckets, with perforated cover material, backs that tilted forward (for passenger entry – coupes, you know), and “Trofeo” stitched into their backs.
Can’t say what first-gen Trofeos or second-gen TSes got… haven’t gotten a close look at either.
The Trofeo seats I put in my Ninety-Eight were perfectly sized, and fit just right along with the TS console I used. But the power frames were just different enough to be a hassle – so I ended up reusing the original frames with the Trofeo buckets on top. After augering the top holes on the frame a bit, installation was a breeze.
As much as I would like to have had the proper seats, those Trofeo buckets worked out just fine.
(Useless trivia: I don’t think any Touring Sedans had black interior – but my Trofeo donor did. So I ended up making what might have been the only black TS-style interior in existence. I dyed a maroon carpet black, and painted a mix of blue and maroon door panels, console and dash parts, etc. black as well. It turned out nice, but took days to complete. I decided not to attempt any color change on the headliner or visors, which remained in the car’s factory ‘rosewood’ color.)
Hard to tell what year the OTC is seeing how it doesn’t have it’s original grille. The grille should be charcoal gray in color and yours has a chrome grille for a 89-90 on it.
I have you beat on fugly vinyl tops though. Here’s a pic from a 87 Delta coupe with an ASC top on it. If anybody has any usefull information on this Holiday Coupe I’d like to hear it.
Vinyl tops grow on you after awhile. My 90 Riv has a factory padded top. I plan to remove it someday when I have the funds for a repaint. The nice thing about my top is that you can remove it rather easily. All I need to convert it is some non vinyl top quarter windows, inside quarter trim panels and the moldings around the back window. The top itself is padded vinyl on a fiberglass cap that is held down with the perimeter moldings.
“Hard to tell what year the OTC is seeing how it doesn’t have it’s original grille. The grille should be charcoal gray in color and yours has a chrome grille for a 89-90 on it.”
True. (Those grilles were always good for having plastic fins break. I’ve yet to find one in the yards that was intact – chrome, charcoal, or otherwise.)
For my faux Touring Sedan, I took a more outlandish approach to sidestepping the problem: bought an unbroken Eighty-Eight grille and painted it charcoal grey. Totally incorrect – but it did make it look a bit sportier.
Did the headlight bezels with the same charcoal paint, and applied the clear turn signal lenses (instead of amber ones). Looked about as good as it could for my $20 investment 🙂
Wish my local self-serve yard would lay down concrete under the cars!
I do not like the 98 at all. It is so ugly and cut down from the 84 model. Just too square. No style. The 90s car looked so much better and more lincolnesque. My aunt had one of these for a few months when new and the transmission went out. The brougham top can only help the looks of any of these cars including the awful new Lincoln. Olds should cave kept the c body. With a 350 and a tighter suspension that would have made a nice touringsedan.