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

From 1940 to 1996, the Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight was the biggest, plushest full-size Olds model. In April 1962, Car Life magazine tried the latest Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Holiday Sports Sedan and proclaimed it a luxury car bargain: a quiet, powerful “mobile nirvana” offering comfort, plushness, and features to rival cars costing over 20 percent more.

The word “Cadillac” doesn’t appear even once in this 1962 road test, but you don’t have to strain too hard to recognize that that was what the Car Life editors meant when talking about “luxury cars.” In 1962, Cadillac was not only the senior GM make, it was also the bestselling luxury brand in North America by a comfortable margin. Great popularity made for enviable resale value, and Cadillac operating costs were surprisingly reasonable given the size and price of the car. This was what CL was alluding to when they began:

To THOSE ACCUSTOMED to the rarefied upper strata of fine automotive machinery, economy sometimes is as important as it is to the buyers of minimum transportation. Witness the pride of big-car owners in a fuel consumption advantage of a few miles per gallon, which, though worthwhile, can save them no more than about $50 per year. Compared with the normal first-year depreciation of a $6000 vehicle, this isn’t much of a saving, but it is a matter of pride and justification to the owner.

They continued:

On the other hand, consider the more rational economics of an Oldsmobile Holiday $ports Sedan: its base price is a clear $1000 below those of mechanically comparable luxury cars, yet it offers an almost identical automotive package. The ride is exactly right for its market—a sweeping, silent float which, together with the complete subservience of the car to its power controls, effectively produces that sense of aloof disassociation from road and traffic required of this type of automobile. The appointments, too, are correct, each supplying its “Something Extra” in the areas of comfort, smoothness and appearance. In all, the Holiday Sports Sedan is an accurate embodiment of the luxury car buyer’s desires and, barring prestige fixations, should be a bargain in its class.

“Bargain” was a curious word for a car costing over $5,000 in 1962 dollars — their Olds Ninety-Eight test car had an as-equipped list price of $5,093 (a relative worth of almost $67,900 in 2025). However, the Olds Ninety-Eight was a full-size car sharing the same basic C-body shell as a contemporary Cadillac, with an engine that was slightly bigger (394 cubic inches versus 390) and slightly more powerful than a Cadillac V-8.

How did their prices compare? The base price of a 1962 Ninety-Eight in the new Holiday Sports Sedan body style was $4,256. The cheapest 1962 Cadillac, a Series 62 hardtop coupe, started at $5,025, while a Series 62 four-door hardtop sedan with a four-window roof similar to the Olds started at $5,213, a difference of $957. If you loaded up the Ninety-Eight with every non-conflicting option, it would run you $5,300, just $87 more than a Series 62 with wind-up windows and no air conditioning or radio.

Of course, buying a senior Oldsmobile instead of a Cadillac required you to set aside what Car Life termed “prestige fixation.” However, some affluent buyers preferred the lower profile, and unless you were moving in some unusually elite circles (or worked for Buick), no one was likely to look down on you for driving a Ninety-Eight. The Cadillac was a bit bigger on the outside (2 inches longer, 1.7 inches wider), but not inside. About the only feature Cadillac offered that you couldn’t get in an Oldsmobile showroom was leather upholstery, and the Ninety-Eight buyer otherwise gave up very little in plushness or quietness.

I should pause briefly to explain a little about this particular Ninety-Eight model, which was new for 1962. In Oldsmobile-speak, “Holiday” meant a pillarless hardtop; Olds two-door hardtops were normally called Holiday Coupes, while four-door hardtops were Holiday Sedans. The Holiday Sports Sedan was also a four-door hardtop, but it had a different “four-window” roofline, which was distinguished from the regular Holiday Sedan by its flatter roof upper and trapezoidal sail panels. The regular Holiday Sedan had a six-window roof, with thinner C-pillars and an extra rear quarter window behind each rear door:

Olds buyers strongly preferred the Holiday Sports Sedan, which outsold the six-window Holiday Sedan 33,095 to 7,653 in 1962. I don’t know if it was that people preferred the more “formal” look of the four-window roof or just thought the six-window version looked too much like the pillared Town Sedan; perhaps both. (Cadillac buyers also favored the four-window four-door hardtop style, so that may have contributed as well.)

