This California for life 1971 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser has only one owner, who is now selling the car here on eBay. Actually technically a friend is listing it for him, but all questions will be forwarded to the owner. It’s currently located in San Ramon, California and bidding is up to $6,100 without meeting the reserve.
The listing friend tells us that the seller has had some body damage (presumably rust) repaired in preparation for painting, but has decided to sell the car rather than repainting it. I’m guessing that the repairs are backyard mechanic type as it looks like the primer was applied directly over the dynoc wood grain decals. However, as a whole the wagon looks solid and the all-important glass roof panels that made the Vista Cruiser so distinctive are intact.
Not only that, but the cargo area looks pretty good too. The wheel cargo cover is broken, though.
Here’s the view I love! We never had one growing up, but enough of my friends’ parents had them that I vividly recall being driven around and marveling at the view. We’re told the interior is “in good shape for the age” but although there are several detail shots, there are no pictures of the front seats. I’d ask for one before bidding unless you just planned on reupholstering the car regardless.
While you can see an air conditioning compressor there, and we are told it’s been converted to the “new” freon (presumably R134A), we’re also told the AC isn’t working. On the brighter side, both the engine and transmission have less than 10,000 miles on rebuilds. The seller is being honest when they say the car has 178,000 miles; it’s nice to see someone telling the truth rather than trying to pass it off as a 5-digit figure. Care to cruise some vistas in this Vista Cruiser?
This is what the Griswold’s traded in for their Family Truckster.
There will be a day one of these or an old Chevy wagon will pop up & it will be buy time. One of these would be fun to own to drop the kid off at school or a night at the drive in or two still in our area.
Always liked these. Had a 70 as a winter beater back in 84 or so. She’s go through about anything a Buffalo winter could throw at her, & still had enough torque in the old 455 to blow the rear wheel covers off from a standstill.
My dad bought a new 72 Custom Cruiser. Same car, but no roof glass. As a kid I rode through Texas to California in the rear facing seat looking backwards at where we’d been. As a teen I filled that empty gas tank that fed the 455 (ouch! on McDonalds wages). Lots of memories.
We had two of these when I was a kid, An Arctic blue ’71 and a med Green Metallic ’72… I loved road trips in them,lying down in the back seat watching the clouds go by… Good Memories
I was thinking about buying one of these wallpaper woodies and I checked into replacing the wood grain. Good news, it is available, bad news not cheap or super easy to do, but certainly doable. Very cool car!
what a hack “friend” for the listing
Pay attn to the pics and don’t cut everything off
Car appears to be very nice, would drive as us with minor detailing
“Friend” is often shorthand for flipper. It’s an easy explanation for why you aren’t dealing with the person whose name is on the title.
Steve R
never paid that too much attention.. ” friend” could be someone who doesn’t have a ‘puter or the know how about it (IDK if there is any required) but, thanks for the info, will look at ” friend” j ) more critictically now
Why did they stop making these top windows style car, it’s so great!
1972 was the last year for this roof style. When the “Colonnade” body style debuted in ’73 they tried to appease the masses with a cheesy pop-up sunroof in their wagons. (I don’t think it worked)
You are right. I am not feeling appeased at all!
I had one back in “high” school.
It was my dads Red or Mr Foreman as my friends Kelso and FES called him pror to passing me. Me and Donna loved the skylight for star gazing if you know what I mean😜
Those memories just seem so long ago and almost unreal these days👀
“Fez…”
Actually “FES”.
Stood for Foreign Exchange Student. Not sure if we ever learned his real name.
Yes!
Looks exactly like Clark Griswold’s old car that gets crushed at the beginning of Vacation
I think Dogfather’s right! Might even be the movie double –
better raise the asking price . . .
I miss my 71 Olds wagon.Bruce.
Amazing that GM had the $$ to make the flat-top wagons on the 4-door sedan wheelbase and the VC on a stretched wheelbase. Let alone the pillared and hardtop versions of most of their sedans. I think just Olds had upwards of 20 different body styles among their various offerings in 1970. Multiply that by all the GM divisions and it’s astounding to me the tooling investment needed.
Having a close look at the images, it appears that there is rust on the inside of the lower edge of the doors and tailgate opening, Any potential buyer might want to take a closer look before handing over his/her hard-earned money.
Perfect starting point for a W30 wagon.
Vista Cruisers had a front-facing 3rd row seat. That was the whole point of the raised roof – to give the way back seat passengers enough headroom. GM used coil-spring rear suspension which necessitated shock/spring towers in the rear, unlike Ford’s leaf springs which were under the axle. The bottom of the seat was several inches higher on the GM than the Ford’s.
Our family had a white 1965 with a 330 for power. Fairly brisk acceleration for a wagon. Dad then got a 1969 & later a 1971 as company cars. Living in Lansing what else would you drive?
VCs are probably still the coolest wagons ever and America has produced some very cool wagons. Hope this one gets the attention it needs.
These vinyl “wood panels” are a large pain in the ass to install! I had the “pleasure” of installing these on the big Chevy wagons at the dealership. They required a lot of time consuming work getting out the air bubbles. They finally figured out I could make more money for the shop by sending this “lovely” job to the body shop who had more time to do it!!
The car has 180,000 miles on it and needs at least $10K of body&paint work to say nothing of upholstery work and based on the mileage, possible mechanical work I like the glass roof panels but think they might overpower the air conditioning in hot climates and I do not feel they increase the value by a multiplier of 3. This is a $ 3500 wagon to drive as is. It would cost a minimum of $15000 to make it nice. I believe a person could find a near pristine example for $10K.