Text by Patrick Bell.
Today we have another addition to our vintage Oldsmobile galleries. There is a good selection of cars and people to view, so climb aboard!
It may have been a windy day as the lady looks like she was hanging on to her hat. There are two Oldsmobiles in this shot, a close to new ’57 Golden Rocket 88 Holiday Coupe from New York in the foreground. Behind it is a ’55 Ford Customline Fordor sedan, and in the background is a ’56 88 or Super 88 4 door sedan. The Golden Rocket 88 was one of three Holiday Coupes (2 door hardtop) offered in ’57, and it was the most popular and least expensive with a base price of $2854.
A cool day with either early or late sun casting shadows on a ’49 Futuramic 76 4 door sedan. The ’76’ trim were all equipped with a six cylinder and a standard manual transmission, while the ’88’ trim were eight cylinder with a standard Hydra-Matic Drive transmission. Otherwise, they were the same for this year. Production was practically the same with 95,556 ’76’ models and 99,276 ’88’ models out the door. This lady had her hand on the door handle and was ready to go.
A gentleman posing with a ’52 Ninety-Eight Holiday Coupe with California license plates and most likely the location as well. The lack of whitewalls was probably due to the ban during the Korean War. This was one of two Holiday Coupes for the year with the Super 88 winning the sales race.
Here we have a ’54 Ninety-Eight Deluxe Holiday Coupe from Jerome County, Idaho, parked in a no parking zone for a Kodak moment. It is a warm, sunny day and the gentleman is holding on to the antenna. All three trim levels featured a Holiday Coupe for ’54 with the 98 coming in second behind the Super 88.
Now we are taking in the scenery in a ’55 88 Holiday Coupe from New Jersey. The Holiday Sedans joined the Holiday family for ’55 in all three trim levels but this Coupe was the most popular and had a base price of $2474. It has an accessory or aftermarket exhaust deflector and the whitewalls have some serious curb rash. In the background is a ’55 Plymouth Savoy Club Coupe.
This is the ’56 version of the Holiday Coupe, in either the 88 or Super 88 trim. As in ’55, the 88 Coupe was the most popular and the base price went up $25 to $2499. It looks like it was a warm summer day when this lady posed for a photo.
In ’51 Oldsmobile dropped the 76 trim line along with the six cylinder, demoted the 88 to entry level status, and added the Super 88 as the mid-level entry. There were only two body styles available in the 88 trim, two and four door sedans, until ’54 when they added a Holiday Coupe which is what we have here. This one seems unusual as it is a single color and has the standard hub caps. It was the least expensive Coupe at $2449, but sales did not catch on in the first year as it was last in the three way race.
The style refresh of the ’58 model year makes me think everyone in the department got one panel to express themselves on. It is quite a conglomeration of styles. This Ninety-Eight Holiday Sedan was the top of the line, one of the most expensive with a base price of $4096, which was second only to the convertible. It was the most popular Ninety-Eight, and compared to the other two Holiday Sedans the race was almost even with the Dynamic 88 first, the Ninety-Eight second, leaving the Super 88 in last place. Only about 650 units separated first and last place. This single, light color made the whole package easier on the eyes in my opinion.
In ’59 the least expensive Oldsmobile was this Dynamic 88 2 door sedan which carried a basic list price of $2837. This one could use a bath and appears it was stopped for a break as they traveled through the desert. There were clothes hanging in the back seat, a child in the front, and a woman posing on the hood.
A restyle for the ’61 model year followed the general industry trend to get away from the lavish tail fin era into a cleaner and more conservative style. It was also the year they introduced the F-85 compact for their entry into that fairly new field. This front view of a Dynamic 88 or Super 88 is a big change from the previous years.
Here is a young man posing with a ’62 Starfire Coupe from California. The Starfire was introduced in ’61 as a convertible only and was part of the Super 88 line. In ’62 it became its own line and a hardtop was added. It was a luxurious, sporty car in a new niche. It came standard with bucket seats, console with tachometer, 345 horsepower version of the 394 V8, Hydra-Matic with a console shifter, power steering and brakes, and dual exhausts. A basic list price of $4131 put it $49 less expensive than the larger Ninety-Eight Holiday Coupe. Of the four coupes available in ’62 it pulled a strong second behind the Dynamic 88. They were attempting to break their ‘old’s man’s car’ reputation with this new addition.
Speaking of which, here we have a ’62 Dynamic 88 from Illinois, the entry level full sized Oldsmobile with the type of owners you could expect to see more often than not. This one has an add on light in the grille, I guess a running lamp of some sort.