Despite its enormous size, CL found the Ninety-Eight fairly easy to maneuver:

Olds engineers have made some effort to combat the loss of road sensation inherent in such silent splendor (one of our irreverent testers referred to the car as “a mobile nirvana”). … Docking and coming about in a craft of this tonnage and displacement is inevitably somewhat taxing, but the Saginaw-built power steering, with just 3.6 turns lock to lock, plus a front and rear fender configuration which gives the driver an excellent sense of the car’s extremities, help considerably. Visibility is very good, both front and rear, with virtually no glass distortion evident.

Their test car had the $8.34 “Safety Sentinel,” which “responds with a fearsome buzz and warning light when a preset speed is reached,” as well as changing the color of the speedometer bar to indicate increasing speed. This seems to me a lot less useful and a lot more annoying than cruise control, which Olds didn’t yet offer in 1962.

The text continued:

With all the above in mind, one conclusion is inevitable: the Holiday Sports Sedan is no sports car, despite current advertising. It is, however, a sedan for “sports” and is, perhaps, best suited to two purposes—ego satisfaction and long-distance touring. It is good for both, though we have certain mild reservations about its touring ability.

True, the big 394-cu. in. engine loafs along easily, even at well above legal highway speeds; a very minimum of effort is required at the power controls; and comfort is on every hand to aid long-term relaxation. However, those same “soft” shock absorbers which soak all the bumps out of city streets also allow an unsettling amount of sway and roll on sharply curving roads. The noticeability of this can be blamed to some extent on the very effectiveness of the engine and brakes—one simply isn’t aware of the car’s considerable weight until side forces come into play.

I’ve always loved the phrase “a sedan for ‘sports,'” which neatly summarizes a whole category of slightly racy-looking cars whose sportiness was strictly costume jewelry.

It will not surprise you to hear that the Ninety-Eight suspension was extremely soft: Spring rates at the wheel were just 84 lb per inch in front, 100 lb per inch in back. Oldsmobile also gave the Ninety-Eight a bigger (15/16th-inch) front anti-roll bar, which made for pronounced understeer. No one expected cars like this to handle like an MGB, but they were quiet enough and fast enough that you could find yourself beyond the modest limits of the chassis and tires both abruptly and unexpectedly — like being an airplane passenger who doesn’t realize there’s a problem until the pilot suddenly announces, “You’re on your own,” and steps out the door with a parachute. This was by no means an Oldsmobile-exclusive issue, but Olds was particularly committed to what Car Life called “silent splendor.” (Unlike some other GM full-size models, they didn’t even offer a heavy-duty suspension package as an option except for police customers.)

CL continued:

The designers of the instrument panel apparently felt that Olds drivers might experience some revulsion at being kept too intimately acquainted with their powerplants’ state of health. The only quantity indicators are the fuel gauge and speedometer—little red and green lights report the functions of all the rest; the engine must either be too hot or too cold to be noticed (assuming the lights are working), and the generator and oil pressure either are or aren’t.

Even Cadillac still offered a coolant temperature gauge at this point, and Chrysler and Pontiac buyers still usually got an ammeter. The only credit Oldsmobile interior designers get in this era is that the warning lights were at least front and center; some later Olds models of this era tucked them in less visible places, often while making the lights even smaller.

The price of a Ninety-Eight included Hydra-Matic, which was a $231.34 option on other full-size Oldsmobiles. Although the data panel plays along with Oldsmobile’s marketing claim that this was a “four-stage” transmission (which bordered on false advertising), this version of Hydra-Matic was actually a three-speed unit, getting a little extra boost off the line with a torque multiplier in the fluid coupling. Car Life remarked:

It was responsible for one of the few jarring notes in the car: an odd low-speed rumble. Also, we were treated to some quite stimulating automatic downshifts while climbing steep grades, but these are characteristic of the current Hydra-Matic (as well as its 4-speed ancestor) and are not a matter for adjustment. We did, however, enjoy the lock-in ability of this transmission (L, 1st gear only; S, 1st and 2nd; D, all three ratios), and used it to good advantage during a mountain trip. Controlled deceleration through the transmission and engine is very comforting on a long grade and, in a car of this weight, is an important safety factor, through its assistance to the overworked braking system.

Selecting “S” or “L” in mountain driving was not just advantageous: It was absolutely essential if you wanted to hold the lower gears for engine braking, because later Hydra-Matic transmissions used sprag clutches that would release when coasting in the lower gears.

As for “sportiness,” CL noted:

Though the Holiday Sports Sedan was never designed to be a sprint car, it is intended to have a somewhat sporting air. Actually, it has no difficulty in accelerating rapidly enough to cope with difficult traffic situations and has a top speed sporting enough to make the sirens howl. However, the joyful mechanical rapport between man and machine treasured by the enthusiastic driver is not easily achieved in the Olds 98, though we did manage a rather sporty heel-and-toe between the dimmer switch and the floor-mounted radio station-seeker control.

