San Francisco Street Sighting - 1967 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Holiday Sedan

Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight. Not quite a Cadillac, almost a Buick. It's a puzzling place to be in the car market and in the old General Motors brand hierarchy. The Ninety-Eight was the fanciest Olds you could buy, but it was still an Oldsmobile. Even I can't figure out whether Olds or Buick was considered more prestigious in the world of middle-class luxury. You could get an Olds or Buick with the fancy vinyl roof, ornately patterned luxury interior trims, whitewall tires, script badges and convenience options similar to a Cadillac. But it would never quite be a Cadillac.

Pleasanton Street Sighting - 1970 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight LS Holiday sedan

I don't know what it is about vintage full-size near-luxury sedans. The more ornate their ornamentation, the more optimistic the name, the more trashed they tend to be. This one is a 1970 Ninety Eight LS (Luxury Sedan) Holiday four-door hardtop, the top model in Oldsmobile's lineup. The 98 came with a 455 Rocket V8 and was available with a host of convenience options befitting a luxury cruiser, including standard power seats, power windows, power steering and power front disc brakes, available tilt and telescoping steering wheel, 8-track tape player, and of course a luxury vinyl roof. Rear fender skirts were standard.

San Francisco Street Sighting: 1961 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight

One of the largest old cars I've seen in San Francisco (coincidentally on the same street as the '64 Porsche 356C in my previous feature) was this unrestored and mildly customized 1961 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight (98) four-door sedan. Sporting some tasteful orange pinstriping, this must have been a classy machine in its day. That day was a long time ago, though, and today it's faded and beat-up but keeps going. Every time I've seen it, it's been parked in a different spot.

The 98's story began in 1941 with the introduction of Oldsmobile's premium full-size model, the Series 90. The two models in the 90 series were the 96 (straight-six powered) and 98 (straight-eight powered). As V8 engines became more popular in the postwar years, the 98 continued production with a V8.
This '61 Ninety-Eight appears to be the Luxury Sedan body style, which has a roofline similar to a Cadillac six-window sedan of the same era. But there, the similarities to the Cadillac end. The Olds has an entirely differently sculpted and styled body devoid of exaggerated fins. Instead, the 98 has a pointed rear end with small round taillights and a body design that resembles a rocket. Nearly everything on the car is inspired by rockets, fighter jets, turbines, air intakes, what have you. This was the sixties, after all.