This one is titled ‘My First Communion 1967 Borough Park, Brooklyn’. These fine young men were posing with a ’63 Dynamic 88 Holiday Sedan, the second most popular following the Dynamic 88 Celebrity Sedan. It had a base list price of $3130. Behind it is a ’59 Ford, and across the street from the right is a ’61 Plymouth with a crunched quarter panel and a ’59 Chevrolet wagon, followed by two that are too blocked or blurry to ID.
A search reveals this man was an employee of Nabers Cadillac in Costa Mesa, California, in about 1968. The ’56 Ninety-Eight Holiday Sedan was his personal car and you can tell it has been well loved. It is in good shape for a twelve year old car but it sure looks outdated. Oldsmobile #2 is on the other side of it, on the far right of the three in the background. It is a ’62 Starfire Coupe, and heading to the left a ’62 Ford Galaxie 500/XL Club Victoria, and a ’67 Chevrolet Impala.
A stylish lady bringing in the groceries and walking next to a ’66 F-85 Deluxe or Cutlass Supreme Holiday Sedan from Rhode Island. The ’66 model year was the first for a four door hardtop in the intermediate line, and the first for the Cutlass Supreme which was a four door hardtop only for that first year. It was second in total sales behind the Cutlass Holiday Coupe, but sold over four times as many as the F-85 Deluxe models. Of course the Cutlass Supreme went on to become America’s most popular car within a decade.
It appears like they are in an apartment complex parking lot. To the left is a ’66 Ford Mustang and the right looks like a ’68 Ford Custom or Custom 500. In the background left is a ’64 Rambler, in the center is a Pontiac wagon, either a ’68 Tempest Safari or a ’69 LeMans Safari, and to the right a ’66 Dodge Coronet Deluxe or Coronet 440.
This is the end, a ’70-’72 Cutlass Cruiser wagon from Maryland. The Cutlass wagon was a smaller and therefore less expensive version of the much more popular Vista Cruiser which had a stretched wheelbase at 121″ compared to this one’s 116″. During the ’68-’72 run of this body style, the Vista Cruiser consistently sold around four times more units. A young family is enjoying their fairly new family wagon.
Thanks for joining us on our latest Oldsmobile tour!
This series of vintage photos is more than the cars. Take a look at the people, clothing style, buildings, etc. A telltale of American history.
I get a big kick out the photo of the 62 Dynamic 88. Note the two gentlemen have pocket protectors for their pens or eye glasses. If the gentlemen are engineers, a slide ruler might be in there as well!!
Try explaining that to Gen X, Y, or Z.
Given that the two are over 50, and neither is wearing glasses full time, then that could be reading glasses in their pockets. Pretty common.
Mostly happy looking people in these pictures .
-Nate
These are great photos and of my favorite 50s marque. Really like the couple in first photo looking at each other rather than the camera. Very stylish, and perhaps with an appreciation for stately old houses.
The pocket protectors guys, and some of the other folks may have served in WW1 or otherwise tracked their age with the calendar year. Olds was a stylish sensible car.
Back in the day when American cars (mostly) were plus-size, but the people (mostly) weren’t.
Nice photos. Didn’t know whitewalls were banned during the Korean War. The curb rash on one of the Olds shows that one had to be careful especially if in the city a lot and street parking. Otherwise whitewalls look terrible (or letter tires)
That ’66 does indeed look like a Cutlass Supreme. That was the flagship midsize Olds and was on the cover of the ’66 owners’ manuals. In ’67 the Cutlass Supreme was also offered as a coupe and convertible.
My parents 1st new car was a ’66 Olds F85 Deluxe station wagon. From ’67 on that model became the Cutlass Cruiser.
I learned something from this today: that the ’49 Olds 88 came standard with the Hydramatic. That’s a bit surprising. But it was optional by 1950, which I’m sure made the stock car racers and others in the go-fast crowd looking to the 88 as the first of its kind.
Can anyone identify the white structure in the first photo? It is quite grand.
A historic mansion in Newport, RI.
Corner of Ocean Drive and Coggeshall, at the entrance to Rejects Beach.
Search 729 Bellevue Ave in Newport, RI. I think the photo here is of the left side of the mansion known as the Beachmound built in 1897 (https://buildingsofnewengland.com/tag/729-bellevue-ave-newport/). The view as seen in the lede picture is visible in the Google maps photo below.
