Such a big car has an equally big desire, for me at least. I have loved this year Olds 98 for decades and have wanted one for that long. This obvious project car, a 1970 Oldsmobile 98 Holiday Coupe, can be found listed here on eBay in Lincoln, Nebraska, home of one of the country’s finest state capital buildings. There are six bids bringing the price up to $390 so far with just a day left on the auction.
We had a 1970 Olds 98 when I was growing up and it was just such an outstanding car that I have wanted one for the 35+ years that it’s been gone. It was a four-door sedan in Aspen Green exactly like this car here. The eighth-generation Oldsmobile 98, or Ninety-Eight, made for the 1965 through 1970 model years, was pretty unusual in having had a fairly extensive redesign after the 1967 model year. The change between the 1965 cars and the 1970 cars was fairly striking.
You can see that this particular car hasn’t been on the road in quite some time. That being said, it somehow still looks incredibly nice, solid, and rust-free to me, other than the visible surface rust. The seller says that it hasn’t run in twenty years and it’s basically a “Get a free car with the purchase of a 455 V8” sort of deal. They say that it’s “roached out” but man, I just don’t see it. A YouTube detailer would pay this car off in 37 seconds by showing it being cleaned and detailed right where it sits.
The seller deserves a prominent place on the eBay seller’s hall of fame for having such good photos and plenty of them, especially for a $400 car. Some sellers include a hundred photos so they belong there, too, but for a car that’s at $390 and maybe not selling for much more than that, they really posted some good photos. They know what to show and they show it well, even a partial underside photo of a car that may not have moved in years. It never ceases to amaze me just how poor the photo quality and especially the quantity of photos is for most online car ads, even towards the end of 2021. Not here.
Back to the car! Dirty, yes, roached-out? I just don’t see it from the photos, yet at least. The seller knows more than we do and they must know the condition but it sure looks good to me so far, definitely savable. The brocade seat fabric even looks nice both front and rear as does the dash. The two-door Holiday Coupe was a hardtop and it looks like it has power windows and locks which were both options even in 1970 on this luxury car. Our ’70 Olds 98 didn’t have any power options.
Here’s the reason that most of the bidders have probably shown up to bat: Oldsmobile’s fantastic 455 cubic-inch V8 with a wheel-cover-spinning-into-the-ditch 365 horsepower. I know for a fact that they do fly off, especially on gravel roads when certain teenage drivers are being a bit harder on the gas pedal than the owner would be. Hagerty’s at $6,800 for a #4 fair condition car which is far from the condition that this one is in, but their #3 good condition value of $15,200 seems almost attainable with this car to me unless it really is worse than it appears in the photos. What are your thoughts, can this one be saved without breaking the bank?
At this point in time it’s a parts car.
Steve R
…. With Steve.
The high school version of myself would have bought this car for $300 and beat the ever living hell out of it. Shredding any and all 15″ tires that came my way. This is what poor kids in the 80’s hooned. Good times.
And I almost forgot, flip the air cleaner lid to really hear that Q-jet at full song.
Thus, the term “beater” was coined.
In Upstate New York, we also called cars like this “Bar Cars”.
Grew up in upstate NY, aka “ winter rats “!
Nice find, Scotty. I think I’m with you on this one. No cracks in the dash or visible tears on the seats, and that AC line insulation that went brittle on some cars by the ’80s even looks good, which bodes well for the other rubber and plastic parts. There’s a belt on the AC compressor meaning it hadn’t been given up on when last driven. AC, PW, Cruise, Tilt, and it’s a ’70 with 510 lb-ft torque. I’d believe this is <60k original miles and worth some effort, not as an investment per-se but maybe spend $2000-ish for a driver that would last for 10 years and sell for $2000+. If it was local and I didn't have one car torn apart and another on deck I might test my hypothesis.
Wearing antique plates, and look at the seatbelts, very neat and straight. I think this was well loved, just forgotten. Would be fun to take a stab at it.
Agree w/ Todd, and he beat me to the 510 ft. lb. of torque.
Had a ’68 similarly equipped.
Lot’s of rubber burned by my 16 y.o. self!
11 hours left and still at $390?! I spend that much on mustache wax every month, COME ON! This one is killing me. Shipping for a non-running two-ton, 19-foot-long car even from Nebraska would probably be $1,500 so there’s that.
Todd, how about if I buy it, you fix it and we go half-and-half on the repair cost, and then I use it from May through October and you have it in the winter? That seems fair, doesn’t it?
Wow, Scotty; it’s like you’re reading my mind. 50/50 then I do all the work and you pocket half the proceeds. How can I resist?
Ok, I’m in for the repair costs just so you do the work because you’re the only person I can trust to do things right.
I want to see the guy from Vice grip garage buy it and drive it home!
First it will need a new bat tree.
It looks like a good find to me. It wouldn’t take much to captain this land yacht down the interstate again where it belongs. Shipping cost is the issue, along with that driveway filled with unfinished projects of course
Key would be why it got parked. If it wasn’t something terminal (like engine/transmission) then a weekend trip to NE with a trailer, grab it and once home do the brakes, flush the systems, tires, do a super-clean on the interior, then drive it to Maaco for a $500 paint job and head to your nearest cars and coffee. This isn’t the rust belt so that surface rust is probably about all there is.
oh…and a color change but not radical. Instead of the dark chocolate over tan I’m thinking milk chocolate over white
back in 88 I bought an 83 Coupe DeVille that had 70k on it for $1,000 from an auction. Forest green over mint green with forest green interior. UGLY!(to me). Took it over to Maaco and had a (then) $200 white paint job put on it so now its forest green over white with the green interior. Sold it in 3 days for $5,500. Color over black or white sells cars
When I was a kid there was a local dirt track racer who would buy every 455 olds my dad got at his junkyard and use them for street stock (bomber) class race cars. He smoked everyone else with all that torque. I took the 455 out of a 72 Toronado and replaced the 301T in my 80 Trans Am and what a beast with 373 gears and a Fairbanks shift kit. It would only do about 110 but would not stop laying rubber unless you wanted it too.
That’s awesome
My first car was a ‘69 Delta 88…ran great…loved the push button ashtray door…had super cold ac…hubcaps weighed a ton..would pass everything except a gas pump at only 14 mpg Highway.
I had a ’65 98 Holiday 4-door hardtop back in the’80d. Paid $350 for it in Clearwater Florida, drove it to Baltimore, back and forth from from Baltimore to Norfolk Virginia while I was in the navy. All of my shipmates wanted to go out for the evening in my old 98 instead of their brand new econoboxes. Don’t blame them!
For the love of Mike, this Olds 98 sold for $511! Ouch.
Had a former Illinois State Tollway Delta 88 w/the W33 option 390-horse/455. A high-miler when I bought it in the mid-80s, but all it needed was a polish on the crank & new bearings. Had the mandatory M41 T400. Cost: $800