1954 Oldsmobile 88

Make a Date with a Rocket 88 – Shot with Iphone

Olds 88 Rocket

1954 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight

1954 Red Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight

Chelsea Bunz on the road…

Chelsea Bunz gets to go everywhere in her 1950 Oldsmobile 88. It’s a great car – too bad she hasn’t learned to load her Argus camera. Fortunately we at  the Hazel Leaf Studio know what we are about – more Hot Rod Honeys to come…

[Photos ©2012 William Bosch, Des Plaines, Illinois, USA]

Half a world and all I need is a key. Wonder what lies beyond the handle of this trunk.

The trunk handle of a 1955 Oldsmobile Rocket 88.

(Larger photos, 2x, available here http://williamboschdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/ldsmbltrnkmcdlds1000.jpg)

see also http://williamboschdotcom.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/driving-me-backwards/

Now you would think that being a GM division that Oldsmobile would have the 350 and the like, but the had their own unique engines.

First up was the 225 cid.  Oh…a straight six….NO…..a V6!!!!!  This was an iron blocked overhead valve engine.  The bore and stroke were 3.75″ x 3.40″ and with a compression of 9.0:1 it laid down 155 hp.  It had four main bearing and topped with a 1 barrel Rochester Type BC one barrel.  This was the lowest level engines and refered to as the  F-85 and Vista Cruiser series.

Buick V6

Next up is the  smallest of the V8′s offered that year, the 330 cid also in the F-85/Cruiser series.  It was an iron block engine as well.  The compression was 9.0:1 with a bore of  3.939 and stroke 3.39″.  When ou topped that off with a two barrel Rochester Type 2GC carb you could manage a stout 250 hp.

Here is a nicely restored 330.

Coming up is the 1965 Olds Jetstar series.

Thanks for reading

Tim

One of the vehicles that was a standard bearer for Oldsmobile for many years was the Oldsmobile 88. The Olds 88 was a full-size car that first made its debut just when the automotive industry was starting to find its legs again after World War II in 1949. The car remained in production for some five decades lasting through the 1999 model year and this is certainly quite an accomplishment for any nameplate.

There were various different Oldsmobile 88 variants over its long production run and today we would like to take a look at the 1958 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88. The Dynamic 88 first made its debut during that year and remained in production through the 1966 model year.

The 1958 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 came equipped with a 265 horsepower 371 cubic inch V-8 as standard equipment and this was certainly more than enough to get you where you needed to go in a hurry. The two-door Holiday hardtop was an especially popular version of the ’58 Olds 88. Oldsmobile was able to sell a total of more than 50,000 of these models, and they carried a price tag of $2834.

Classic Oldsmobile fans will always remember the Dynamic 88 with great fondness. If you have a 1958 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 in your possession you are certainly the envy of many vintage Oldsmobile enthusiasts because these cars are in great demand. The 1958 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 has the unmistakable look of the 50s and they are a true slice of Americana, a living monument to the excellence of American automobile manufacturing during that classic era.

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It was the early 1990s and I was driving my parents’ 1985 Oldsmobile Delta 88. Now that was a sweet land yacht. I drove that car back and forth to college for a couple of years before a drunk driver crashed into me and totaled it. I got a Taurus after that.

Image via Wikipedia - but ours was blue

Anyway, back to my story. I was driving the Olds down Texas Avenue in Bryan, Texas, at about 10 p.m. on a Tuesday night in February. Not much traffic – in fact, I don’t remember there being any traffic when it happened – just me. For once, the radio wasn’t on. I was just thinking. I had been at a church college gathering and was returning to my dorm.

A little backstory here: I grew up in a God-fearing, church-going family. When I went to college, I made some bad choices. Not change-your-life-forever bad choices, but bad enough. I was in a weird dating relationship with a really cute guy and an even weirder friend relationship with his roommate. Boyfriend dumped me in December, 1992, and suddenly I was questioning the wisdom behind my months of bad choices.

Back at home over the break, I started having disturbing dreams. In one, I was being chased by that scary motorcycle guy from “Raising Arizona.” He was going to catch me and do awful things to me (a la “Criminal Minds,” I’m sure), so I had to hide. I HAD TO HIDE! We lived out in the country at the time, and the only logical place for me to hide myself in was in our mailbox. Yeah – it was a weird dream. So I stuffed myself in the mailbox and I was safe.

Big scary dude on a motorcycle, blowing up little desert creatures left and right

I realized when I awoke that I was running away from my problems. I needed to face them. My biggest problem was how I was going to reconcile the faith I grew up with as a child and the life I had been choosing for myself at college. I decided that I’d give the faith another shot because my choices had led me to a place where I was dreaming about hiding in small metal boxes in order to escape from life. So I started going to church again, and I found a congregation that felt like family (in a good way).

I felt peace like I hadn’t had since leaving home 18 months earlier. It felt good and right that I was back in a church, worshiping God and publicly acknowledging Jesus as my savior.

Ok – back to the Olds. So I was cruising along in my land yacht, contemplating life, when all of a sudden, I heard someone from the passenger seat say, “You know, I love you more than your parents ever will.”

I looked over, startled, to see who had spoken to me.

Nobody was there.

I knew without a doubt it was God. How do I know? I just do.

It’s the only time I’ve ever heard his voice out loud. I can’t tell you what He sounds like – not like Morgan Freeman in “Bruce Almighty,” I know that much – but I know his words were true. I have incredible parents. They are probably the best parents in the world. No abuse, no neglect, just oodles of love and support (and discipline when needed). They have always been my inspiration, and I have never, ever doubted or questioned their love because they always demonstrated it by how they lived. So God’s declaration to me was pretty big in my book. He loves me more than my parents ever will. That’s big. I knew even then, before I met my hubs, married, and had kids that this was a big statement.

God loves me enough to speak out loud to me. But more importantly, He loves me enough to send His only son to die for me. For me. That blows my mind even more than hearing the creator of the universe speak to me in my mom’s 1985 Olds. You know what? He loves you that much, too.