rocketraider

A lot depends on your body style. A four door sedan will use the same as a Chevy BelAir or Biscayne, but an Impala being a higher-line car would have had bright metal trim. A 2-door hardtop MIGHT use the same piece as a Pontiac Catalina depending on the Cat's interior trim level.

Jeune ami, I'm glad you had a great time in les Etats Unis! Maybe you can return some day and look around the eastern half of the country. It's different from California but still great to visit. The old car hobby is safe with young guys like Sebastien coming on board!

Rick, PM me your mailing address and I'll see if there's anything in my 1962 and 1965 Body Parts books. If there is I'll copy the appropriate pages and mail them. These books usually have diagrams of the cars' trim and part numbers for the mouldings and clips.

Only decklid I've ever seen that long is a Lincoln Zephyr coupe. The wheelcovers have accessory 57-58 Chevy spinners but aren't 57 Chevy. I swear they look like 53-4 Corvette though.

Yes!! The dogbowl was standard on everything except Starfire thru 1962. Trim rings optional and expected. The deluxe full-size cover in Don's post was extra cost and such a PITA to deal with I don't think I'd want them on a 62. The 63 spinners are beautiful too but every bit as aggravating as the others that attached with those spring clips.

It all depends on your background and family history, and a clear understanding of Civil War history- which the vast majority of people who raise hell about things like the General Lee's livery are completely clueless about. I can point out to within 100 feet where my CSA ancestors stood at Shiloh, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Appomattox. I know others don't see it historically, but their ignorance and prejudice is their problem. Incidentally the "raider" part of my screen name comes from my interest in WBTS history and the fact a 3x great uncle rode with J.S. Mosby- hence the Oldsmobile wagon's "Gray Ghost" name. So interests and hobbies all tie in.

And for some unexplainable reason the 59-62 Olds dogbowls looked "right" on those years and upscale instead of cheap. Even on Ninety Eights. I think it was the fancy design trim rings Olds used, though the hubcaps themselves were also highly detailed instead of just looking like something to cover the lugnuts.

Buick and Olds going head to head again... IDK Dave- maybe these attorneys are old car guys, though it's more likely they just have a good ad agency who found an ancient wreck picture and the lightbulb went on. Always said the beginning of our litigious society was when lawyers were allowed to advertise.

It bothers me now to see cars gratuitously destroyed in TV and movies, but in 1978, those Chargers were simply unwanted used cars with thirsty engines and what was then considered dated styling. Did it justify destroying so many? probably not, but it was entertainment with a hefty budget. Was DoH a stupid show? Undoubtedly, which is why people liked it. It was a little escape on Friday nights. The Johnny Knoxville DoH movie? Meh. Didn't come close to the spirit of the original show. Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Gomer Pyle USMC, Mayberry RFD? All stupid and cashing in on the rube humour craze of the 60s, but it was an escape. Rural folks should have been offended by all of them, but we laughed along with the rest of the country, especially when the rubes got the best of the edjicated and sophisticated folk in the shows. You can't lump Andy Griffith in with them because there was a lot of wisdom in that show. Jed Clampett had a lot of it too.

IDK- they're gorgeous stock, but just a little sinister when rodded... Where are we? I'm guessing OZ. Thought Great Britain at first till I saw what appeared to be American-styled SUV's and pickups, which I don't think are too common there.

The whole flap over the GL is ridiculous- I've never met anyone of any race who didn't like Dukes of Hazzard, but it was a different and less antagonistic time. However- the modeler built a "sanitized" version of the GL's bottom. From what I've read there were all kinds of reinforcements added to unibody and suspension to get the cars stable enough where they wouldn't break apart in the stunt jumps. There was an ENT doctor here who had BGR PKR on a Mercedes, and I had I8JAPAN on my 76 Olds Ninety Eight for years. Wanted I8TOKYO for that big Godzilla car but someone else already had it...

Dimon International Tobacco Company's local headquarters flew flags of all countries they did business in on a plaza in front of the HQ building. The combination of flags, a cobblestoned street and an elegant building made a great car picture shoot location. Friend actually duplicated a Fitzpatrick 1964 Pontiac Grand Prix ad at the flag plaza. Even after Dimon closed and the city took over ownership of their campus as part of a downtown revitalization, a local college rented it from the city and continued to fly those international flags. Unfortunately- a flap over display of an historically correct Confederate flag at a local museum prompted our genius city council to enact an ordinance that allows only US, Virginia, city and POW-MIA flags to fly on city-owned property. So- as the Dimon campus is now city-owned, all the international flags came down and we no longer have our perfect picture shoot. Then lo and behold- someone asked why the international flags were coming down. Seems that in their zeal to erase an "offending" symbol from the actual Last Capitol of the Confederacy's grounds, no one on city council had thought about their new ordinance's effect on those. There goes that law of unintended consequences again. Remains to be seen whether the international flags (and great photo shoot location) will be put back while Council cleans the egg off its face.

Folks, here's your chance to get one that hasn't been messed with. Those of you who follow H/O know that a lot of them didn't survive in anywhere near this condition. Brenda, did you put this on classicoldsmobile.com ?

Borgwards believe it or not were around here. There was a dealer in Greensboro NC and one of my Olds Club buddies owned one for a few years.

Helfen, in all honesty I knew little about Auto Union until meeting James and his car. Had only heard of DKW and Horch; had never seen either.

