To this day, I can still remember thinking the Oldsmobile Intrigue would have been a phenomenal first car as a 16-year old. It’s also a car that I associate with the best days of Oldsmobile, a time when it seemed like the company was making trury desirable cars right before it all came tumbling down and GM began dismantling the storied brand. This is a first-year Intrigue that came standard with the 3.8L V6, and it’s in surprisingly nice condition considering most of these were driven hard and put away wet. The Intrigue is listed here on craigslist with under 50,000 miles and an asking price of $6,700.
The Intrigue was built on the W-body platform, and fairly conventional as far as mid-sized sedans go. Olds intended for the Intrigue to compete with similar models from the likes of Honda and Nissan – think the Accord and Maxima – but in a far more stylish wrapper. The model was heavily promoted in the hit TV series The X-Files which was intended to get younger people…well, intrigued by the model that looked far more athletic than the Accord and Camry of the same era. This being a first-year model means it came standard with the corporate 3.8L V6.
The trouble with this model – like many other GM products at the time – was that no matter how good it looked, the gaps in quality between it and the foreign automakers was significant. From panel gaps to torque steer to just blatant quality control issues that didn’t exist in an Accord, GM hung its hopes on a lineup full of great designs with poor execution. Even looking at this interior, it simply screams “rental car” – or, at the very least, “first car,” as in the beater you get handed down in high school. The seller’s car is much nicer than that, however, owing to its low mileage, but it’d still be great first car for your kids.
In its second year of production, Olds crammed the so-called “ShortStar” under the hood, the nickname given to the smaller version of the flagship Northstar V8. Other options were introduced, too, like the so-called Autobahn package that equipped the Intrigue with larger brakes, a 3.29 differential, and higher speed limiter. That alone was not enough to save the model or the company, but it clearly showed a desire to compete with other manufacturers’ popular sport packages. This is a rare car these days in any condition, but especially in preserved form, and the seller’s ask seems reasonable for that reason alone. Thanks to Barn Finds reader Mitchell G. for the find.
Wow. Two in one week! How…intriguing…
I was “Intrigued” by your comment @Fahrvergnugen….. Sorry, couldnt resist.
I had a ’99 Intrigue with the Shortstar. It was a decent car but nothing about it was particularly “intriguing.” It would use a bit of oil but I could never figure out why, it wasn’t leaking it and it wasn’t burning it, as far as I could tell.
These had a nice driving position for someone with a larger frame like myself. Supportive and wide, but not super comfortable seats. Easy to drive and not tiring. Pretty much rental car quaities. And of course the near indestructible 3800 V6 in the early models was a positive. But that is about all I can say for them. To me the resemblance to their corporate cousin Buick Regal was a bit to close. The Impala and and especially the Grand Prix had their own unique identity that was more appealing.
AMT was commissioned to make a 1/25 scale promo model of these, which exist in black or white. No kit version was issued but presumably Round 2 still has the molds.
I see one on ebay for $45.
Looks like…. since not-particularly-special 1:1 collector cars can now easily be five figures, it follows that many promo models can now be three figures.
Dr Olds throwing everything he could at this point.
I’m sure it’s a fine car, but I always felt its name was OVERWHELMINGLY optimistic.
Love the older Oldsmobiles. Excellent cars.
This has the engine that is known for getting over 200k miles so this should make someone a nice commuter
nothing special but low mile used car
The evolution of the Cutlass Supreme. Oldsmobile’s stock in trade was decent cars that offered nice accommodations for the money, decent but average performance and a respectable brand name. I owned a few Cutlass and they always delivered on those promises. But then GM thought Oldsmobile was Audi and tried to move the brand into a place it had zero business being. And typical of GM, they did it in the most half-assed way possible. The Intrigue was a great example, decent looks, a passable interior, but the chassis derived from the rental car Impala and the 3800 V6 that dated back to the Eisenhower administration. And of course Olds dealers we’re still trying to sell Landau roofs and wire wheel covers no mated how “European” the product the factory cranked out was. A sad ending to a storied brand that GM completely misunderstood in the marketplace.
There was nothing wrong with the 3800 V6–it was one of the best engines ever made, not just by GM but by anyone and I think no less an authority than Ward’s Automotive called it one of the best engines of the 20th Century. (and it was the Kennedy Administration when it was introduced–for the ’62 model year–unless you are counting when they first began designing it). There was also nothing wrong with GM’s desire to turn Oldsmobile into an American Audi–it sure seemed to be where the Cutlass buyers they had long relied on were headed–but I must agree their execution of the noble idea left an awful lot to be desired. I’ve owned both an Audi and a Buick powered by the 3800 Series II and while the Audi was nice when it ran, which was not too often as it made 34 trips back to the shop in the two years I suffered through owning it, the Buick was smooth, sufficiently powerful, economical, quiet, rattle-free, comfortable and a wonderful long-distance tourer. Not everyone needs their daily driver to be capable of running the Nurburgring in record time–they just want good handling, which by the 90s, GM had learned out to deliver. Their quality control, however, was inconsistent at best, but by the 90s, cars like the Intrigue were ‘too little, too late.” GM had already poisoned their image in the minds of anyone born after 1980. It was their own damned fault for continuing to market names which had built their reputation for quality that their cars no longer provided. Once you do that, it’s near impossible to get those buyers back. (Why I will NEVER buy an Audi again, by the way.)
My Intrigue had the 3800 series II engine. It never let me down and provided plenty of power. I found the car to be a nice step up from the Chevy Celebrity I had been driving.
great cars, my family has had 4. What out for ignition system problems, GM failed recall.
I was more of an Aurora guy myself, basically a 4 door Riviera. There was a super rare “Autobahn Edition” of the Aurora which was the one to get as it had the speed governor deleted.