We were an Olds family. Dad had been raised by a small town doctor on the Iowa Minnesota border between the wars who made house calls to farm patients. As dad said “They always started in freezing winter and never overheated in August so I figured Olds is the brand I’ll buy when I grow up. He did. My twin and I were born in 1954, little sis two years later. Every four years dad traded in, first 88s than when he moved up the corporate ladder 98s starting with a pale green 1969 sedan. Mom had Station Wagons and as my brother would joke decades later “If you learned to park a Vista Wagon you don’t need a magic parker gizmo to park today’s cars.
My mom’s parents were Olds people: my grandfather was a physician on the outskirts of Atlanta and my grandmother was a driving force in Junior League of DeKalb County. Mom said that her dad, a pastor’s son, believed strongly to not drive anything more fancy than most of his patients. All the cars I remember Oldsmobile: he drove bone stock Cutlasses and my grandmother drove Ninety-Eights, usually with the biggest engine available because that was the travelling car to Florida, North Carolina (where my grandmother was from) and all over the South (my grandmother was an accomplished duplicate bridge player and played in tournaments periodically). They traded in their cars about every 4 years (at Royal Oldsmobile in Decatur), and their last cars were a 68 Cutlass with Powerglide (his car) and the ’69 Ninety-Eight heavily optioned with the Rocket 455 and TH400 transmission which mom inherited and I got to drive some. After my dad and I drove around for my college interviews in late 1977, mom sold it (it took premium gas and mom was dependent by that time on her parents estate as she was mired in her nursing studies so it had to go). Dad had at the time a ’68 Cutlass S that had the rally wheels which he beat to death for 9 years before getting a Datsun 810, a memorable car which we held for 24 years. Incidently, which my grandfather was very much an Oldsmobile man, he gave both his daughters a new Buick convertible when they went to college. Mom’s older sister held onto her ’59 Buick (not sure if Electra or Invicta) for ten years, I remember how drafty it was with the top up, Aunt K called it ‘the Rattletrap’, but it was so her. Mom and dad never had any particular brand loyal over their lifetime, and neither did dad’s parents, but my mom’s parents seems more creatures of their station as solidly middle class in the post war era. I miss them.
“This one has an add on light in the grille, I guess a running lamp of some sort.”
VERY common on ’60s Fords around here. I suppose the Ford dealer was cramming them on nearly every car they could, at inflated prices. Sort of like the flashing CHMSL devices the Ford dealer is promoting now now–three blinks every time you step on the brake. Wasted effort, annoying, but wildly profitable.
I was still seeing them on ’60s Fords–very rarely–by the mid-to-late ’70s. They were every bit as useless as Damned Daytime Running Lights, but way less bright, and therefore way less obnoxious.
Daytime running lights definitely make a vehicle easier to see, especially in low light, rainy and snowy conditions where drivers often fail to turn on their headlights. And with the advent of LED’s, modern DRL’s can be quite cool looking.
I like the photo of the lady bringing in groceries next to a ’66 Olds. Reminds me of pictures that my parents took of each other around the same time – photos of them doing everyday things… and they lived in a similar-looking apartment complex too.
I think I found the apartment building – looks like it’s in Newport, Rhode Island, Ironically, that’s about 1.5 mi. away from the mansion shown in the first photo, though I doubt the two are related.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/T1WyFFHC79FemG159
How the heck do you DO that?…..
If you’re not a detective in your day job, you should be!
I’m not a detective, though maybe I missed my calling. I just enjoy both research and geography, so finding these old images is fun for me. And there’s plenty that I can’t locate, no matter how hard I try.
Forgotten the name of the complex. In “Pgh”, on the edge of “North Park”, sits a sprawling, matching, apt community.
Born and raised in Southern California, Newport Beach, and I remember Nabers Cadillac.
I had a 66 F-85 Deluxe exactly like the one pictured. I bought it in the late 80’s for a $100. It had only 60,000 miles on it. It still had the original title, which in my state was a long, wide document. Purred like a kitten, and floated down the road. No power steering but, what a nice car to drive. The trunk was huge I swear you could sleep in it. I would sit on the inside fender wells under the hood when I worked on the motor. Considering it was a midsize car, it was huge.
Some men are Baptists, others Catholics, my father was an Oldsmobile man.
We had a 57 Olds 98 WITH the J-2 Triple Carburetors and a hot cam. This was a 4000
lb car that could blow off almost anything.
Wild acceleration and general power.
My father added a hotter ignition and
semi race headers.
Another picture show a 1963 Olds 88 which is the most unbreakable car I know of
with the smaller 303 engine smaller city
and town taxi’s and car services often got
2 to 3 thousand miles of road use with
only standard (but correct) maintence.