Neat story on a seldom seen car- especially in this part of the world! http://www.yourgv.com/lifestyles/county_life/article_2fcf3a34-40e8-11e5-976d-170c357be44e.html When I first met James a few years back I saw the four rings on the grille and thought Audi. That's when I was introduced to the AutoUnion DKW 900. Fascinating car and this one is restored to very high standards. Now who would have ever thought a car like this would surface out in the hinterlands of Southern Vajenya, where the most common collector cars are Fords and Chevrolets? And since the lesser-quality Fords & Chevys were getting all the spectator traffic at that show, I had time to really talk with James about his unique car.

Am I the only one who noticed that Oldsmobile's low-line cars had as nice or nicer interiors than some makes' top trim levels? I believe the appropriate ad slogan is "There's something extra about owning an Oldsmobile!"

Was kicking around Hobby Lobby last night after dropping off some framing work and noticed the AMT 1964 Avanti kit has been reissued in its original box design. Think Polar Lights or Round 2 Models bought up the tooling for those great 60s model kits. Wish I had time, patience and eyesight to build models again! They don't cost as much nor take up as much space as real cars, and I can have all the cars I've always wanted! Like a 64 Avanti!

The W-body convertibles were a classic case of late-80s GM incompetence and mismanagement. Yes, a few of the 1988 Pace Cars survived. GM had the technology to eliminate the cowl shake; they used "cocktail shaker" vibration damper cans on each corner of Corvair and 67-69 F-body convertibles for the same reason. GM unveiled this car at the 1988 OCA National Meet in New Jersey. When they took the cover off, there was stunned silence. No one could believe this was the Cutlass Supreme's replacement. As hardcore Olds as I am, took me a while to warm up to these. I now think they were probably the best-styled of the W-body platform.

There's times I'm convinced the local traffic light cameras are set to detect gray vehicles, since many times when I'm approaching one on the wagon or the truck, and there is no other traffic either on main or cross street, the light will change and stop me. And I sit there alone thru a full light cycle- cross street, protected left turn, pedestrian crosswalk, the whole shebang. Depending on time of day I treat it as a stop sign and go on. Waiting for the day I get pulled over for it, since I have made my views on these traffic lights known to local city council more than once. Progressive green is the way to go if you want to keep traffic moving smoothly, but seems most are set to either random or progressive red. It's like these traffic control geniuses WANT to keep traffic stopped. Time you get traffic backed up because of a few progressive red lights, you're dealing with a pack of 50 or more cars and if you're trying to get out of a non-light-protected side street, you will sit there sometimes ten minutes or longer trying to get out. And this in a medium-sized Southern city with a bypass to divert thru traffic. Yet no one in traffic control can explain exactly how the lights work. I don't think they know themselves.

Glad to hear you both made it out alive. Sad that beautiful Zephyr came to such an ignoble end. My question is: how in the hell could the semi driver NOT have seen or noticed a car like that until she was running over it? That's a big reason I stay off Interstates and other high-speed roads as much as possible, even in the modern cars. People are doing everything at 80 mph but driving. I don't care if your stupidity takes you out, but I don't want it to take me out.

If we could just get these traffic control geniuses to understand that the objective is to keep traffic moving steadily and smoothly, and not stopped and snarled, traffic lights would work well. As it is, with most having gone to PLC control and set the PLC to "random, automatic", stopped and snarled is the order of the day. I went down the main drag in town this morning about 0830 and managed to get trapped at every stoplight (19 total) the whole length. Stopped on side street waiting for green. Get the green, move into main drag, first light goes red soon as I enter traffic. Stop for that one. It goes green, the next in line immediately goes red. And so forth and so on the whole 4 miles I was on that road. Count the two that I waited two whole cycles to get thru, and I wasted at least 15 minutes of my day stopped in traffic. Then there are the lights that catch you and keep green on the cross street for several minutes with no traffic on the cross street. Or the two in town that are known to rapidly cycle green-yellow-red two or three times in quick succession, but that the traffic control division cannot duplicate the condition. Maybe they should be out at 0515 trying to get thru it. There are times I would love to beat the city's clueless traffic control engineer over the head with one of his traffic lights. The things worked much better when computers weren't involved.

Wildcat, do you mean first collector car, or first car? If the latter, guessing you're young and want something cool to drive rather than a shapeless blob modern car. The Buick Club forums downstairs are a great resource for a 60s Buick owner, and the Buick B-body shares basics like body glass and weatherstripping with the other four GM Divisions. Buick-specific (and specifically Wildcat-specific) parts may be a different story. Not sure if Wildcat got the Super Turbine 400 (TurboHydraMatic 400 by another name) in 64 like the Electra, or if it still has Dynaflow. If you're not used to Dynaflow, it will seem weird at first. To the naysayers who say these cars are not safe for a young driver, fooey! Buick drum brakes were/are excellent and you will get used to the performance and handling of your land yacht. You'll have to watch out for idiot drivers in their super-safe cocoons who aren't paying attention to traffic around them, but that makes for a more competent driver overall.

3M emblem tape is marvelous stuff. It will hold emblems and even rocker panel mouldings on tightly for years. It's especially nice to use on front fender scripts where access behind the fender is limited or impossible. It also doesn't chip yer paint or bloody yer fingers like those heinous little barrel clips do.

It tells me the Oldsmobile Underground is doing what they do best...