1983 Oldsmobile 98 - Bruh, it's An Oldsmobile 98

This 45,000-mile, 1983 Oldsmobile 98 Regency came up recently on Marketplace for sale over in Cleveland. Poster of the ad claims they "brought it up" from North Carolina last year and it's rust free. That's saying something given its a forty-three-year-old General Motors anything. Especially up here where we marinate our vehicles in a salty-brine nine-months out of the year. Asking price is $12,000. Wow. This worth that? 

Hard to figure. Some online pricing tools and A.I. say it's fairly priced if on the higher end of the price range; NADA value pegs this at around $3,500. Quite the spread. The problem with online pricing for cars like this is that condition and rarity get confused with desirability. A 45,000-mile, rust free Regency is rare, that doesn't automatically make it valuable. 

For my twelve-grand, this better be pretty close to perfect and this thing is not. Appears to be in good condition but the asking price is pie-in-the-sky. Twelve thousand? Bruh, it's a 1983 Olds 98 for crying out loud. 

I bet the poster of the ad paid $3,500 to "bring it up here" and they're attempting to not only recoup what they put into it and fixing to turn a tidy profit too. Can't blame them for that. You may want to examine the head of someone who'd pay anywhere near the asking price for this, though. 

They've had the transmission rebuilt which begs the question if they bought it like that; that's a good $3,000 repair. New carburetor's been installed too and they're throwing in the original Rochester "Quadrajet", four-barrel carb with it.  They "upgraded" the speakers and swapped the GM Delco radio out for a blue tooth unit; I wish they hadn't done that but the unit they put in isn't the most offensive looking thing. Air blows cold they say but the cruise control doesn't work and the passenger seat apparently has some tears in it. You can't see in the photos they posted. 

Twelve thousand? At least it's a hoity-toity, "Regency". 

Back in the olden days, an Oldsmobile 98 was literally and figuratively a big deal. A bargain-basement Cadillac, the "Regency" was the top-of-the-line, top-of-the-line Oldsmobile.  Oldsmobile introduced the Regency package with its signature pillow-top seats in 1972 to commemorate their 75th-anniversay. They sold so well they kept it around through the end of "Ninety-Eight" production in 1996. Oldsmobile went from designating these cars from "98" to "Ninety-Eight" in 1991. Talk about rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. 

Literal big car lover I was back in the day, I test drove one of these around 1986 or 1987. It failed to impress me in any way and left me feeling confused; why was it not the transcendental experience I thought it would be? 

You know, like the first time you drive a Mercedes-Benz or BMW. You're like, "oh, I get it. This is what they're talking about".  The bigger question is, the hell did I ever see in these things in the first place? It didn't handle well, the pillow top seats were uncomfortable, and it was very underpowered. 

The famous ad wizard Jim Wangers is credited with saying, "You can sell a young man's car to an old man but you can't sell an old man's car to a young man." That may or may not be true. Who knows. What I do know for sure is that I've gotten older, my taste in cars has gotten younger.