The BIG problem with the 63’S was that
GM decided it could get away eith putting
Power Glides in that year. Naturally this caused flood of well justified complaints.
Guys were putting in Pontiac 4 speed autos.
then you had a Great 10+ year car.. But a lot of people after that experiace got a Chrysler
next car purchase.
That pic with the “54 Olds” and the “Plymouth Savoy”, looks like it may be along “Skyine Drive/Blue Rdge Pkway”, someplace.
The Maryland tags on the last photo of the Cutlass wagon are the first ones I remember, used from 1971-75, although the basic color scheme was used starting in 1968 with expiry dates and hyphens or diamonds that were later dropped. 1976 saw red characters against a white background, and a change from two letters/four numbers to three of each which allowed for more combinations. The next change from that was to black on white, which was still in use when I bought my first car in 1986. Since Maryland law allows you to keep your plates indefinitely even if you replace your car, I still have my 1986 plates on my current car with only a new sticker on the top right corner of the rear plate every two years. Current MD plates still usually use black on white, although in a different format and font and with lots of optional color schemes like the popular “Protect the Chesapeake” plates.
I enjoyed these phots wondering who are these people and where were they going at the time the pictures were taken?
I’ve saved some family photos showing aunts and uncles around cars they’ve owned in the past. I have a few of my own. A moment in time captured on colour film.
Thanks for posting.
I enjoyed these phots wondering who are these people and where were they going at the time the pictures were taken? I especially liked the hip young couple with the Oldsmobile at the beginning of this piece. Fifties hipsters?
I’ve saved some family photos showing aunts and uncles around cars they’ve owned in the past. I have a few of my own. A moment in time captured on colour film.
Thanks for posting.
GarryM wrote:
“I enjoyed these phots wondering who are these people and where were they going at the time the pictures were taken? I especially liked the hip young couple with the Oldsmobile at the beginning of this piece. Fifties hipsters?…”
Yeah, that pic is *outstanding*… the couple are very cool and sexy, and the guy especially would fit right in a 2025 fashion shoot. Also, how did their lives turn out, and are they still alive…???
OTOH the two couples in the ’62 Dynamic 88 from Illinois look *exactly” how somewhat affluent/professional older people looked at that time (I’m 70); in our small rural town in downstate IL the local bank president and his wife looked just like that, as did several of my grade school teachers…
And the bank president was an Olds guy, he always bought 98 sedans. IIRC the ’55 98 he had was the first car in our tiny burg of Joy IL to have factory A/C, an amazing “luxury”; they also had the first automatic dishwasher, central A/C, RCA color TV, and were the first people in town to take a European vacation in the early 60’s – by Pan American 707 jet…!!! They gave a “travel talk” evening at our local Methodist Church about that trip, with a slide show; about 100 people in our town of 500 showed up, it was a big deal to see “the wonders of Europe” that was not in the ‘National Geographic’ or some other magazine. They were not “ostentatious”, but they had the means to enjoy such fine things. Looking at their former home on current Google Street View, it is very modest by today’s standards… and all the aforementioned “luxuries” are now common everyday things, most all people can afford them, which has been a huge thing over my lifetime…
GM
I still have a 1967 Delta 88 4dr hardtop that was bought new by my uncle, then my dad had it for quite a while until he gave it to me about 25 years ago. It’s a 330, 2brl, with 11:1 compression. Thing hauled ass…!! In
I still have a 1967 Delta 88 4dr hardtop that was bought new by my uncle, then my dad had it for quite a while until he gave it to me about 25 years ago. It’s a 330, 2brl, with 11:1 compression. Thing hauled ass…!!
In fact, I’m just the 3rd owner. Before that my uncle had a 1958 “98 Holiday sedan” just like in one of the pictures. I was young then, but I remember it was beautiful and blue and had all the bells and whistles and it lit up like a Xmas 🎄. We had lots of Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs, Cadillacs, and even some Studebakers in our family. I wrapped one, a Studebaker pickup of my dad’s around a light pole one fine evening when I was 17…
Does anyone know what is called for that little”fin” at front fender corner as seen in the picture with a boy posing in front grill of that 1992 light blue Starfire coupe? I never noticed that there was such design style, wonder if it serves any purpose rather than just style trick.
1962 Starfire. The ’61 and ’62 Olds front design was supposed to effect a “jet intake” look, strictly styling. I’d never noticed before that the ’61s front bumper had “skegs” on the lower outside similar to the ones on the lower rear fenders.