The floor-mounted selector was a feature of the optional signal-seeking Super De Luxe radio, which cost a hefty $124.82.

We laughed when we sat down to play with the above-mentioned floor-button radio station changer, but soon were willing to admit its very real value as a safety feature.

They also had some other complaints about the controls: The wiper switch was awkwardly located, and the power windows, which were standard on the Ninety-Eight hardtops and convertible, didn’t have a switch to let the driver lock out the other controls, making the window lifts a potential hazard for young children.

The Ninety-Eight came with the Olds Sky Rocket engine, a four-barrel “Ultra High Compression” version of the familiar 394 cu. in. V-8, with 330 gross horsepower and 440 lb-ft of torque, 50 hp more than the two-barrel version in the Olds 88. Although the more powerful 345 hp Starfire engine wasn’t offered on the Ninety-Eight, a dual exhaust system was available for $26.47, providing an unspecified boost in net output. It doesn’t appear the Car Life car had that option.

The editors remarked:

[T]here is room for all in the trunk. The interior dimensions of the trunk are staggering—it almost invites occupancy—and a huge amount of luggage can be installed within its vaulted vastness. This is truly a trunk among trunks and the slow, majestic rising of its great lid is, somehow, an event symbolic of the entire car. … Another optional device, a pull handle inside the glove box for unlatching the trunk lid, also seemed a bit effete at first, but proved a clear gain over key-fumbling in the dark.

Oldsmobile’s 1962 AMA specifications credited the Ninety-Eight with an enormous trunk volume of 39.6 cu. ft., although the usable luggage volume was quoted as a more realistic but still-generous 16.3 cu. in. ft. The test car’s glove compartment power decklid release was a $9.04 option.

Straight-line performance was not in the NASCAR stocker class, but the Ninety-Eight had very respectable acceleration:

• 0 to 30 mph: 3.1 sec.
• 0 to 60 mph: 9.4 sec.
• 0 to 100 mph: 28.2 sec.
• Standing quarter mile: 17.2 sec. at 81.0 mph

I’m not convinced that the quoted 122 mph top speed wasn’t just a calculated figure (although 110 to 115 mph would have been plausible). Likewise, I think the 13–16 mpg fuel economy was an estimate — the latter figure sounds a little generous for a Ninety-Eight, even with gearing that had the engine loafing at less than 2,300 rpm at 60 mph. Motor Trend‘s 1964 Olds Jetstar 88, which had the same axle ratio, but was about 400 lb lighter and had the smaller 330 engine, couldn’t break 14 mpg even in careful freeway driving.

Car Life concluded:

There are few real innovations in the 1962 Olds 98 line. The body designers were generally content to stand pat on the successful 1961 configuration, with a new roof styling and lower, flatter trunk lid as their main offerings. … All of which shows the Holiday to be a finely engineered big car, in which the driver and passengers are cradled in roomy comfort. Olds is to be congratulated for its ability to create such a relatively inexpensive luxury automobile.

Ultimately, the lower price said much less about Oldsmobile’s ability to create relatively inexpensive luxury cars than in the lavish profit margins of this era’s senior models. Even with its longer body and additional standard features, the Olds Ninety-Eight had a lot in common the cheaper B-body Oldsmobile Dynamic 88. The differences in equipment and production cost were undoubtedly a lot less the $1,000-ish difference in their list prices, just as the differences in content between a Ninety-Eight and the Cadillac Series 62 were less than the almost $1,000 difference in their respective prices.

The Ninety-Eight didn’t sell in Cadillac numbers (total Ninety-Eight production for 1962 was 65,777 cars, including exports), but it didn’t really need to. This worked out very well for Oldsmobile and its dealers: They could offer customers a senior model that cost hundreds of dollars more than a Super 88 or Dynamic 88, but that luxury car shoppers would still consider a steal.

Related Reading

CC Capsule: 1962 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight – It Never Rains, It Pours (by Tom Klockau)

1962 Oldsmobile Starfire Coupe Vs. 1962 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 Holiday Coupe – Thunderbird-Fighter Or Just A Fancier Olds? (by me)

Parking Lot Classic: 1962 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 Holiday Hardtop – Happy Haunting (by Laurence Jones)

Automotive History: 1949–1970 Oldsmobile Holiday Hardtop – A Holiday In Lansing (With Apologies To Irving Berlin) (by me)