1975 Oldsmobile 98 Regency
It was July 1986, your humble narrator was a fresh young lad about to turn the ripe age of 16 and cars were on the brain.
On the event of my 16th birthday (shared with my twin sister) my granfather very graciously gave us each the princely sum (hey we were po') of $200. Little did I know he was about to teach me a valuable lesson. As the festivities were winding down and my dissapointment, albeit not surprise, in the fact I did not open a box and find a car was showing he pulled me aside to tell me about his weekend. Seems he had been in a golf tournament just the previous weekend. In this tournament they had a closest to the pin prize on the 7th hole, a used car dontated by the local caddy dealership. How fortuitous he thought, seeing as his grandchildren were about to turn 16. He went to look it over and found a very clean 1975 Oldsmobile 98 Regency 2 door. It ran well but was sometimes reluctant to start. Being quite the accomplished golfer it was no surprise to find him in the lead for this gem landing only 6 inches from the pin. Unfortunately by the end of the round another man had bested him by just an inch. As luck would have it the winning golfer was from out of town and really had no interest in the beast so my grandfather quickly struck a deal with him for $400. The car was, he said, to be mine, should I wish to reimburse him the $400. The parents were rallied to ensure this would be ok. My dad, a longterm car afficianado pulled out his history of Oldsmobile book to see what we were talking about. As I read the paragraph under the photo (or should say misread) I saw "The one engine option was the 455ci V8" I remarked aloud how I hoped it had that engine when my father corrected my reading and said "That says the *lone* option" Wooohooo....bigblock baby. The 'rents succumbed (who can really talk a 16 year old boy out of his first car?) and my sister was convinced that donating her $200 would buy her alot of taxi service at my expense as she had no immediate interest in getting a license (and didnt in fact until she turned 18) and the deal was struck. We drove out to see the car, it was beautiful, glossy white, burgandy interior and 19 ft 6 inches of good old detroit iron. Grandad warned they had been unable to get it to start since he brought it home. He handed me the keys and on the first turn it fired up and purred like a kitten. Visions of "Christine" no doubt danced in my fathers head. On the drive home (dad drove) my father became so enamored of the plush ride, on demand power, and options galore he offered me a straight trade on his brand new Olds Omega which I quickly rejected. Eventually the starter did get replaced and she served me well until I left for the Air Force some years later.
All that is to give you background on why I now have "the boat" "that thing" "the monstrosity" and many other creative names my wife has given it, not all of which are suitable for print. As happens with so many of us I longed for a bit of my past and wanted my first car. I have looked high and low for a nice 1975 Olds 98 2 door. I was very particular, it had to be 2 door, had to be a 75. It seems most of them have been sent to the crusher or demo derbys long ago. With the advent of ebay I set up a saved search to notify me if any came available. 2 years of nothingness, save one or 2 cars which were either overpriced and in canada, or just beyond saving and one morning I have an email from ebay. Oh boy here we go again...hmmm, the price is cheap, it looks good, lots of good mechanical work done recently......where is it at? How about 60 miles from my house! I emailed the owner and pretty much begged him to name a price to sell it outright so I didnt loose it in the auction. In the end he was very reasonable and ended the auction and sold it to me for the starting bid of $800.
So now its mine, burgandy with a grey interior. Im slowly collecting parts for a complete cosmetic restore (mechanically its great) The paint is an awful Macco job which will need to be stripped back to bare metal. At this point Im leaning toward a dark silver/charcoal color.
There will be more to come when time permits. Oh, and it sits outside because its too danged big to fit in my garage!
